Egypt / Phantom Army 1942 Could anybody confirm that the British had installed a so called Phantom Army in the south of Siwa to disguise the Germans before el-Alamein? Have no clue about that subject and have never seen a reference. I must admit that I know more of the German books than of the English ones and therefore it is quite easily possible that I have missed something. But... if the German books don't tell about. Then it could even be that they just did not realize that there was something like this Phantom Army...
Not a direct confirmation but a hint on p164-166 of this; Deceiving Hitler: Double-Cross and ... - Google Book Search Another hint from; Camouflage in World War II (1939-1945) It would also be remiss of the author not mention the Camouflage Corps of the Allied forces. This little-known corps comprised an assortment of artists, scene painters, architects and even zoologists who made, through trial and error, a specialty of the art of disguise and mass deception. An example of their work was the hiding from German eyes of the movements of the British 10th Corps during the Battle of Egypt. The 10th Corps was moved from the rear into the forward line, and owing to the work of the Camouflage Corps in rigging up dummy guns, tank laagers, transport concentrations and troop lines, the movement of the vast mass of Allied soldiers and war material went totally unsuspected by the Germans. Might be worth chasing a copy of The Deceivers by Thaddeus Holt, it's still on my wants list but looks like the most complete study across the war.
Kuno don't know about a phantom army being built up at Siwa before Alamein - doesn't make any sense in resupplying through the enemy lines at that time skirting the edge of the Quattara depression and the great sand sea - no way that made sense - there was however a great deal of subterfuge going on behind the Alamein line. Such as a new fuel pipeline being built out of old fuel cans and pointing to the south of the line - so scheduled for completion at the end of November - ensuring that Rommel would think that was where the main attack was to come from - it must have worked at he moved the 21st PZ Div down there - had to bring themn back up north again though with a fair loss of fuel ! What had looked like trucks from the air suddenly became Tanks - Tanks in the south were really trucks etc -all sorts of things went on just to confuse the enemy - most of them appeared to work. Cheers
Do you mean along the same lines as the phantom corps set up under Patton in England to confuse the Germans about Allied intentions? I havent heard of it to be honest but I would not be surprised to hear that one did exist.
Thanks for this information colleagues. Will note it here, if I should come across more information...
Kuno, As a staging base for LRDG and later SAS operations Siwa did see a lot of coming and going by all sorts of units and occasionally signals intelligence transmitted false signals to decon on 15/16 Sept 1942 the allies dropped dummy parachutists on the Oasis in an attempt to cause a diversion during a raid on Italian held Jalo. Apparently the diversion and the raid were unsuccessful. Macca
Kuno - The only phantom army in that area was when the ficticious Ninth army was set up in Syria etc under Maitland-Smith's HQ in an attempt to persuade the Germans that they would not be able to come further south from the Russian southern front without a fight to take over the oil wells at Saudi Arabia - and meet up with Rommel if and when he broke through at El Alamein...as Macca says - Siwa - Jalo and other outposts did see a lot of activity by the odd lots -LRDG - SAS - Popski's et al..... as Rommel was known to say - these were Mosquito bites - and Monty put the kybosh on them - preferring to channel all activities into Divisional strength Cheers
Here´s a link to Jasper Maskelyne and His Magic Gang: Jasper Maskelyne - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia His work in Operation Bertram is what created the phantom army we´re discussing here.
Out of all above I conclude that there was no setup for such Phantom Army in the area south of Siwa. Maybe my memory was wrong...
To this subject I found that the British had "Lambert", a (turned) secret agent of the Germans sitting in Cairo. He was giving them wrong information about new army setups and supplies. Am not yet familiar with te subject but it might be that he was 'our' Phantom Army...
Kuno As Tom says in his post they built a dummy pipeline and moved vehicles around to make it look as though an army was being moved into the area, my father actually worked on this subtafuge , his comment was we built a water pipe of sand accross the desert remembering to leave a bit of pipe in such away at the end that jerry would pick it up during recon. He also mentioned patrols and watchers being in and around the depression at the time to ensure there was no sneek attack. Perhaps this and dummy vehicles plus fictious radio trafic was enough to convince Rommel that an army was there, by this time he had lost his main source of information (Bonner Fellows) and the Aussies had captured his code breakers. Oldman
