but an immense concentration of power in a single main landing. The invasion site would have to be close to at least one major port and airbase to allow for efficient supply lines. Possible sites included among others, the Pas de Calais across the Strait of Dover, and the beaches of Cotentin. It was decided by the Allies that the beaches of Cotentin would be the landing site for Operation Overlord. In my opinion, the primary reason that the invasion worked was deception. Deception to mislead the Germans as to the time and place of the invasion. To accomplish this, the British already had a plan known as Jael, which involved whispering campaigns in diplomatic posts around the world and various distractions to keep German eyes focused anywhere but on the coast of northwestern France. An important point to the deception was Ultra, code name for intelligence obtained from intercepts of German radio traffic. This was made possible by the British early in the war having broken the code of the standard German radio enciphering machine, the Enigma. Through Ultra the Allied high command knew what the Germans expected the Allies to do and thus could plant information either to reinforce an existing false view or to feed information through German agents, most of it false but enough of it true-and thus sometimes involving sacrifice of Allied troops, agents or resistance forces in occupied countries-to maintain the credibility of the German agents. Six days before the targeted date of June 5, troops boarded ships, transports, aircraft all along the southern and southwestern coasts of England. All was ready for one of history's most dramatic and momentous events. One important question was left unanswered though: what did the Germans know? Under Operation Fortitude, a fictitious American force-the 1st Army Group-assembled just across the Channel from the Pas de Calais. Dummy troops, false radio traffic, dummy landing craft in the bay of the Thames r...
