During a war it is not unusual for either side to try and trick the other. The aim would be to get the other side to commit forces to the wrong place. This would weaken the defenses in the area about to be attacked. No where was this practiced on a grander scale than when the allies, in the Second World War, used Gen. Patton as a decoy. They set up fake armies with make believe equipment and increased what is known as radio chatter, to get the Axis powers to believe that an army under Patton was being built to invade Europe. Meanwhile the allies were getting ready to invade much sooner. This must have worked, because during the invasion of Normandy, the Germans withheld some of their divisions fearing that the real invasion was coming from a different direction. Blowup rubber tanks, trucks and planes were erected all around the area in England where the phantom army was supposedly being assembled. A kit became available that allowed soldiers to make their trucks look like tanks. German planes taking photos of the area thought that they had gotten pictures of massive supplies of tanks, planes and equipment, when really it was all a rouse. Until the actual invasion of Europe, the Germans were not sure where and when the allied invasion would come..

While the world is not technically at war, there is still plenty of fighting going on. Russia has had a problem with draft dodgers. Knowing that they had to do something, they came up with a couple of schemes. They would offer attractive jobs to young men and when they came to apply, they found themselves in the military. Another trick that the Russians used, was to offer dates with attractive women. You guessed it, instead of a date with a girl, they got a date with a drill sergeant. Somehow I don't think that this was as satisfying. Another way that is being employed to catch these draft dodgers is to wait in a doorway and when the person leaves to go to work, grab him. These tactics have to be used, because the police and military can't enter a home without a warrant. Gee, the Russians now have more rights in some ways than we do.

Another trick that was used in World War II was to drop, what are now known as, paradummies. The first ones were filled with straw and covered with burlap and nicknamed Rupert. Later in the war a more sophisticated rubber dummy was used that was named Oscar. The British had contacted an American manufacturing company to make the dummies for them. The company was Interstate Manufacturing Company and they secretly manufactured an initial order of 3,800 dummies and sent them to Canada, where they were shipped to Britain. The dummies were actually manufactured initially in 1938, a year before the war started in Europe. The dummies were dropped over enemy lines to confuse the defenders. They were even used on D-Day. The British were not the only ones to use paradummies, as a matter of fact the Germans are credited with the first use of them when they dropped them over Belgium on May 10, 1940. This was not the only time that German paradummies were used, they were employed at various times in the war by the German airborne. They used them against the Americans in the Battle of the Bulge. Many an American soldier went off on a wild goose chase after these dummies, thinking that German paratroops were descending out of the sky.

Sitting Bull, the great American indian chief, led Custer into a trap by using dirty tricks. He got Custer to believe that he was chasing a small party of indians. Sitting Bull was Shon-he Tantaka lyotake. There are several other names credited to him however. Custer was never allowed to see the scope of Sitting Bull's forces. When George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked at the Little Big Horn River, they were startled to see Sitting Bull come racing in at the head of a war party over 3,000 strong. They had been fooled and doomed.

Another trick that has been used throughout the ages is a very simple one. You let the enemy get its hands on a secret message that is actually one that was composed to fool him. To make it seem even more genuine, if you are using a messenger, you make him think that it is vital. This way, when he is captured, he will believe that the message is important and his actions will convince the enemy.

You may think that trickery in wartime is something fairly new. If you do, you would be wrong. Trickery has been going on since there were wars and individual trickery has probably gone on from before that. The ancient greeks would cover their messages with wax to make the tablets look blank, that their messengers carried during war time. Many leaders would enlist doubles in case their enemies tried assassination or kidnapping. In World War II the British had a magician or more accurately an illusionist make the German's think that the Suez Canal was in a different place, so that when it was bombed by the Germans, they were merely wasting bombs. He fixed up a nearby area to look exactly like the canal, lights and all and the real canal would go dark. The Germans seeing the lights and some familiar landmarks that had been manufactured, would drop their load and head home happy in the thought that they did their jobs.

One big part of deception during wartime is disinformation. The Germans were victims of it during the war. The British had managed to get so many double agents in place by 1943, that the Germans were going to double agents for information about them. The Germans didn't suspect that most of their contacts that were feeding them info about the British, were misleading them. Because of the disinformation, the Germans had completely overestimated the size of the allied forces. One of the more famous double agents was code named Garbo. Garbo was a Spanish citizen that hated the Nazis. He went to the British first, but they didn't want him as a spy. The next thing he did was establish himself as a German spy and then went to the British who now greeted him with open arms. He would fabricate shipping reports and such from England, but he was really in Lisbon. He would watch newsreels and report real ships form news events. The Germans fell for this hook, line and sinker. He also convinced the Germans that he was the head spy for a whole nest of spies in England that were supposedly working for him. In 1942 he was sent to England. The British fed the Germans true information, such as troop movements, but through things like letters postmarked before the movements, but delivered after them. This gave him legitimacy, yet prevented harm to the troops. Garbo actually convinced the Germans that he had 27 agents working for him and the Germans paid him for all of them. He was decorated by the Germans and decorated by the British and possessed the Iron Cross and the MBE.

I saved one of the greatest wartime deceptions for last. The allies had to make the Germans believe that they were going to invade the Balkans and Sardinia instead of Sicily, where they really intended to go. The had frozen a corpse, it was an officer. They thawed him out and put him in the water, where he would wash up on a beach in German occupied territory. He had a case with him and in that case were papers, that when read would convince the Germans that the invasion was taking place in the wrong area. The Germans found the body and the papers and became convinced. The plan had worked. The dead officer had become not only a hero in life, but also in death.

There will always be tricks in wars, heaven knows that there are certainly enough in peacetime.