large part of the various Bodyguard operations involved the use of double agents. The British "Double Cross" anti-espionage operation had proven very successful from the outset of the war. The LCS was able to use double agents to send back misleading information about Allied invasion plans. By contrast, Allied intelligence was very good. Ultra, signals intelligence from decrypted German radio transmission, confirmed to planners that the German high command believed in the Bodyguard deceptions and gave them the enemy's order of battle. Visual deception The practice of using mock tanks and other military hardware had been developed during the North Africa campaign, especially in Operation Bertram for the attack at El Alamein. For Bodyguard, the Allies put less reliance in those forms of deception since they believed that the German ability to directly reconnoitre England was limited. Some mock hardware was, however, created, particularly dummy landing craft that were stockpiled in the supposed FUSAG staging area. Aftermath Operation Bodyguard is regarded as a tactical success, delaying the Fifteenth Army in the Pas-de-Calais for seven weeks thus allowing the Allies to build a beachhead and ultimately win the Battle of Normandy. In his memoirs, General Omar Bradley called Bodyguard the "single biggest hoax of the war". In his 2004 book, The Deceivers, Thaddeus Holt attributes the success of Fortitude to the trial run of Cockade in 1943: "FORTITUDE in 1944 could not have run as smoothly as it did if the London Controlling Section and its fellows had not gone through the exercise of COCKADE in the year before." References Bibliography Books Journals Websites Military deception during World War II World War II operations and battles of the Western European Theatre World War II deception operations