Military deception

Military deception refers to attempts to mislead enemy forces during warfare. This is usually achieved by creating or amplifying an artificial fog of war via psychological operations, information warfare, visual deception and other methods. As a form of strategic use of information (disinformation), it overlaps with psychological warfare.

Spectrum of deception types, including: disinformation, concealment, camouflage, and lies.
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War

An enemy that falls for the deception may lose confidence when it is revealed; they may hesitate when confronted with the truth.

Deception in warfare dates back to early history. The Art of War, an ancient Chinese military treatise, puts great emphasis on the tactic. In modern times military deception has developed as a fully fledged doctrine. Misinformation and visual deception were employed during World War I and came into even greater prominence during World War II. In the buildup to the 1944 invasion of Normandy the Allies executed one of the largest deceptions in military history, Operation Bodyguard, helping them achieve full tactical surprise.

Types
Dummy airbase and mock aircraft

Broadly, military deception may take both strategic and tactical forms. Deception across a strategic battlefield was uncommon until the modern age (particularly in the world wars of the 20th century), but tactical deception (on individual battlefields) dates back to early history.[1] In a practical sense military deception employs visual misdirection, misinformation (for example, via double agents) and psychology to make the enemy believe something that is untrue. The use of military camouflage, especially on a large scale, is a form of deception.[2] The Russian loanword maskirovka (literally: masking) is used to describe the Soviet Union and Russia's military doctrine of surprise through deception, in which camouflage plays a significant role.[3][4][5]

There are numerous examples of deception activities employed throughout the history of warfare, such as:

Feigned retreat
Leading the enemy, through a false sense of security, into a pre-positioned ambush.[6]
Fictional units
Creating entirely fictional forces, fake units or exaggerating the size of an army.[7]
Smoke screen
A tactical deception involving smoke, fog, or other forms of concealment to hide battlefield movements or positions.[8]
Trojan horse
Gaining admittance to a fortified area under false pretences, to later admit a larger attacking force.
Strategic envelopment
A small force distracts the enemy while a much larger force moves to attack from the rear. A favoured tactic of Napoleon.[9]

History

Deception has been a part of warfare from the dawn of history. At first, it fell to individual commanders to develop tactical deception on the battlefield. It was not until the modern era that deception was organised at a high strategic level, as part of entire campaigns or wars.[10]

Early examples of military deception occurred in the ancient dynasties of Egypt and China. Sun Tzu's famous work The Art of War discusses many deceptive tactics. Hannibal, widely recognised as one of the finest military commanders in history, made extensive use of deception in his campaigns. The Ancient Greeks were noted for several forms of tactical deception. They certainly invented smoke screens during the Peloponnesian War, and later stories refer to the famous Trojan horse, which allowed them to defeat Troy.[1]

In his 52 BC conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar successfully used tactical deception to achieve a crossing of the Allier River. His opponent, Vercingetorix, shadowed Caesar's force from the opposite bank and contested any attempted crossing. Caesar camped overnight in a wood. Departing the following day, he left a third of his force behind and split down the remainder to appear as his full strength. Once the coast was clear, the hidden forces rebuilt a smashed crossing and established a bridgehead.

One volume of Roman aristocrat Frontinus's Stratagems, written in the 1st century AD, deals entirely with deception. Nevertheless, ancient Rome generally professed to despise the tactic.[1]

Opinion on military deception was divided following the fall of the Roman empire. The chivalrous countries in Western Europe considered the tactic to be underhanded, but Eastern European armies considered it a key skill: the Byzantine general Belisarius was particularly noted for using deception against overwhelming odds.[1] For example, during the Gothic War, Belisarius exaggerated his troop sizes first by advancing them in three directions and then by having his troops light a long chain of campfires at night. As a result, the much larger army of Goths fled in panic on his approach.[11][12]

Middle Ages

The Normans embraced the concept of a feigned retreat, a favourite Byzantine tactic brought back by Norman mercenaries. William the Conqueror appears to have used this tactic successfully during the Battle of Hastings, but the actual events are disputed by scholars. Whatever the truth, the battle has at least been cited as a famous example of the tactic.[1]

Mongol armies also used the feigned retreat. The mangudai were a suicide vanguard unit that would charge the enemy, break it, and then retreat to try and draw the enemy into more favourable ground. Mongol warlords also made use of disinformation tactics by spreading (or encouraging) rumours about the size and effectiveness of their forces. They even made use of visual deception, with cavalry often keeping numerous reserve horses, which were mounted with straw dummies. On the battlefield, the Mongols used many tactical deceptions: from lighting fires as a smokescreen to luring opponents into traps.[1]

Other examples of deception occurred during the Crusades. In 1271, Sultan Baybars successfully captured the formidable Krak des Chevaliers by handing the besieged knights a letter, supposedly from their commander, ordering them to surrender. Of course, the letter was fake, but the knights duly capitulated. Around the same time, in England, the Welsh Tudors were seeking a revocation of the price that Henry Percy had placed on their heads. They decided to capture Percy's Conwy castle. By posing as a carpenter, one of the small band was able to gain access to the castle, in a variant on the Trojan horse tactic, and let in his compatriots.[1]

Despite such early examples, warfare in the Middle Ages was disorganised and lacked any formal tactics or strategy. Armies were, unlike the earlier Roman legions, untrained and unprepared. Military strategy was similarly ad hoc, and deception strategies varied in effectiveness across the civilised world.[1]

Renaissance

The dawn of the Renaissance led to a change in which military scholars rejected medieval tactics but instead referred to earlier Roman and Greek writers for their strategems.[13]

Niccolò Machiavelli was a prominent political thinker of the era and often supported and advised the usage of deceit but most notably in the political sphere. In Discourses on Livy, a treatise on how to build republics, he says:

Although to use deception in any action is detestable, nevertheless in waging war it is praiseworthy and brings fame: he who conquers the enemy by deception is praised as much as he who conquers them by force.

— Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy[14]

American Revolution

Revolutionary general and later US President George Washington successfully used secrecy and deception to equalize the odds in his otherwise-unequal battle against the larger, better-equipped, and better-trained British regular army and its mercenary allies. After the Patriot defeat at the Battle of Long Island in late August 1776, Washington's forces retreated to positions on Brooklyn Heights, with a superior British force surrounding them on three sides and their backs to the East River. The British confidently expected that Washington would find his position untenable and would surrender, which would bring the Revolution to a close. Washington instead called for a flotilla of small boats to ferry his 9,000 troops across the river to the relative safety of Manhattan Island under the cover of darkness. Washington ordered his troops to withdraw unit by unit to avoid appearing that a general retreat was taking place. The wheels of the supply wagons and gun carriages were wrapped in rags to muffle their noise and troops ordered to remain silent to avoid alerting the nearby British to any activity. Rear guard units stayed behind to keep the campfires blazing through the night and fooled British scouts into thinking the Patriot army was still there. A morning fog helped Washington complete his retreat, with all 9,000 men ferried safely across the river. When the British advanced, they were surprised to find the American force completely gone.[15]

Prior to the Battle of Trenton later the same year, Washington had used a spy, John Honeyman to gain information about the positions of Britain's Hessian mercenaries in the vicinity of Trenton, New Jersey. Honeyman posed as a pro-British Loyalist. A butcher and a weaver, he traded with the local British and Hessian troops and not only acquired intelligence but also spread disinformation that convinced them that morale in Washington's Continental Army was low and that an end-of-year attack against British positions was unlikely.[16]

After Washington had successfully attacked the Hessians at Trenton, the British dispatched a large army under General Charles Cornwallis to chase down Washington's smaller force and neutralize it. Washington again resorted to some of the same tactics that he had successfully used months earlier in Brooklyn by spiriting the bulk of his troops out of harm's way with a nighttime retreat, muffling the wheels of the wagons and gun carriages to reduce their noise, and leaving a rear guard to keep the campfires burning to fool his British pursuers. Washington was able to move his army into a position from which he was able to defeat the British at the Battle of Princeton in early 1777.[17]

French Revolutionary Wars
Main article: French Revolutionary Wars

In the late 1700s, the new French Republic clashed with many other European powers. Deception began to be used formally on the battlefield as well as in broader strategy.[9]

In 1797, during the Battle of Fishguard, British commander John Campbell, 1st Baron Cawdor, bluffed French invaders into surrendering to his much smaller force. In response to a French request for terms of surrender, including safe passage home, Cawdor replied, "The Superiority of the Force under my command, which is hourly increasing, must prevent my treating upon any Terms short of your surrendering your whole Force Prisoners of War".[9] Cawdor's response was an outrageous bluff, but inexplicably, the enemy commander (American William Tate) believed that the British were being substantially reinforced and so he surrendered.[9]

In a notable use of a similar strategem at the Siege of Detroit during the Anglo-American War of 1812, British Major General Isaac Brock and Native American chief Tecumseh used a variety of tricks, including letters that exaggerated the size of their own forces, disguising Brock's militia contingent as regulars and repeatedly marching the same body of Native American past US observers to fool Brigadier General William Hull into thinking that he faced overwhelming numbers of British regular troops and hordes of uncontrollable Indians. Fearing a massacre by the Indians, the elderly Hull capitulated and surrendered the town and the attached fort although his army outnumbered Brock's and Tecumseh's forces.

However, the master deceiver was then Napoleon Bonaparte, the French military commander and politician whose strategies influenced much of modern warfare. Napoleon made significant use of tactical deception during his campaigns and later of strategic deception. In 1796, at the Battle of Lodi, he successfully achieved a crossing of the River Po. In a reversal of Caesar's tactic centuries earlier, Napoleon mounted a token crossing attempt against a strong Austrian force under Johann Peter Beaulieu. Meanwhile, the bulk of his force moved upriver and obtained an uncontested bridgehead at Piacenzam before it attacked the enemy's rear guard. Napoleon referred to the tactic as manoeuvre sur les derrières (strategic envelopment).[9]

First Barbary War

After the U.S. frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground off the North African port of Tripoli during the First Barbary War and was captured by the Tripolitan forces, a US military detachment under the command of Naval Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr., was assigned to retrieve the ship or else to destroy it. The raiding party sailed into Tripoli harbor aboard the ketch USS Intrepid, itself a captured former Tripolitan war vessel, which was disguised to look like a Maltese merchant vessel that was flying British colors. The pilot of the ship claimed to have lost its anchors in a storm and sought permission to tie up next to the captured Philadelphia. When the two ships had tied up, Decatur and his crew overwhelmed the small force guarding the vessel, using only swords and pikes to avoid alerting the Tripolitan authorities of their presence by firing any gunshots. Unable to be sailed away, the Philadelphia was destroyed by Decatur and his crew, who then safely escaped. A famed British admiral, Lord Nelson, is said to have called Decatur's feat "the most bold and daring act of the age."[18][19]

American Civil War
Main article: American Civil War

Stonewall Jackson made good use of deception during the American Civil War. In 1862, following a series of harrying attacks along the Shenandoah Valley, his army marched in secret to attack forces under George B. McClellan at Richmond, Virginia. Jackson spread rumors that he was heading a different way, and he even sent engineers to survey the fictional route. His army was kept under strict orders not to talk about or even to know where it really was or going.[20]

McClellan, often given high marks by military historians for his organizational abilities in building armies but poor marks for his lack of initiative in the field, was the victim of another ruse, the one by Confederate General John B. Magruder during the Siege of Yorktown in 1862. "Prince John" Magruder, who had acted in numerous amateur theatrical productions in his youth, put on a giant show for McClellan's benefit and noisily and ostentatiously marched his relatively small force of about 10,000 troops, a fraction of the size of McClellan's army, back and forth in front of Union advance positions while he redeployed his artillery to fire barrages from various points. Magruder's elaborate charade helped to convince the cautious McClellan that he faced an army considerably more formidable than it really was. McClellan delayed advancing his army, which allowed time for Confederate reinforcements to arrive.[21]

In early 1863, Union naval commander David Dixon Porter resorted to a strange hoax after one of his best ships, the new ironclad USS Indianola, had run aground on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg, Mississippi, and was captured by Confederate forces. As the latter were trying to repair the damaged Indianola and refloat her so that her powerful guns could be turned against Porter's remaining fleet, Porter ordered the construction of a giant dummy ironclad out of barges, barrels, and other materials at hand. Fashioned to look like a real warship, even down to logs sticking out of the sides and painted to resemble cannons. The huge craft was painted black to give it a sinister appearance and flew the pirate Jolly Roger flag. It was put on the water and floated downstream and silently sailed in the night past Confederate shore batteries, impervious to their gunfire and not returning their fire at all. News and exaggerated rumours of the mysterious and seemingly-indestructible supership quickly spread to Vicksburg and reached the Confederate salvage crews working on the Indianola. In a panic, they halted their salvage efforts but just blew up the Indianola and abandoned the wreckage site, thus failing in their mission to salvage and reuse the ship. When the giant dummy ship finally ran aground and was captured and inspected by the Confederates, local newspapers got hold of the story and roundly criticized their military and naval authorities for having been unable to tell the difference between a real warship and a fake one.[22]

Second Boer War
See also: Siege of Mafeking
Dummy Long Tom artillery position deployed during the Second Boer War

Probably one of the best-known deceptions of the modern era was Robert Baden-Powell's defence of Mafeking during the Second Boer War. Baden-Powell had been dispatched to the North West province of South Africa shortly before the outbreak of war, with orders to raise a small force and conduct a harrying war against the Boer flanks to draw their forces away from key British positions on the coast.[23]

Baden-Powell realised that his small force was not capable of offensive operations but he bluffed entry to Mafeking by obtaining permission for an "armed guard in Mafeking to protect the stores". As authorities had not specified the size of the guard, Baden-Powell moved his whole force into the town, his first of many deceptions over the next year.[23]

The Boers sent 8,000 men to besiege Mafeking. Baden-Powell's force amounted to less than 1,500 men and officers; he realised that deceit would be key to holding the town. The scale and audacity of his subsequent deceptions made Baden-Powell a war hero in England.[23]

As the Boers advanced, Baden-Powell sent a letter to a friend inside Transvaal that warned of the imminent approach of more British troops. He knew that the friend was dead but successfully hoped that the letter would fall into Boer hands, and 1,200 troops sat uselessly watching the southern approaches for the fictional force. At Mafeking, Baden-Powell set up fake forts at some distance from the town. One marked as his own headquarters soon drew enemy attention. The fortifications held up the Boers, which allowed Baden-Powell to improve Mafeking's defences. He set locals to carrying boxes of "mines" around the town (that were really full of sand), and information soon leaked back to the enemy. When "minefield" signs sprung up around the town a short while later, the Boers assumed that they were real.[23]

World War I

By the modern era, wars had become large and complex endeavors. Battlefields might contain troops under several different commanders, and tactical deceptions could have unexpected effects. Therefore, opportunities for an individual to undertake military deception declined. Throughout the First World War, deception began to shift to the strategic planners higher in the chain of command, and during the Second World War deception planning departments sprung up in all of the major theaters.[10]

There were several levels of deception used in the Anzac withdrawal from Gallipoli in Turkey, completed on 20 December 1915. As early as mid-November, artillery and sniper activity went silent for periods of time, giving the impression that the Anzacs were preparing for the upcoming winter. To cover the removal of the last troops, “drip rifles” were set up to fire about 20 minutes after they were set, with a series of water cans leaking in to a final tin tied to the trigger.
Ironically, the evacuation was considered the most successful part of the entire campaign.[24]

Western front
World War I Australian troops carrying a dummy Mark IV tank that was intended to deceive German forces during the following day's assault on part of the Hindenburg Line (September 1918)

In March 1917, leaders of the German Army on the Western Front decided to withdraw from their positions in France to the Hindenburg Line, a 90-mile long defensive position that ran from Arras to Laffaux.[25] With Germany unable to conduct an offensive because of personnel losses earlier in the war, commanders intended for unrestricted submarine warfare and strategic bombing to weaken the British and French, giving the German army time to recuperate.[26] In addition, the move to the Hindenburg Line supported the plan of commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff to shift the German focus to Russia and the Eastern Front.[25] The withdrawal to the new defensive line would shorten Germany's front by 25 miles, enabling 13 divisions to be employed against the Russians.[25]

Under the plan code named Operation Alberich, the Germans abandoned their old positions in a staged series that began in late February.[25][26] The majority of their movement occurred between March 16th and 21st, and the full German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line was completed on April 5.[25] The German withdrawal included numerous efforts to deceive the Allies, among them night movements and skeleton crews who remained behind to provide screening fire from machine guns, rifles, and mortars.[25] The deception activities proved generally successful, and Germany completed its withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line largely unmolested.[25]

In August 1918, the Allies intended to launch two offensives, one led by British commander Douglas Haig near Amiens, and the other by American John J. Pershing near Saint-Mihiel.[27] Prior to the Battle of Amiens, Haig's subordinate Henry Rawlinson, commander of the British Fourth Army, employed several deceptive tactics, including periods of radio silence by units involved in the coming attack and false radio traffic from other parts of the British lines.[28] In addition, Rawlinson delayed troop movement for as long as possible prior to the start of the attack to prevent German observers from obtaining data on his disposition of forces, and moved troops and materiel almost entirely at night.[28] The British offensive was immediately successful because they had maintained the element of surprise.[28] British troops and tanks advanced eight miles, captured 400 artillery pieces, and inflicted 27,000 casualties, including 12,000 prisoners.[28]

In an attempt to gain an advantage near Saint-Mihiel, U.S. planners including Arthur L. Conger attempted to deceive the Germans into believing the American attack would come at Belfort, 180 miles south of Saint-Mihiel.[27] False orders left where spies or informants could find them and staff officer reconnaissance activity created the appearance that the U.S. intended to conduct operations in and around Belfort.[27] Pershing gained surprise at Saint-Mihiel and his offensive was successful.[27] In 1926, Conger discovered from a former German officer that while the Belfort Ruse had not been completely successful, it had aided Pershing.[27] Concerned that an Allied attack in the Belfort area was at least a possibility, many German units that could have reinforced German lines in the Saint-Mihiel area delayed movement until it was too late.[27] As a result of the success of Pershing's offensive, they did not have time to execute their withdrawal plans, and either abandoned their weapons and fled or were taken as prisoners.[27]

Eastern front

Beginning in June 1916, the Brusilov Offensive caused Germany to halt its Western front attack on Verdun and transfer considerable forces to the Eastern front.[29] It also effectively knocked Austria-Hungary out of the war, depriving Germany of its most important ally.[29] Deception efforts undertaken by Russian commander Aleksei Brusilov included false radio traffic, false orders sent by messengers who were intended be captured, and equipment displays including dummy artillery.[29][30]

Palestine

When General Edmund Allenby took command of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1917, he immediately planned to attack the opposing Ottoman armies in southern Palestine. Rather than repeat previous frontal attacks which had been unsuccessful, he attacked the Ottoman flank at Beersheba. As part of the measures to conceal this outflanking manoeuvre, his Intelligence staff planted a haversack containing false plans for a frontal attack on Ottoman patrols in the Haversack Ruse .

Later, in September 1918, before the Battle of Megiddo (1918), Allenby again attacked the Ottoman flank. He masked the movement of three cavalry and several infantry divisions from the eastern end of the front line to the western end on the Mediterranean Sea. The divisions moved under cover of darkness to naturally-camouflaged areas in olive and orange groves behind the front line. Meanwhile, the remaining mounted division, reinforced with infantry, maintained the illusion that the valley was fully garrisoned.[31][32] They achieved the deception by building a bridge in the valley, infantry were repeatedly marched into the Jordan Valley during the day, driven out by motor lorry at night and marched back in the next day. In the vacated regimental lines, the tents were left standing, 142 fires were lit each night and 15,000 dummy horses made from canvas and stuffed with straw wore real horse rugs and nose bags. Every day, mules dragged branches up and down the valley (or the same horses were ridden back and forth all day as if the animals were being taken to water) to generate thick clouds of dust.[32][33][34]

Also, Allenby's staff disseminated a mass of false information and clues, including a grand race meeting to be held on the day the battle began. Fast's Hotel in Jerusalem was suddenly evacuated, sentry boxes placed at its entrances, and rumours spread that it was to become Allenby's advanced headquarters in preparation for a renewal of the Transjordan campaign eastwards towards Amman and Es Salt.[35][36]

During the concentration of Allenby's force on the western end of the front line, German and Ottoman aircraft were unable to carry out reliable aerial reconnaissances, as the British and Australian aircraft had almost complete dominance of the skies. Only four of their aircraft succeeded in crossing the lines during the period of concentration prior to Megiddo, as opposed to over 100 in one week in June.[37][38]

Though the deceptions did not induce Otto Liman von Sanders, the commander of the Ottoman Army, to concentrate his forces on the eastern flank, the Ottomans wer forced to spread their forces evenly over their full line and Allenby was still able to concentrate a force superior by five to one in infantry and even more in artillery on the Mediterranean flank opposing the Ottoman XXII Corps, where the main attack was successfully made.[39][40]

At sea

Britain's Royal Navy made extensive use of Q-ships to combat German submarines. Looking like a civilian sailing vessel or a decrepit tramp steamer but actually carrying concealed heavy guns, a Q-ship's function was to appear to be a helpless target, which lured a submarine to the surface to try to sink the ship with the submarine's deck gun and thus save its limited supply of expensive torpedoes for bigger targets. Once the U-boat had surfaced, the Q-ship would immediately run up the Royal Navy's White Ensign flag and would use its previously-hidden onboard guns to sink the submarine.[41]

World War II
Further information: Russian military deception
Soviet armour on marching through marshy and forested terrain in the Vyborg–Petrozavodsk Offensive, 1944: "an unpleasant surprise for us"[42]

The Soviet Union's military doctrine of Russian military deception (also called maskirovka) was developed in the 1920s and used by Georgy Zhukov in the 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol against Japan. For example, the Field Regulations of the Red Army (1929) stated, "Surprise has a stunning effect on the enemy. For this reason all troop operations must be accomplished with the greatest concealment and speed." Concealment was to be attained by confusing the enemy with movements; camouflage; and the use of terrain, speed, night and fog, and secrecy.[43]

Before Operation Barbarossa, the German High Command masked the creation of the massive force arrayed to invade the Soviet Union and heightened its diplomatic efforts to convince Joseph Stalin that it was about to launch a major attack on the United Kingdom.

Maskirovka was put into practice on a large scale during the Battle of Kursk, especially on the Steppe Front, commanded by Ivan Konev. The Germans attacked Soviet forces four times stronger than they had been expecting. A German general, Friedrich von Mellenthin, wrote, "The horrible counter-attacks, in which huge masses of manpower and equipment took part, were an unpleasant surprise for us.... The most clever camouflage of the Russians should be emphasized again. We did not... detect even one minefield or anti-tank area until... the first tank was blown up by a mine or the first Russian anti-tank guns opened fire.'[42]

The Western Allies had several individuals pioneer deception at both the strategic and the operational level. Dudley Clarke and his 'A' Force, based in Cairo, Egypt, developed much of the Allied deception strategy from early 1941. Clarke learned an important lesson during the deception Operation Camilla in January and February 1941.[44] The British intended to retake British Somaliland by an advance from Sudan into Eritrea and from there to British Somaliland from the northwest and the west. Operation Camilla deceived the Italians into thinking that the British intended to retake British Somaliland from the north with an amphibious attack from Aden. However, instead of moving their troops to meet the potential amphibious landing, the Italians withdrew into Eritrea and were in greater strength when the genuine attack occurred. Clarke thus learned that the focus of military deception is not what the enemy should think but what it should do.[45] The London Controlling Section was formed in September 1941 in response to Clarke's success; after a slow start, the department was taken over by John Bevan in 1942, who worked on successful strategies such as Operation Bodyguard.[46]

Deception played an important part in the war in North Africa. Steven Sykes built a dummy railhead to protect the real railhead at Misheifa for Operation Crusader.[47] Geoffrey Barkas led Operation Sentinel and Operation Bertram, which deceived Erwin Rommel about Allied strength and intentions before the decisive Second Battle of El Alamein.[48]

Before D-Day, Operation Quicksilver portrayed "First United States Army Group" (FUSAG), a skeleton headquarters commanded by Omar Bradley, as an army group commanded by George Patton. In Operation Fortitude South, the Germans were persuaded that FUSAG would invade France at Pas-de-Calais. British and American troops used false signals and double agents to deceive German intelligence on the location of the invasion. Dummy equipment played a negligible role, as the Germans were unable to carry out aerial reconnaissance over England. The Germans awaited the Pas-de-Calais landing for many weeks after the real landings in Normandy, which diverted several divisions that could have thrown off or at least seriously hampered the invasion.

In the Pacific Theater, Japan continued its diplomatic engagement with the US throughout late November and into early December 1941 even though the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had been planned and the attacking ships had even secretly sailed from their base in the remote Kuril Islands, in northern Japan, for their eventual destination several hundred miles northwest of Hawaii. The fleet proceeded in secrecy by staying in the foggy latitudes of the northern Pacific Ocean and maintaining radio silence as it approached its target. The attack on December 7, 1941 took place several hours before a formal declaration of hostilities by Japan against the US had been delivered, which led the US to charge that what had taken place was a surprise attack. In recent years, Japanese researchers and historians have asserted that formal notice was not given to the US until the actual attack had been under way because of inefficiency and neglect on the part of Japan's embassy in Washington, DC, which led to delays in deciphering the war message and delivering it quickly, rather than because of any deliberately-planned deception.[49] Other documents, however, seem to indicate that the delay in sending the message until after the attack had begun actually was deliberate.[50]

The retaliatory Doolittle Raid on Tokyo and other Japanese cities in April 1942 by US Army Air Forces B-25 bombers flying off of the US Navy aircraft carrier USS Hornet was conducted under similar conditions of top secrecy, causing a virtually-complete element of surprise. The air crews were directed to avoid throwing out empty fuel cans or other debris from their planes in flight to prevent such a trail of debris from leading potential Japanese pursuers back to the Hornet. Also, no markings on their maps were to be made in case the documents fell into enemy hands. When US President Franklin Roosevelt was asked by reporters after the raid where the attacking planes had come from, he added to the mystery by playfully answering "Shangri-La," the name of the fictional utopia high in the Himalayas that had been popularized in the novel Lost Horizon.[51]

Vietnam War

Deception was used tactically and strategically by both sides. One of the most successful deceptions used by the American military in a tactical sense was the fake/false extraction ruse. After the US military had engaged NVA/Viet Cong forces, driving them out of the area, or had performed reconnaissance without encountering any enemy resistance, the US military would stage an evacuation of the area they had been operating in. The purpose of this fake extraction ruse by US troops was to trick the enemy into thinking the area had been abandoned entirely to lead them into a false sense of security. The Americans would deliberately and noisily evacuate the area by vehicle, by helicopter, or on foot, apparently withdrawing all of their forces. However, the Americans would leave behind a small but well-armed force of troops concealed in the area to ambush any NVA or Viet Cong members returning to the seemingly-evacuated location. The American troops, being Navy Seals, American LRRPs, or Marines, would secretly set up M18 Claymore mines and hidden firing positions. Under the impression that all US forces had left the area, the NVA and the Viet Cong troops would return to the area to scavenge any material left behind by US forces or to secure the territory. Then, the American troops would initiate an ambush and kill large numbers of NVA or Viet Cong guerillas, gaining the tactical initiative.

A good example of the trick was at the bunkers 20 km southwest of Da Nang, where Company D, 1/7 of the US Marines found an enemy platoon in bunkers. Under the protective umbrella of a well-coordinated artillery barrage, the Marines, with their M16 rifles and M60 machine guns, overtook the position, and the NVA retreated and left 16 of their dead comrades. Wise to the way of the enemy, the company commander left behind a squad-sized ambush in the area. The rest of the marines made a lot of noise and loudly withdrew. Soon after dusk, the enemy returned to reoccupy the bunker complex. The squad leader of the small group sprung the ambush. Two claymore mines were detonated by the Marines and erupted in sharp explosions, sending thousands of lethal steel ball bearings across the ambush site. The Marines then poured in heavy fire with their M16s and M60s. When it was over, 14 more NVA soldiers had died. The story is mentioned in the history book Semper Fi: Vietnam: From Da Nang to the DMZ, Marine Corps Campaigns, 1965-1975, by Edward F. Murphy, on pages 261–262.

One more good example is in another history book Inside the LRRPs: Rangers in Vietnam, by Col. Michael Lee Lanning. In Chapter1, an American operative Thomas P. Dineen of E company, 50th infantry (LRP) of the 9th infantry division narrated how he and five other American LRP rangers would insert into an area to ambush NVA or Viet Cong. As an infantry battalion was sweeping the area, the six American LRP rangers would land on the ground by helicopter while seven other helicopter flew with them. The landing zone was a large, open area of rice paddies surrounded by tree lines. When the helicopters landed, Dineen and his fellow LRP rangers mingled with the infantry battalion already on the ground and then disappeared into the tree line before anyone else noticed. When the last helicopters had lifted off, the American LRP rangers had their claymores set out and well camouflaged in the edge of the canal overlooking a trail that snaked from the woods to the LZ. After some time, twelve NVA and Viet Cong thought that all the Americans had pulled out and so walked out into the kill zone. The team leader sprung the ambush by blowing the claymore mines. The Americans poured in M-16 rounds and hand grenades into the screaming mass of dying men. The twelve dead NVA/Viet Cong were so surprised by the deception that they had not been able to return a single shot of fire. The Americans gathered all enemy weapons and searched for documents. They extracted by helicopter, this time for real, and made it back to base.

The communists were also practitioners of deception. One of their one most infamous tricks was the combination of the POMZ-2 mine with the F-1 grenade. The POMZ-2 mine was set with a trip wire, bur buried underneath the ground rigged next to the mine with the pin removed was the F-1 grenade. Even if the POMZ-2 mine was spotted, disabled, and pulled out of the ground, it would trigger the hidden booby-trapped F-1 grenade that was buried and rigged next to the mine in the first place. Many US casualties were reported to have been caused by that deception. This is shown in Deadliest Warrior by experts with knowledge of Vietcong tactics where the Vietcong are pitted against the Waffen-SS in a fictional scenario type of battle.

Cuban Missile Crisis
See also: Operation Anadyr

The months preceding the Cuban Missile Crisis involved a complex deception and denial campaign. The Soviet attempt to position nuclear weapons on the island nation of Cuba in Operation Anadyr in 1962 occurred under a shroud of great secrecy to deny information to the US on the deployment of the missiles to the island and to deceive the US political leadership, military, and intelligence services about Soviet intentions in Cuba. The parameters of Anadyr demanded both medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to be deployed to Cuba and to be operable before their existence was discovered by the US. The Soviet General Staff and Soviet Communist Party leaders turned to radical measures to achieve surprise.

Perhaps the most fundamental deception in Operation Anadyr was the deployment's codename itself, which is associated with the sparsely-populated and somewhat inaccessible areas of Northern Russian and certainly did not suggest an operation in the Caribbean. Only five senior officers on the general staff were privy to the details of the deployment or its actual location during the planning. The plans that were made were even handwritten to deny knowledge of the operation to even a single secretary.[52][53]

Prior to the voyage to Cuba, troops awaiting the journey were restricted to barracks prior to departure and were denied contact with the outside world. Soviet soldiers constructed false superstructures with plywood to hide the ships' defenses and even on-deck field kitchens. Metal sheets were placed over missiles and missile launchers to prevent detection by infrared surveillance. Agricultural equipment and other non-military machinery was placed on deck to add to the subterfuge. Once underway, the Soviet troops were not allowed on deck except at night and only in small groups. Instructions to the troops and ships' crews were carried by special couriers to deny Western intelligence services the opportunity to intercept electronic communications about the operation. The ships' captains received instructions which revealed their final destination only after they had put out to sea.[54]

Soviet denial and deception measures were equally rigid upon the ships' arrival in Cuba. The Soviet vessels unloaded at eleven different ports to complicate American surveillance. Military equipment was offloaded only under cover of darkness. The same applied to major troop movements, and most Soviet military positions were in sparsely-populated areas of the island. The Soviet troops were even forbidden to wear their uniforms.

Simultaneously, the Soviet media trumped the massive agricultural assistance that the Soviets ostensibly were providing to their Cuban comrades for a false explanation for the men and equipment.[55][56]

The Soviet denial and deception campaign in Operation Anadyr, which led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, proved highly effective. Since the eventual discovery of the missile emplacements occurred only after they were operational, the operation was thus a success.

Yom Kippur War
Main article: Yom Kippur War § Lead-up to the surprise attack

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and the joint forces of Egypt and Syria, Egypt used a deception to fool the Israelis about the timing of the attack. President Anwar Sadat created an annual maneuver well in advance, which tricked the Israelis to thinking that the moving forces were in fact part of this drill. The Egyptians also created the impression that they were going to attack several months before the war, which made the Israelis announce an emergency draft. Since the draft was rather expensive, the Israeli government, including prime Minister Golda Meir, was reluctant to repeat it when the real attack took place.

Operation Entebbe Rescue Mission
Main article: Operation Entebbe

After an aircraft hijacking had occurred on board an Air France plane in late June 1976, and the hijackers had diverted it to Entebbe Airport in Uganda, threatening to kill all of the captive Jewish and Israeli passengers if their demands were not met, the Israeli Defense Forces planned a rescue mission. Israel kept pursuing diplomatic efforts to free the hostages while the raid was being planned in top secrecy, which gave the outward appearance that it would not pursue military action. When the raid was launched, the advance party of IDF commandos invading the airport rode in a black Mercedes Benz automobile made up to look like Ugandan leader Idi Amin's personal limousine, followed by two Land Rover vehicles similar to those that were customarily used by Amin's entourage to confuse the guards at the airport perimeter to buy the raiding party extra time. The ruse was only partly successful because one of the guards realized the trick. That precipitated a gunfight in which the element of total surprise was lost, but the overall raid still ended successfully.[57]

Cherbourg Project
Main article: Cherbourg Project

In 1969, France, heretofore Israel's main supplier of advanced weaponry, abruptly cancelled a contract to build patrol boats for Israel's navy, declaring an arms embargo and refusing to release the last five boats built under the contract even though they had already been paid for. In response, the IDF mounted an elaborate scheme involving, on paper, the legal purchase of the boats by a supposed civilian company for ostensibly non-military purposes. Secretly staffed by crews of Israeli navy officers and seamen disguised as civilians, who gradually arrived at the French Atlantic seaport of Cherbourg, the five boats, without proper authorization, slipped out of the harbor on the night of Christmas Eve 1969, sailing into a winter storm. They made it through the storm, eventually reached the Mediterranean Sea and completed the more than 3,000-mile voyage to Israel safely. The ruse, which the Israelis called "Operation Noa" but came to otherwise be known as the Cherbourg Project, was assisted by some sympathetic mid-level French shipyard and commercial officials, but superiors in the government were kept totally in the dark during the several months of preparations before the boats' secret departure.[58]

Opinions

There are different opinions among military pundits as to the value of military deception. For example, the two books that are usually considered the most famous classics on warfare Sun Tzu's The Art of War and Clausewitz's On War seem to have diametrically opposed views on the matter. Sun Tzu greatly emphasizes military deception and considers it the key to victory.[nb 1] Clausewitz, on the other hand, argues that a commander has a foggy idea of what is going on anyway[59] and that creating some sort of false appearance, particularly on a large scale, is costly and can be acceptable, from a cost-benefit analysis point of view only under special circumstances.[60][61]

As a more modern example, British military writer John Keegan seems to come close to Clausewitz's opinion in this particular matter although he is normally highly critical of Clausewitz. In his book Intelligence in War: Knowledge of the Enemy from Napoleon to Al-Qaeda, Keegan gives several historical examples of situations of one side holding a great information advantage over its opponent, and he argues that in none of those cases had deception being decisive in causing the outcome.

gollark: Because it uses JIT compilation to reduce compile times.
gollark: http://osmarks.tk/a.whyExample WHY(JIT) binary!
gollark: Yes, but WHY is better.
gollark: Even *I* could!
gollark: I mean, if Thue makes your development experience nicer, go for it!

See also

Notes
  1. Such as in the chapter on estimates, verse 17: "All warfare is based on deception"

References
  1. Latimer (2001), pg. 6–14
  2. Newark, Tim (2007). Camouflage. London: Thames and Hudson. pp8, 17.
  3. Smith (1988)
  4. Glantz, 1989. Page 6 and throughout.
  5. Clark, Lloyd (2011). Kursk: the greatest battle, eastern front 1943. Headline. p. 278.
  6. Latimer (2001), pg. 10–11
  7. Howard (1995), pg. 31–35
  8. Latimer (2001), pg. 12
  9. Latimer (2001), pg. 20–26
  10. Handel (2000), pp. 215–216
  11. Liddell Hart, Strategy p. 59
  12. Hughes, Ian (Historian) (2009). Belisarius : the last Roman general. Yardley, Pa.: Westholme. ISBN 9781594160851. OCLC 294885267.
  13. Latimer (2001), pg. 14–20
  14. Handel (2000), p. 421
  15. "George Washington: Defeated at the Battle of Long Island". HistoryNet. 12 June 2006.
  16. Van Dyke, John (1873), "An Unwritten Account of a Spy of Washington", Our Home
  17. "The Battle of Princeton". HISTORY.com.
  18. Kennedy Hickman. "Commodore Stephen Decatur in the War of 1812". About.com Education.
  19. See, Leiner, Frederick C., "Searching for Nelson’s Quote", USNI News, United States Naval Institute, February 5, 2013, setting forth the evidence for and against that quote.
  20. Holt (2004), pg. 1
  21. ""Prince" John Magruder: Confederate Showman". Presidential History Blog. 13 August 2014.
  22. "Admiral Porter's Ironclad Hoax During the American Civil War – HistoryNet". HistoryNet. 12 June 2006.
  23. Latimer (2001), pg. 31–36
  24. https://anzaccentenary.vic.gov.au/gallipolievacuation/
  25. Sass, Erik (21 March 2017). "Germans Withdraw to Hindenburg Line, Wilson Decides On War". Mental Floss. New York, NY.
  26. Osborn, Patrick R.; Romanych, Marc (2016). The Hindenburg Line. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing. pp. 14–15. ISBN 978-1-4728-1480-7 – via Google Books.
  27. "World War I: The Belfort Ruse". History Net.com. Tysons, VA: Historynet LLC. Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  28. "Battle of Amiens". History.com. New York, NY: A&E Television Networks, LLC. 21 August 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2020.
  29. Buttar, Prit (2016). Russia's Last Gasp: The Eastern Front 1916–17. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing. p. 131. ISBN 978-1-4728-1277-3 – via Google Books.
  30. Dowling C., Timothy. The Brusilov Offensive. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. p. 46. ISBN 978-0-2530-0352-2 – via Google Books.
  31. Bruce 2002 p. 205
  32. Powles 1922 pp. 234–5
  33. Hamilton 1996 p. 135–6
  34. Mitchell 1978 pp. 160–1
  35. Paget pp. 255–7
  36. Woodward 2006 p. 192
  37. Powles 1922 p. 235
  38. Falls Vol. 2 Part II p.463
  39. LiddellHart 1972 p. 437
  40. Ericson (2007), pp.134–135
  41. "RN Q-ships".
  42. Glantz, 1989. Pages 153–155.
  43. Glantz, 1989. Page 6.
  44. "Operation Camilla". Codenames. Operations of World War 2. 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
  45. Holt, Thaddeus (2008). The Deceivers. Folio Society. p. 18.
  46. Rankin (2008), pg. 298–302
  47. Stroud, 2012. Pages 123–133.
  48. Stroud, 2012. Pages 183–208.
  49. Kawabata, Tai (9 December 2014). "Historian seeks to clear embassy of Pearl Harbor 'sneak attack' infamy – The Japan Times". The Japan Times.
  50. "Pearl Harbor Truly a Sneak Attack, Papers Show". The New York Times. 9 December 1999.
  51. "He Flew From 'Shangri-La' to Bomb Tokyo".
  52. Hansen (2002), pg. 50.
  53. Gribkov and Smith (1994), p. 24.
  54. Hansen (2002), pg. 52–53.
  55. Ibid.
  56. Gribkov and Smith (1994), pg. 38–40.
  57. "Remembering Entebbe, Larry Domnitch". Archived from the original on 23 March 2011.
  58. "The Boats of Cherbourg – Jewish Virtual Library".
  59. Bruce (2002), Ch. 6
  60. Erickson (2007), Ch. 10
  61. Liddell Hart (1972), Ch. 20

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