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Part Twenty
"If the German authorities had realised how much we knew about their methods of camouflage, and how we were able to watch every stage of the process, they might well have given it up as hopeless quite early on..." Ursula Powys-Lybbe , British Photographic Interpreter at Medmenham
As an interesting counterpoint to previous articles in this series , which have concentrated on the British perspective, this article attempts to analyse the subject matter from the opposite direction. Namely, did the Germans attempt their own camouflage and deception schemes and how successful were these ? "Magic Top-Secret", the first version of Jasper Maskelyne's wartime career, repeatedly underestimates or is unaware of the many enemy efforts at deception and camouflage. Early in his tale, the author of "Magic Top-Secret" makes the following dubious claim: "It was significant of Hitler's contempt for magic in warfare, which persisted to the end, that even when we invaded Europe years later, the Germans relied solely on strong-arm stuff. German magicians are very clever, and we went into Normandy all ready to meet and combat enemy 'Maskelyne and Devant' battle shows, as well as with many entirely new ones of our own. But we found nothing except a few elementary and individualistic booby-traps... Of big-scale field-warfare magic there was none at all." In fact, the Germans did make serious attempts with camouflage, decoys and hidden traps. By June 1944, large-scale deterrences had been devised in northern Europe on a far greater scale to the anti-invasion measures mounted by the British in 1940. Deadly underwater obstacles — mines, submerged metal obstructions and wooden stakes — were backed by a daunting network of land-based barriers such as barbed wire, land-mines, anti-tank ditches, and concrete defence structures. Further inland, Rommel planted sharp wooden stakes (nicknamed 'asparagus') in open fields to deter glider landings. Where feasible, land was deliberately flooded. This defensive strategem sometimes had an effect. For example, in one valley, "Because the grass had grown above the flooded area, Allied air reconnaissance photographs failed to reveal the trap. The water generally was not more than a meter deep, but that was deep enough to drown an overloaded paratrooper who couldn't get up or cut himself out of his harness.." A total of 36 parachutists from the 82nd Airborne drowned during the first night of the invasion , presumably dragged down by their equipment . On D-Day, an élite team of American Rangers scaled the cliffs at the Pointe du Hoc in order to destroy the large gun battery overlooking Omaha and Utah beaches. Although the Rangers suffered a high casualty rate, they persevered and completed their objective, but found to their frustration that the large guns had been replaced by fakes — harmless wooden poles! This ruse was used in other battle areas. German Admiral Ruge later acknowledged the value of sham gun emplacements. "Dummy batteries attracted a great many Allied air attacks and helped the real guns to survive." The Germans also experimented with small radio controlled tanks nicknamed 'Goliaths'. These remote control devices were designed to move secretly within the range of enemy vehicles and then detonate. However, it is not clear whether the mini-tanks were of much practical use. After the successful D-Day landing, Stephen Sykes, a camouflage specialist and a former colleague of Jasper Maskeyne in the Western Desert , nearly blew himself up trying to dismantle one. Midway through "Magic Top-Secret" , the author boldly states: "the Germans never, throughout the war, made any concerted effort to use magic or illusion against us." In the final pages, the author reiterates this assessment , dismissing German attempts at camouflage as unsophisticated: "...the awkward constructions of branches and netting and paints that their local commanders furtively employed here and there, were more suitable to children's games than to men whose lives were at stake; and they never seem to have produced any deception, equal, say to my tank 'sunshield' disguise, at all." The last comment about 'sunshields' might not be strictly accurate, as I uncovered a reference to Rommel employing a similar trick (in Part Eleven ). Nevertheless, it would be fair to say that the Germans did not implement on a large scale anything analogous to 'sunshields' and, throughout the war, failed to manufacture dummy tanks equal in quality and number to those of the Allies. This was all the more surprising given the vital need to camouflage their Panzer divisions from Allied reconnaissance and air attack. For example, in June 1944, Rommel believed that the only way to drive back the Allied coastal invasion was to immediately bring forward his reserve tanks stationed inland. It would seem essential, then, to have developed beforehand sufficient camouflage and deception ruses to disguise and facilitate this dangerous manoeuvre, given that it would obviously trigger enormous Allied retaliation from land, air and sea. On the available evidence, the Germans did not adequately address this problem. In general, though, "Magic Top-Secret"'s negative appraisal of German camouflage methods can no longer be sustained. As the war developed, the Germans used many imaginative camouflage techniques which were on a par with those of the Allies. Subjected to intensive aerial bombardment, the Germans tried to develop serious camouflage and decoy methods. Many of these measures were unsuccessful, not necessarily because they were too simplistic or too childish, but because the various tricks and illusions employed were not able to withstand the sophisticated search procedures of the Allied photoreconaissance (PR) experts based at Medmenham (see Part Six): "Track activity was the biggest tell-tale of all...We had to learn that disturbed areas of grass or soil would show up on the photographs, much lighter in tone than the surroundings, and those areas depressed by feet or vehicles or excavations deflected light back to the camera at a different angle, thus causing this phenomenon. Track activity was almost impossible to conceal..." A similar point is made by the American author of "World War II Photo Intelligence". For example , he provides an aerial photo of a hidden German coastal battery in France in 1943. "All four emplacements of this coastal battery are occupied and nicely toned down to blend into the surrounding ground. Shelters have been skillfully camouflaged, but track activity from men walking to mess, latrines, and transportation gave the site away." And the reverse situation also provided useful clues to the PR expert:"Dummy positions, like other decoys, were given away by a lack of activity: no vehicles, tracks and associated objects" Powys-Lybbe, a PR veteran , gives many interesting examples of German camouflage tricks. As the war progressed and the Allied air offensive gained momentum, the Germans experimented with smoke screens to hide valuable targets. In a clever double-bluff, they later used decoy smoke screens to fool the enemy into attacking the wrong target. Powys-Lybbe records : "When Kiel was attacked in March 1943, the smoke screen was raised, and at the same time another one was activated round Eckernforde to the north-west; later this was found to be a decoy, as there was no target of any significance, but there was a topographical resemblance between the two cities." Following the example set by the British, the Germans constructed decoy sites such as fake airfields and fake fuel depots. They also devised special night decoys , similar to the British 'Starfish' sites , which gave the illusion of installations on fire in the dark. Another brilliant idea was the lighting of fake target indicator flares to confuse Allied bombers. The German decoys matched the colour of the genuine flares. Elaborate attempts at camouflage were often vulnerable to unforeseen flaws. For example, the German Fokker factory in Amsterdam was carefully covered in special netting and its roofs decorated with fake houses, trees and connecting roads which blended in plausibly with the surrounding suburbs. The Germans, however, neglected to cover nearby canals. Allied bombers, briefed by PR experts, were able to discern the location of the hidden target. Powys-Lybbe mentions a concealed German military depot on the Dutch coast, camouflaged within the dunes: "Each storage building was 'mounded' to simulate the actual dunes, and only the entrance and the dispersal arrangements of the units gave the whole show away." (This sounds similar to one of Jasper Maskelyne's own ideas recorded by Fisher in "The War Magician". ) Powys-Lybbe also reveals that in early 1942, the Germans built a dummy battleship , in the French port of Brest, to simulate in appearance the genuine cruiser, the Prinz Eugen. It was hoped that the presence of the dummy would enable the real cruiser to escape to sea during the night and reach safer quarters before the enemy could react. (Again, this ruse appears to be similar to the one allegedly devised by the Magic Gang when they conjured up a fake battleship in the Mediterranean). The British were not fooled: "The port was being photographed almost daily, and the interpreters watched each stage of the proceedings with incredulity. The dummy was constructed from an old French cruiser, the Gueydon, with in addition two 250 foot vessels attached as a single unit at the stern to give the necessary length. A passable imitation of the German cruiser was achieved when seen from above, but in any event , joins in the hull were visible on a distant oblique photograph, and would have given the show away from sea level." ___________________________________________________________________________ As for strategic deception, surely it is time that someone wrote a book from the German viewpoint. Cruikshank briefly covered this neglected topic in his pioneer book on deception in 1979. He discussed German deception operations from 1939 to 1941 including those against Poland in 1939, and against France in 1940. The aborted invasion plan of England and the surprise attack against the Soviet Union both had deception components. It now appears that, in every major undertaking, the German armed forces used deception measures. Much more information could now be assembled and analysed. It would be wrong to ridicule or underestimate the German appreciation and implementation of deception operations. Indeed, from the opening shots of the war to the closing stages of the Third Reich, deception was a frequent accomplice to military action.
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