[ Crowd shouts indistinctly ] -Firepower, fortifications, troops, and tanks often dominate stories of the Second World War.

What can sometimes go unnoticed is the role of deception in military strategy.

Camouflage, decoys, and disinformation all became tools for the Axis and Allies alike.

-Deception played a major role in the Second World War.

It was practiced on the largest scale it's ever been practiced in the history of warfare.

-Strategies ranged from a simple feint performed in the midst of battle to complex, long-planned campaigns designed to completely alter the enemy's perspective.

-The whole point in military deception and intelligence operations is to try and get the enemy to do what you want them to do, because that means you have a better chance of things going your way.

[ Explosion ] -There's no doubt that deception helped to save lives and bring a swifter end to World War II.

-The stories behind some of the most extraordinary feats of espionage and strategic subterfuge the world has ever seen.

-It changes the character of war, and it changes the way that war is waged.

And that's not going to change back.

♪♪ ♪♪ -By the middle of 1943, Allied Powers had seen great success across all theaters of war.

[ Explosions ] Germany had suffered its worst defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Allies had triumphed in the hard-fought North African campaign, but the end was still far off.

♪♪ Nazi leadership anticipated a massive invasion of mainland Europe, but when and where was unknown.

The Allies needed to keep it that way.

Enter deception.

[ Rhythmic footsteps ] ♪♪ During the Second World War, a critical weapon emerged -- the radio.

-The masterpiece in terms of technological development is wireless communications, and the dawn of radio as a very commonly used piece of technology in the Second World War.

If you have radio, you have massive scope to be able to carry out deception and pains in operations.

[ Radio chatter ] -Aircraft and naval craft all carried wireless equipment to communicate across vast distances.

[ Radio chatter ] At home, receivers broadcast real-time news and entertainment.

This set the stage for a massive campaign of deceit using modern media.

♪♪ [ Radio chatter ] Sefton Delmer of the British Political Warfare Executive, or PWE, was tasked with radio deception.

-He's an interesting chap, he.

First British journalist to interview Hitler after he came to power.

And he spent considerable time in Germany, and he really understood the mindset of Hitler, his acolyte, and the people there.

[ Crowd cheering ] -Since his recruitment to the PWE in 1940, Delmer had gained a reputation for creating black propaganda, broadcast to Nazi Germany as part of a psychological warfare campaign.

-There are really two elements to black propaganda.

Number one, is that it's designed to convince the adversary that it is coming from a fictitious source, that if you're presenting a German broadcast, that anyone listening to this will think it's a German broadcast.

But as part of that, the idea is that it has to be non-attributable, that even if people do suspect that it's not actually genuine, it can't be traced back to the original source.

-The best music and news was interspersed with stories aimed at demoralizing forces and sowing discontent amongst civilians.

Delmer described his approach -- "Cover, cover, dirt, cover, dirt."

In March 1943, a new shortwave station, named Deutscher Kurzwellensender Atlantik, or Atlantiksender, began broadcasting live to German forces.

The station played jazz and American swing, banned on German stations.

[ American swing music plays ] -The key selling point was the latest American dance music.

You're stuck on a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic with nothing to do, and you can tune in to a radio with this really good swing music playing.

The German crews were listening in to it.

So, it was brilliantly clever, the way it was done.

One of the characters created by Sefton Delmer was Vicky, and he had this idea that he was going to create a German forces sweetheart, particularly, again, focused on the Germans working on the U-boats.

He used an actress called Agnes Bernelle that had grown up in Germany and knew fluent German, and she would make these gushing broadcasts to the crews.

-It was thought that a German officer searching the airwaves at night might come across the music or Vicky's husky voice, and they would be hooked, convincing their comrades to listen in.

But how did Delmer's team access current stories to broadcast?

An abandoned German Hellschreiber, or radio teleprinter, was still receiving reports from Germany's centralized news system.

[ Radio chatter ] POW interrogation and intercepted mail revealed gems of gossip and details of naval procedures.

[ Crank whirring ] -Sefton Delmer -- he understood the German mindset.

He knew what things they would find amusing or interesting.

And so the scripts he would develop for the radio shows were usually obscenely funny.

What made them more believable was he'd be incredibly abusive against Churchill.

And so the Germans would think, "Well, the British would never say that against their prime minister.

There's no way on earth they would say that."

-But the news reports were interspersed with subversive stories tailored to brew an atmosphere of discontent amongst U-boat crews.

Some knew it was an enemy station, but they listened anyway for good music and news.

With much of Europe under occupation and most radio transmitters in Nazi hands, the PWE's efforts to target civilian populations were limited.

But the purchase of the U.S.-made Aspidistra transmitter became key to the PWE's propaganda efforts.

The 500-kilowatt transmitter was the most powerful transmitter in the world and able to drown out local broadcasts.

Positioned close to the South Coast and Europe, the Aspidistra had been installed in 1942 by Royal Canadian Engineers, working day and night to excavate an immense hole reaching 50 feet underground.

Modified to reach 600-kilowatt power, the Aspidistra began broadcasting a new PWE station, Soldatensender Calais, or Soldier Station Calais, in late 1943.

♪♪ Unlike Atlantiksender, Soldatensender could be played on home radios and developed a strong following amongst German civilians and in occupied territories.

[ Radio chatter ] The fake news was always current and well-researched.

To German ears, it sounded believable.

-Because the British knew more or less where the German U-boats were, through Bletchley Park, what they were able to do is they could say, "Well, such-and-such a crew are at sea."

And so Vicky would make personal announcements.

So, sometimes, even when they knew, like, perhaps who the commander of this U-boat was, they would actually put out birthday greetings to them and things like this.

So, from the crew's point of view, they were sitting there thinking, "This person's really well-informed.

This must be an official station."

-Black radio had one single focus, to poison morale and weaken the German war machine.

In October 1943, the Aspidistra was used by the British Royal Air Force in a vital campaign, Operation Corona.

The aim -- to disrupt enemy fighters opposing Allied raids on German cities.

RAF operators impersonated enemy ground control to deliver false directions to the pilots in German.

The pilots might be ordered to land or change direction.

This caused serious confusion when the German Air Force was trying to fight off Allied bomb raids.

To counter the deception, the Germans introduced all-female ground control, but the British were ready and immediately deployed German-speaking Women's Auxiliary Air Force personnel.

German Jewish refugees were ideal impersonators as they didn't have a foreign accent.

They played a critical role in Corona's success.

The scheme was deployed for all future raids on German targets.

In 1945, Delmer's team went another step further in the use of black radio aimed at civilians.

During Allied bombing raids, German radio transmitters ceased operating.

So they could not be used as navigational aids, but this allowed the immensely powerful Aspidistra to transmit on the same frequency as the regular German broadcast.

At first, they would rebroadcast genuine German programs, so that the listener would not notice any change.

But then, the PWE would insert a deceptive message into the broadcast.

Seven intrusion operations were performed across 1945.

The Aspidistra transformed PWE's espionage aims, reaching audiences all across occupied Europe.

♪♪ In 1943, while the Allies faced heavy fighting in Italy, commanders were deep in planning for Operation Overlord, the cross-Channel invasion to secure a foothold in Western Europe.

-[ Speaking German ] [ Crowd shouting in German ] Nazi leadership knew preparations were under way, but they did not know when or where the Allies planned to attack.

♪♪ Operation Bodyguard was the deception arm of Overlord, made to preserve the element of surprise.

♪♪ -The key deception ahead of D-Day was Operation Bodyguard.

This was absolutely central to the success of D-Day.

♪♪ -The Germans knew an attack on France was coming, so there was no point in trying to convince them that they weren't going to attack France.

What they needed to do, was instead mislead them as to the time and as to the location.

-After the Allies chose the beaches of Normandy for the site of the invasion, Churchill entrusted the London Controlling Section, or LCS, with devising the enormous plan.

-Operation Bodyguard is a monster of a deception operation.

It is huge.

It has to be, because the Normandy landings are planned to be huge.

The London Controlling Section take on Operation Bodyguard with the knowledge of how very crucial it is to the pulling off of Overlord.

It's got to be right.

It's got to be convincing.

-The operation was named Bodyguard in December 1943, prompted by a remark made by Churchill to Stalin.

-Apparently, Churchill had said that, you know, "The truth has to be shrouded with a bodyguard of lies."

And so they took that as their inspiration.

-This operation was an entirely fabricated war plan, just as, if not more, complex than a genuine campaign.

-It was a massive plan that contained multiple subplans.

There were two diplomatic plans -- Plans Graffham and Plans Royal Flush.

These were diplomatic plans targeting neutral countries, which were Sweden, Spain, and Turkey.

It contained Fortitude North, which played up a threat to Norway; Fortitude South, that played up a threat to Pas-de-Calais; and Plan Zeppelin, which played up a threat across the Mediterranean Sea.

-If accepted as truth, the story would cause the Axis powers to make strategic errors and deploy their forces in areas that suited the Allies.

♪♪ Multiple intelligence bodies and thousands of people were deployed in Bodyguard, from diplomatic correspondents to conscripts camped on England's South Coast.

The potential for leaks was enormous, but an opportunity arose in May 1944 to leak falsehoods on Operation Bodyguard to the enemy.

General Panzertruppe Hans Cramer, commander of the Afrika Korps, was taken prisoner in North Africa.

Cramer was sent to England, to Trent Park, with other German generals.

The Allies identified him as the perfect messenger for their deception.

Cramer had bad asthma and was told he'd be repatriated to Germany.

But before the Allies put him on the ship that would take him home, they had a special journey planned.

He was taken on a long road trip through a massive buildup of troops and equipment.

His hosts let slip they were in South East England, where they were, presumably, preparing for the invasion of Pas-de-Calais.

Indistinguishable, due to the earlier removal of signposts, the road actually went through the South West, the launching region for the Normandy beaches.

At dinner, with General Patton, introduced as the commander in chief of the new First Army Group, Cramer accidentally heard Calais mentioned.

♪♪ Back in Berlin, Cramer reported his observations about the fake army buildup.

The deception was under way.

♪♪ Protecting the secrets of Operation Bodyguard was a massive feat, but the British had the keys to monitor their deception.

Nearly every German spy in England had been turned.

This gave British intelligence a direct line to what was happening in Berlin in 1944.

-One of the ways we could measure how this deception was working was through Ultra.

The codebreakers at Bletchley Park were picking up messages between Hitler's top commanders, and we knew that they'd swallowed some of the deception.

-German intelligence reported that the Allies had far more troop divisions and landing vessels than in reality.

But a lot of work remained before Operation Bodyguard could be deemed an overall success.

♪♪ Central to Bodyguard's overall deception strategy was Operation Fortitude, which aimed to fool the German High Command on the location, size, and preparedness of troops gathering in Britain in 1944.

♪♪ [ Plane engines idling ] ♪♪ -Fortitude was broken down into two component sections.

There was Fortitude North and Fortitude South.

Now, with Fortitude North, what the Allies sought to plant on the Germans was the idea that the invasion was actually going to go to Norway, and that they were going to liberate Norway.

♪♪ -Hitler was obsessed with holding Scandinavia, in particular, the ice-free ports of Norway.

♪♪ British deception planners aimed to capitalize on Hitler's obsession.

They would do this by keeping the immense German forces in Norway, ready to defend against an invasion that would never come.

♪♪ British intelligence created a completely fictitious army called the Fourth Army.

It was supposedly made up of 35,000 troops and had a pretend headquarters in Edinburgh.

The Germans believed the army existed, due to carefully controlled radio signals and fake training exercises.

♪♪ Scotland was a natural launching point for an invasion of Norway.

[ Indistinct conversation ] ♪♪ As a result, 464,000 German troops were stationed in the country by June 1944.

This kept a large number of German troops locked up in Norway, instead of in France.

The fictional attack on Norway was a sideshow to the main operation, Fortitude South.

-Fortitude South played up the threat to France's Pas-de-Calais.

The deceptionists had an advantage in this one, in particular, because Adolf Hitler himself believed that the attack would come at Pas-de-Calais.

It was the most logical target.

It was the shortest distance across the English Channel; it could be protected by air cover; it had a port; and an invasion there would have the Allies closest to Germany.

So it was a logical target.

-In the pretend war plan, the landings on Normandy were to be a minor prelude to the main attack on Pas-de-Calais, six weeks later.

This meant the preparations in the South East of England, opposite the Pas-de-Calais, must be greater and more visible than the buildup of troops and equipment in South West England, opposite the beaches of Normandy.

Physical illusion was only a small part of Operation Fortitude.

Deception centered on false German intelligence delivered by double agents.

-The Double-Cross System is one of the most ingenious aspects of the Second World War, particularly in the secret war.

And so, what it was, it was a committee, a secret committee called the Twenty Committee.

And Twenty came from the Latin numerals XX.

So, it's Double-Cross.

And what it means is, is that as German spies were captured, when they were sent to Great Britain -- and the majority were -- they were given a choice, "You either work for us, or we shoot you."

♪♪ -The Double-Cross System was run from the basement of the MI5 offices in London by B1A.

At the start of 1944, B1A controlled 15 double agents who were feeding false intelligence to their German handlers by wireless transmitters and secret letters.

The British had identified and turned almost all German spies in England.

Despite their fortune, the British were careful.

-So, the information fed back to the Germans had to be mostly true, but most of it was what they called "chicken feed."

It was very low-grade information, and every now and then, you could just slip in a deception or a piece of false information that would confuse the German planners.

-The British were preparing for a much greater deception in Fortitude.

-A key component of Fortitude South was the creation of this phantom army.

It was the First United States Army Group, FUSAG -- that was its acronym.

And they needed someone to command this army -- somebody that the Germans would look at and say, "Yeah, this is the man that's going to lead the invasion."

♪♪ -Widely seen by the Germans as the greatest Allied tank commander, General George Patton's leadership gave greater legitimacy to the ruse.

♪♪ One double agent stands out for his impact on the success of the Fortitude plan.

Known by his German handlers as Arabel, Juan Pujol García was codenamed Garbo by the British.

-The codename Garbo was after the actress.

They were saying, you know, "He's just such a star, isn't he?"

He was the star performer.

So, she was the greatest star of the age.

That's where the name came from.

-He had been involved in the Spanish Civil War and had been completely alienated by extreme views, extreme ideologies.

And so he had volunteered his services to British intelligence, to MI5, and had willingly acted as a source of British intelligence, passing deception, false messages back to the Germans.

-Garbo had a deep hatred of totalitarianism and Nazism.

But, for his German handlers, he posed as a fanatic, prepared to sacrifice his life for Hitler's new world order.

Garbo created a complex network of 27 fictitious subagents, with their own backstories and dispositions.

-Once Garbo was set up in a safe house in Britain, he started formulating this incredible network of agents.

[ Typewriter keys clacking ] Now, this whole network was a complete hoax.

He had a gang of Welsh nationalists, he had various people in the government, he had all these informers, and they were all figments of his imagination.

And the Germans thought this was fantastic, that they've got this guy so well-placed, he's so well-informed.

-In January, 1944, the Germans informed Garbo that the Allies were planning a major invasion of Europe, and he was to keep them up-to-date on developments.

Over the next 5 months, more than 500 radio messages were exchanged between Garbo and Madrid, and then forwarded on to Berlin.

The information handed over to Garbo by the British was considered chicken feed, but gave him legitimacy.

Garbo transmitted a warning to the German agent in Madrid on June 5, 1944, to stand by for further emergency correspondence at 3:00 a.m. on the following morning.

The message would say that one of Garbo's fictitious agents had reported that the Allies were mobilizing in South England -- a sure sign the invasion was imminent.

♪♪ In fact, the Allied troops were scheduled to land on Normandy's beaches at 6:30 a.m. [ Indistinct conversations ] The Twenty committee knew that it took three hours for a message to reach Berlin.

By the time the Germans deciphered Garbo's message, the Allied invasion would already be under way, but it would prove to the Germans how valuable an asset Garbo was, even if he was too late.

But when Garbo's wireless operator sent through the message at 3:00 a.m., there was no response from the Madrid radio operator.

It was not until 8:00 a.m., the Madrid agent returned to his station and received the message.

Troops had already begun to storm the Normandy beaches.

-So, in the morning, when they realized what had happened, you know, Garbo was going mad at them, saying, "Why are you not listening to my messages?

I'm risking my life."

And then, a couple of days later, he turned 'round to the Germans, and said, "But this isn't the real invasion.

Normandy is a deception.

They're going to invade at Calais, just as I've been telling you all this time."

-And there was a double layer to that deception, because the Germans thought, once the invasion of D-Day happened, they thought that was just a decoy.

-And so the Germans not only kept troops in the Calais area, but when they started to release reserves to go to Normandy, there was a famous case of the 1st SS Panzer Division was sent to Normandy.

But pretty much on the say-so of Garbo, that division was stopped, turned around, and brought back up to Belgium.

And even as late as July, the Calais region waiting for Patton to come across and attack them.

-22 divisions were kept near Pas-de-Calais, while the Allied forces established a bridgehead and advanced through Normandy.

Even when Garbo told the Germans that Patton's First US Army Group invasion had been canceled in August, he was still believed.

-This supposed army accumulates on the South East coast.

Unbeknownst to the Germans, a number of the people in it are 3-foot-tall cardboard cutouts.

They have inflatable tanks.

They have vehicles disguised to look like amphibious landing craft.

They have fake aircraft.

Everything that you would expect to see in an amphibious landing is made to look like it's amassing on the South East coast.

-Double agents lived on a constant knife edge.

If they were discovered, they would be executed by both Allied and Axis alike.

Their lives were in danger every waking moment, but their work in the shadows changed the outcome of the war.

♪♪ At the heart of Operation Fortitude lay the six-pronged plan named Quicksilver.

Each element worked together to reinforce the pretend threat on the Pas-de-Calais region.

[ Equipment beeping ] In this plan, Quicksilver I sent deliberate leaks through the Double-Cross System.

Quicksilver II used radio traffic to simulate troop movement across England.

Quicksilver III employed physical deception through the display of dummy landing craft.

Quicksilver IV devised the air-attack plan on the Pas-de-Calais beaches and railways.

Quicksilver V used fake troop activity around South East England to make it look like an invasion was about to launch.

And Quicksilver VI referred to the decoy lighting used to simulate activity around dummy craft.

Quicksilver IV was quite audacious.

This plan aimed to convince the Axis powers that the Allies were shelling targets in the Pas-de-Calais region, in preparation for a cross-Channel attack.

-So, if we were telling the Germans that we're going to invade at Calais, but all of our aircraft were bombing Normandy, the Germans would think this isn't correct.

They would be trying to soften us up here.

So they actually thought that it was important that for every bomb or every aircraft that attacked Normandy, two had to attack Calais.

♪♪ -The air plan was designed to be as realistic as possible, involving careful scheduling and aerial reconnaissance.

Significant airpower was deployed in the campaign, even at the expense of the Normandy invasion.

Bombers targeted Pas-de-Calais coastal defenses, beach fortifications, and headquarter units to support the false plan.

-As it turned out, it was quite useful, because it hindered Germans bringing up reserve forces, and so on.

But from a German point of view, you're looking at it, and you're saying, "Well, where is their main way of attack?

Where are they hitting us hardest?"

And again, it's at Calais, where they're expecting Patton to turn up with this huge army of 50,000 men or so.

♪♪ -On June 5, 1944, one day prior to the Normandy invasion, German commander Rommel reported that the extensive bombing campaign in the Pas-de-Calais region made it the most likely site for the imminent Allied attack.

Quicksilver IV had achieved its goal, credibility.

♪♪ ♪♪ While traditional methods of deception played a central role in Operation Bodyguard, some unconventional schemes were also employed.

Operation Copperhead was a theatrical plot aimed at drawing attention away from the Channel and bolstering the false threat of an Allied invasion on the south of France.

-Plan Copperhead was a plan to convince the Germans that General Montgomery was visiting Gibraltar, and then Algiers, for a leadership conference in the week just prior to D-Day.

-And the idea was, is just before D-Day, they would send him down to Gibraltar, where the Spanish spies would see him and report him back to Berlin, and then send him off to Cairo.

And so the inference would be that there's no way the Allies are going to invade France if Montgomery is not about.

-But the real Montgomery was far from Gibraltar.

The idea had been conjured by Dudley Clarke, the British master of deception and leader of "A" Force.

In January 1944, Clarke had watched "Five Graves to Cairo," a Billy Wilder romance thriller set in the Western Desert theater.

-He noticed that one of the British actors had an uncanny resemblance to Montgomery.

And in Dudley Clarke's mind, the way he thought, he realized he could replicate that.

He could carry out a deception campaign to impersonate Montgomery.

All he needed was the right time to do it.

-In Clarke's plan, an actor doubling as Montgomery would parade through Gibraltar and Algiers.

German agents would pass on the news to their commanders, countering any possibility of an imminent cross-Channel invasion.

Finding an actor who could stand in for Montgomery was a difficult task.

-The actor who Dudley Clarke first noted had that uncanny resemblance to Montgomery turned out to be too tall.

Because he was too tall, he couldn't be used, as that would expose the deception.

-In March 1944, a story in the British News Chronicle described a performance by an occasional actor and Pay Corps lieutenant, Meyrick Clifton James.

In the play, James donned a black beret and overcoat that made him indistinguishable from General Montgomery.

In an unexpected phone call, the famous British star David Niven asked James to travel to London to screen-test for some war films.

Upon arrival, his real role was revealed.

In James' book, "I was Monty's Double," the actor reflected on the once-in-a-lifetime performance.

-He was able to take on the role of impersonation, and Montgomery helped out in this, too.

He provided some personal items, some clothing, and he also provided details of his habits, so that the scheme could be carried out with exactitude.

-For his disguise, James donned the uniform tailored by Meyer & Mortimer, and the many rows of decorations and honors.

His temples were grayed with greasepaint, and his mustache was trimmed.

Accompanied by a brigadier and aide, James landed at Gibraltar on May 26, 1944.

The airport was under constant observation by Germans across the Spanish border, and the entire territory was teeming with Axis spies.

Approaching the governor's house, the actor was swarmed by troops calling "Good old Monty!"

While speaking with the governor of Gibraltar, James was spotted by a German spy, who then raced across the border to report Montgomery's presence.

The fake Montgomery, and his entourage journeyed on to Algiers and undertook a week of strategy meetings and social events, interspersed by travel through crowds of troops and civilian spectators.

-The Germans sent multiple queries to double agents who had been reporting that they saw Montgomery and saw the other British leadership at this conference.

So they sent queries to them, asking for more information on Montgomery's exact location, his activities.

-James' role abruptly came to an end at "Jumbo" Wilson's H.Q.

in Algiers, where he removed his Monty persona and donned his own lieutenant's uniform.

The actor was sent to Cairo, where he stayed until the real Montgomery was officially present in France.

♪♪ A rumor emerged that James was found in a drunken state one night, a far cry from the teetotaling Montgomery he aimed to impersonate.

James was forced to keep the operation a secret until years after the war.

The impact of Operation Copperhead was minimal.

-The truth is, it didn't hit.

This deception didn't land with the Germans.

It took place sort of late in May.

It was too early.

If it had happened, maybe a day or two before D-Day, and they'd made a bit more of a splash in the news about it, it might have had a bit more effect.

-Operation Copperhead shows the enormous lengths the Allies took to support the fabricated war plan.

♪♪ In World War II, deception was often made on the run, reacting to sudden opportunities and circumstances.

♪♪ -This unit or that commander would try to deceive the enemy.

But by the time we get to 1944, it was decided to create a special unit -- a specific unit called the 23rd Headquarters Special Troop.

And the soldiers in these units brought many specialized skills.

[ Birds chirping ] ♪♪ -This unit became known as the Ghost Army.

It was a traveling roadshow of deception.

[ Radio chatter ] ♪♪ The unit was created in early 1944 and arrived in England in May, just before D-Day.

Once the Allies landed in Normandy, the unit's deception work really began.

The Ghost Army was made up of four specialized subunits.

The Ghost Army's mission was to entice the enemy away, diverting their fire from soldiers on the front line.

[ Screaming, gunfire ] ♪♪ The troops were performers, accompanied by props, sound, and special effects, all tailored for a German Army audience.

-1,100 soldiers served in the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops Unit, and they brought a variety of skills with them.

They were recruited from art schools, music schools, and architecture schools in New York City and elsewhere, such as the Pratt Institute.

-In between operations, the soldiers painted to pass the time and hone their skills.

The 23rd's greatest act of deception was performed in the closing months of the war.

In its final mission, in March 1945, the unit was tasked with conjuring a diversion to draw the enemy south.

This would allow the U.S. 9th Army to cross the Rhine into Germany.

The entire 23rd was needed to pose as two full divisions, around 40,000 troops.

Seeking to establish the formation was on the move, the signal company used spoof radio, impersonating operators from other units.

Reaching the Rhine, the camouflage engineers prepared more than 600 inflatable tanks that were pumped via air compressors.

At night, sonic crews mimicked the sounds of armored units rolling in.

In the day, they played heavy construction noise to indicate the assembly of bridging units.

Flash canisters were set off to appear as artillery fire.

The Germans fired back against the false threat, forcing the Ghost Army to rush to repair the deflated tanks and guns.

The operation successfully drew German units away from the 9th Army.

When the 9th did attack, the enemy response was weak and scattered.

[ Explosions ] The crossing was achieved with few casualties on the Allied side.

[ Indistinct shouting ] The Ghost Army never wore their own insignia in the field, which depicts a ghost casting lightning bolts.

♪♪ Their efforts remained a secret for many years after the war.

♪♪ [ Explosions ] D-Day was an enormous feat in the Allied campaign.

But though the Allies had a toehold in Europe, the war was still on the brink.

There was a desperate need to disrupt German forces in the region, particularly in France.

In June 1940, the British established the Special Operations Executive, or SOE.

[ Birds chirping, indistinct conversations ] ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Gunshot ] -The Special Operations Executive was clandestine, unorthodox warfare.

And the organization sent agents, men and women, behind enemy lines, into occupied parts of Europe and elsewhere.

Highly dangerous missions, but their purpose was to sabotage the enemy's capability.

So, it could be blowing up train lines, it could be blowing up enemy communications, but they would live behind enemy lines and have key targets to sabotage.

[ Explosion ] -Recruits came from various backgrounds -- aristocracy, the working class, and the criminal underworld.

All had a deep knowledge of the territory where they would operate.

A lack of suitable men to place in the field led to women operatives being deployed.

-But in the end, they were allowed to take these dangerous positions, because men in occupied countries were supposed to be slaving away in German munitions factories.

They were rounding up civilian men in occupied countries to make the weapons of war for the Germans.

A male agent would have to have a very good reason as to why he was out there walking around.

-Women, as resistors, could get away with a lot more under the noses of the Germans, because the Germans were very chauvinistic and didn't believe that women could be involved in resistance work.

♪♪ -But the work was incredibly difficult, especially because the women were often given subordinate roles under less-experienced leaders and faced disrespect from male operatives and the Resistance.

♪♪ Skilled in the practical arts of deception and subterfuge, the American Virginia Hall stands out amongst the SOE agents.

-Virginia Hall was an American expat who had been living in Europe for 10 years before the beginning of World War II.

She had been educated there, and she just stayed there doing clerical work at different American embassies.

I think part of the reason she stayed there was because her mother's idea of what she should do with her life was to marry well in America.

-She joined the SOE in 1941 and became the first female agent to reside in occupied France.

-Virginia Hall had a brilliant mind.

She was absolutely fearless, and she had a very winning personality that engendered trust in a wide variety of people.

For instance, immediately when she was creating her network, she recruited a madam who was running a brothel, and she also recruited a Mother Superior who was running a convent.

SOE agent Peter Churchill met her in Lyon four months after she had started working there, and he reported back that she knew everyone, she was in with everyone, and she was liked by everyone.

♪♪ -But her expertise and activities made her a key target for the German authorities.

The infamous head of the Gestapo in Lyon, Klaus Barbie, became obsessed with catching her.

-He had these posters made of her likeness, with the caption, "The lady who limps is the most dangerous Allied agent.

We must find and destroy her."

-Threats against Hall, built to the point where in late 1942, she fled France, trekking 50 miles through the snow-covered Pyrenees to Spain.

Back in England, Hall was determined to return to the field, but British intelligence declared it too dangerous.

After spending time learning Morse code and improving her skills in disguise, Hall was engaged by the American Office of Strategic Services and sent again to France.

-But she couldn't go back in as she was, because she would be recognized.

The posters were still everywhere.

So she had to come up with a disguise.

So, she dyed her hair gray, and she got a Hollywood makeup artist to show her how to draw lines on her face to make her look older.

And she worked on a certain kind of croaky old-woman voice, so that no one would recognize her.

-Virginia Hall even had her teeth filed down, so she would look the part of an old peasant woman.

On March 21, 1944, Hall arrived by motor gunboat on the Brittany coast alongside Henri Lassot, the 62-year-old leader of the new Saint network.

Despite her experience, she was relegated to the role of Lassot's wireless operator.

Dissatisfied with Lassot's lax approach to security, she quickly broke off to establish herself independently.

♪♪ Finding work on a farm in the Creuse department, south of Paris, Hall began recruiting locals and collecting intelligence on German troop movements, but a security breach forced her to flee... [ Knock on door ] ...radioing to London, "The wolves are at the door."

She traveled north to Cosne, which appeared to be an ideal base for operations as the Allied invasion approached.

Hall was forced to deal with Resistance leaders who were unwilling to follow a woman's directions.

Despite this, she successfully established 4 paramilitary groups of 25 men, who were tasked with destroying railroad lines and bridges and disrupting German communication networks.

[ Radio chatter ] After the landings on Normandy, Hall was given many vital missions.

She coordinated sabotage actions by more than 1,500 Resistance fighters.

♪♪ They destroyed infrastructure, ambushed convoys, and took hundreds prisoner.

Hall also reported to London on the movement of German troops.

♪♪ Hall and other female agents put their lives in great peril.

They often worked alone, vulnerable to capture and a brutal death.

Yet, they persevered in the fight against the Nazis.

♪♪ -I believe there's no doubt that deception helped to shorten the war, and deception saved lives.

D-Day would not have been successful without deception, and it's a good example of how deception helped to achieve a victory -- a victory that ultimately helped to achieve the end of World War II.

-No longer was deception an art practiced in the back rooms.

Now it snaked through the battlefields.

Soldiers and armies could no longer be sure of the communication they were receiving, or even where the battlefront was.

The new technologies and clever innovations brought into play a shroud of uncertainty that was the fog of war.

[ Orchestral music playing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪