A Chicken Farmer Spy Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day | Hacker News Reader

A Chicken Farmer Spy Who Tricked Hitler and Saved D-Day

warhistoryonline.com

69 pointsDoreenMichele17 comments

Was enjoying that until we got to the D-Day deception.

"Pujol did such a good job that when the invasion happened on June 6, Hitler was convinced it was a diversion"

Makes it sound like he achieved the deception single handedly. It was a tiny bit more involved than that. Operation Fortitude[0], included creating an entire dummy army group (1st Army Group, commanded by Patton) with regiments of inflatable tanks, landing craft and squadrons of dummy aircraft in the right locations for a Calais invasion. Also significant fake radio and telephone traffic to be noticed and intercepted. It was a huge, ongoing, disinformation campaign and enormously successful.

Pujol was a fascinating tale, and played his part, but it was a small one.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude

I find the incredibly involved deception of WWII fascinating. See also Operation Mincemeat[0], where the British Army dressed the corpse of a Welsh homeless person as an officer of the Royal Marines, gave it a number of fake documents, and dumped it in the ocean off Spain to deceive the Germans about the invasion of Sicily.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat

You might like this book: Deception in War by Jon Latimer

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jon-latimer/decep...

Or this one: "Bodyguard of Lies: The Extraordinary True Story Behind D-Day" by Anthony Cave Brown. Still my all time favorite WWII book.

https://www.amazon.com/Bodyguard-Lies-Extraordinary-Story-Be...

Pretty sure that's the book I read decades ago that turned me into a history buff, especially of WW2. One of many dad brought home from the library.

It's incredible how comprehensively they constructed the ruse. The Allies really outsmarted the Axis in every way. Successful operation ruses, cracked ciphers, complete control over the intelligence networks.

As well as the crucial point lostlogin raises, the Allies were assuming the Abwehr were rather better at espionage and reconnaissance than they turned out to be. Some was discovered via SIGINT from Bletchley and some not until the fall of Berlin.

Just as well as one of the British officers (Strangeways) was making the southern deception rather difficult by disagreeing with everything.

The Allies had to assume the Germans had a working spy network in the UK, turns out they had none and we caught or turned the lot. Those agents (including Pujol), the extensive continental networks and Ultra meant they could spread disinformation effectively and check to see if the bait was taken, repeatedly.

It could have been a lot more difficult if Hitler had listened to his High Command a little more.

> The Allies really outsmarted the Axis in every way.

History written by the victors. On our side bright minds and heroic hearts and on their side cowards and dunderheads. /s

Good point, but from what I've read of the war, it seems like the Allies absolutely dominated the intelligence (as in espionage) aspect in an objective sense. I think the Germans admitted post-war they got outplayed. Clearly the Axis was better at certain other things than the Allies, though, otherwise they wouldn't have taken over so much territory.

The convoluted control of the German army helped in no small part. Rommel was hamstrung and prevented from acting. Hitler’s paranoia effectively blocked any real decision making and this was crucial for the Allies in the vulnerable early stages.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/axis-commanders-and-leaders-...

> Pujol is, therefore, the only one to have received awards from both sides for his services in WWII.

I would be surprised if there weren't some Italians who managed to win awards fighting for both sides in the Second World War.

I like to think that fascist regimes could never produce such a figure...

Garbo is referenced in one of my favorite David Bowie songs “Quicksand”.

  “I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes
  Living proof of Churchill's lies, I'm destiny”

Was this guy the inspiration for Mr. Bean?

The first paragraph sounded very weird: he was awarded the Iron Cross by the Nazis for deceiving the Nazis? This isn't cleared up until the end of the article.

I thought it was obvious that the Nazis did not know they were deceived.

He was a double agent. Thus the commendation from the Nazis.

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