The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War

From Publishers Weekly
This colossal and valuable study is clearly a labor of love for Holt, a lawyer and former deputy secretary of the army. It chronicles in thorough detail and smooth prose various operations that the Allies conducted to mislead the Axis as to the time, place, strength and direction of a host of military operations. The foremost of those was, of course, D-Day, and the origins, conduct and imposing logistics of Operation Fortitude are laid out in unsurpassed detail. So are a host of smaller operations, such as Operation Mincemeat, the subject of the book The Man Who Never Was The men and women behind the planning and execution included the British career soldier Brig. Dudley W. Clarke; Gordon Merrick, later the author of The Lord Won't Mind and its successors, one of the first mainstream successes in gay fiction; and actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who was an amateur sailor and leader of a fine decoy effort in southern France. The achievements of the deceivers were invaluable if not always decisive. Few of them have been chronicled this completely or this well, at least for American readers, in a volume that reads with the fluency of a thriller for any reader with a minimal knowledge of and interest in the war. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Review
Joseph S. Nye, Jr. Dean of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University Thad Holt has written a brilliant account of Allied military deceptions in World War II. It will become a standard work on military intelligence tactics. And best of all, it reads like a novel!

Professor Sir Michael Howard former Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford University, Robert A. Lovett Professor of Military and Naval History, Yale University, and author of British Intelligence in the Second World War: Volume 5, Strategic Deception Mr. Holt's history of Allied deception in World War II is definitive. He has trawled through all the documentation, interviewed all the survivors, and put together a history as comprehensive as it is readable and entertaining. It is an astonishing achievement, and no library of the war can afford to be without it.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In World War II, the Allies employed unprecedented methods and practiced the most successful military deception ever seen, meticulously feeding misinformation to Axis intelligence to lead Axis commanders into erroneous action. Thaddeus Holt's elegantly written and comprehensive book is the first to tell the full story behind these operations. Exactly how the Allies engaged in strategic deception has remained secret for decades. Now, with the help of newly declassified material, Holt reveals this secret to the world in a riveting work of historical scholarship.

Once the Americans joined the war in 1941, they had much to learn from their British counterparts, who had been honing their deception skills for years. As the war progressed, the British took charge of misinformation efforts in the European theater, while the Americans focused on the Pacific. The Deceivers takes readers from the early British achievements in the Middle East and Europe at the beginning of the war to the massive Allied success of D-Day, American victory in the Pacific theater, and the war's culmination on the brink of an invasion of Japan.

Colonel John Bevan, who managed British deception operations from London, described the three essentials to strategic deception as good plans, double agents, and codebreaking, and The Deceivers covers each of these aspects in minute detail. Holt brings to life the little-known men, British and American, who ran Allied deception, such as Bevan, Dudley Clarke, Peter Fleming, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Newman Smith. He tracks the development of deception techniques and tells the hitherto unknown story of double agent management and other deception through the American FBI and Joint Security Control.

Full of fascinating sources and astounding revelations, The Deceivers is an indispensable volume and an unparalleled contribution to World War II literature.

FROM THE CRITICS

Victorino Matus - The Washington Post

The level of detail is staggering. The list of colorful personalities is endless. But beneath the mountains of data (and more than 200 pages of appendices and references) lies the story of how American and British officers created deception and eventually mastered it.

Washington Post

[A] monumental history. Holt fully reveals Allied attempts to "mystify, mislead, and surprise" the enemy, while identifying the intelligence failures, the successes and the many operations whose decisiveness remains unclear even today. The level of detail is staggering. Holt has provided us with a historical record. And this he does this definitively.

Sewanee Review

Thaddeus Holt's The Deceivers is an important contribution...the least that can be said about the book is that for the next several decades it should serve intelligence and defense communities as a bible about how to deceive an enemy in wartime....The finished product is as close to definitive as we are likely to see....Holt's narrative line will hold the reader's attention, carrying him through the occasional dense patches to leave him astounded by the end result. Invariably that result is a much more thorough knowledge for any reader about what was actually taking place at any particular moment during World War II.

Publishers Weekly

This colossal and valuable study is clearly a labor of love for Holt, a lawyer and former deputy secretary of the army. It chronicles in thorough detail and smooth prose various operations that the Allies conducted to mislead the Axis as to the time, place, strength and direction of a host of military operations. The foremost of those was, of course, D-Day, and the origins, conduct and imposing logistics of Operation Fortitude are laid out in unsurpassed detail. So are a host of smaller operations, such as Operation Mincemeat, the subject of the book The Man Who Never Was. The men and women behind the planning and execution included the British career soldier Brig. Dudley W. Clarke; Gordon Merrick, later the author of The Lord Won't Mind and its successors, one of the first mainstream successes in gay fiction; and actor Douglas Fairbanks Jr., who was an amateur sailor and leader of a fine decoy effort in southern France. The achievements of the deceivers were invaluable if not always decisive. Few of them have been chronicled this completely or this well, at least for American readers, in a volume that reads with the fluency of a thriller for any reader with a minimal knowledge of and interest in the war. Agent, Phyllis Westburg. (June 6) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In this massive chronology, Holt, former deputy undersecretary of the U.S. Army, details the complete story of the Allied deception plans undertaken during World War II. Drawing on freshly declassified Pentagon documents, he begins with the early British accomplishments in the Middle East and Africa under the aegis of Brig. Dudley Clarke and ends with Operation Pastel, the deception plan covering the invasion of Japan. The war's story appears in an entirely different light when overlaid with the various deception plans, most spectacularly the vital D-day feint that led Hitler to expect a landing at Calais. This story would only be half told without the work (well detailed here) of the agents and double agents who made strategic deception a success, from the well-known Peter Fleming, brother of James Bond creator Ian, to the little-known Juan Garcia, code-named Garbo, decorated by both the British and the Germans for his war work. Highly recommended.-David Lee Poremba, Detroit P.L. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. Read all 6 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

Mr. Holt's history of Allied deception in World War II is definitive. He has trawled through all the documentation, interviewed all the survivors, and put together a history as comprehensive as it is readable and entertaining. It is an astonishing achievement, and no library of the war can afford to be without it.  — Michael Howard

A highly professional yet entertaining analysis of the dirty tricks ingeniously dreamed up by unscrupulous Allied intelligence personnel in World War II to defeat the enemy. Easily the best book yet written, or ever likely to be, on the subject, drawing on the most recent documents declassified on both sides of the Atlantic.  — Nigel West

A truly wonderful book! Deeply researched and written with authority and verve, it tells the full story of Allied deception during World War II. The Deceivers not only recounts every major operation, it describes in detail how each operation affected the enemy. It will be essential for the bookshelf of every serious student of World War II.  — Ernest May

Just when you have convinced yourself that you have long ago imbibed the last word on the secret side of World War II, along comes Thaddeus Holt and his remarkable study. Superbly researched and full of fresh revelations, The Deceivers is not only immaculately written but wonderfully readable.  — Robert Cowley

Thad Holt has written a brilliant account of Allied military deceptions in World War II. It will become a standard work on military intelligence tactics. And best of all, it reads like a novel!  — Joseph S. Nye