"Mein liebe Pluskat..."
Posted on 01/26/2011 8:08:04 PM PST by decimon
It was an audacious double-cross that fooled the Nazis and shortened World War II. Now a newly-released document reveals the crucial role played by Britain's code-breaking experts in the 1944 invasion of France.
All the ingredients of a gripping spy thriller are there - intrigue, espionage, lies and black propaganda.
An elaborate British wartime plot succeeded in convincing Hitler that the Allies were about to stage the bulk of the D-Day landings in Pas de Calais rather than on the Normandy coast - a diversion that proved crucial in guaranteeing the invasion's success.
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Behind the story of this crucial message and its global impact lies Juan Pujol Garcia, an unassuming-looking Spanish businessman who was, in fact, one of the war's most effective double agents.
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To establish his credibility, he sent advance warning ahead of the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944 - but too late for the Germans to act on it.
Then, in the days afterwards, he fed them entirely fictitious intelligence from his fake "agents" that the invasion had been a red herring and "critical attacks" would follow elsewhere - most likely down the coast in Pas de Calais. He also reported, again falsely, that 75 divisions had been massed in England before D-Day, meaning that many more were still to land in France.
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(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Courage like that is worth a division of soldiers. Men and women who did these deeds and succeeded or failed deserve our undying gratitude.
"Mein liebe Pluskat..."
People who think history is dull, including most kids today, need to see this kind of story.
This is pulse-pounding, riveting stuff!
I hope Hollywood gives it a better treatment than WindTalkers did for the great story of the Navajo contribution to our WW II win.
My Father’s outfit landed several days after D-Day. They were lucky as the combat engineers suffered 80% casualties, the highest of any group.
I recently learned they were scheduled to land on D-Day but their ship had engine trouble and had to return to port for repairs.
“You know those five thousand ships you say the Allies haven’t got? Well, they’ve got them!”
Ha! Obama wasn't even born yet. At least that's what his birth certificate says anyway. Oh wait. . . .
The History channel has new a 2 part 4 hour seies called “Third Reich, the rise” and “Third Reich, the fall” that is excellent. I’m going to order it on DVD.
One of the diary entries read in the show was from a German soldier on the channel coast. He wrote about seeing the allied invasion force coming over the horizon. He said “This can’t be real. There aren’t that many ships in the world”.
” Where are they:”??They are heading right straight for me.’”
It's beyond scary to imagine D-day if the Germans had moved even one Panzer division and put just a few tanks at each beach (Utah, Normandy, Gold, Juneau and Sword). They actually had available more than one division. It's difficult to imagine the good guys would ever have made it off of those beaches.
Failure vs. cakewalk always proved to me that Hitler was duped.
Great post. Excellent!
I had the pleasure of visiting Normandy Beach and the museum there in 1983. (My wife and I even stayed over at a bed-and-breakfast in St. Lo.) It was an unforgettable, awe-inspiring place to visit. The cemetery nearby was impeccably maintained. The whole place had a quiet to it that was like the quiet that follows two feet of snowfall.
If you know what it was all about; what was at stake. I was born in 1945 so WWII was close to the bone. WWI seemed like ancient history. To a young person today, Vietnam must seem ancient history.
I have a paperback around somewhere which was written by a German soldier who was at Normandy.
It is interesting to see it from another perspective. It was incredible the amount of bombing and shelling they survived. Most of their large guns were destroyed tho they were able to get a couple working.
He also commented on seeing the huge fleet of ships and being astounded.
The “Man Who Never Was” was a disinformation for the Sicily invasion.
Hyphenated nationality and race diversity is working. A lot of the kids today have been taught that America isn’t worth saving by their socialist teachers in public school. You would have a hard time locating one patriot per classroom in a lot of the bigger cities.
Thanks for the link. It was interesting to see his journal notes.
Oops, wrong beach.
I won’t recommend much on the History channel lately but “The Rise and The fall” are excellent.
Its all about the rise and fall of the reich from a german perspective. Some really chilling stuff. People were terrified of their own children. Soldiers who knew they were damned to Hell for what they had done. Suicides by the thousands.
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