GULLING THE HUN.
■ HOW WE KEPT HIM GUESSING. L References in Sir Douglas Haig'a h victory, despatch to dodges of camou--1 flage by which tho very gullible German was tricked give only a pale suggestion of the numerous artifices actually used. Tanks offered perhaps the best opening, because the Germans wero so terri- , fied of them. One stalwart colonel of i Tanks spent months in Flanders entraining and detraining the same little squad of tanks for fciie sole edification t ot enemy airmen and possible spiet The writer mi a Jim-t a German i intelligence report complaining that , the airmen always reported tanks, even when there was none, and refusing utterly to credit their news of real tanks assembling behind Arras because information had been so wrong in Flanders and elsewhere. , We used tanks made of lath and canvas as early as September. 1916, leaving them on the skyline at dawn and drawing a furious barrage. A fine i little flotilla of these dummies was used , in front of the Hindenburg line in Oc- • tober last, but the effect was, or Bhould have been, rather spoiled by the effects . of a strong wind which got under the canvas and totally capsized one. It was betrayed very much like the wood guns in the dummy Agamemnon, which gaily floated off on the surface of tho Mediterranean when the ship was struck. Happily, in both cases the Germans duly reported tho destruction of the target. Our airmen, whom the enemy were always attempting to deceive, were themselves adepts at deception. IWse aerodromes with false tents and even , false machines littered the country, and some were riddled with bombs* As soon as enemy night bombers were rei ported an electric light or two would . be switched on in the dummy. while the neighbouring reality reposed in safe obscurity. In the second battle of Meflsines a • whole corps, the Eighth, was given a . I purely dummy part. A sham camp was rigged up at night and quantities of dummy figures, at least as plausible ' as any of the false heads used by Ger- !; man snipers, were shown in support i trenches. , . , The lure worked to perfection and very soon after dawn German batteries >• poured shells among the empty tents I and the infantry made all preparations to resist an attack in force, afterwards duly chronicled in the German commuj nique as if a real assault had peen The writer has seen German artillery "drawn" in all sorts of ways. In one of tho Thiepval attacks clouds of smoke ■ were released on one flank, and tno ' fear of what might be lurking within • 'it drew down an intense barrage just > at the moment when _ the real assault • I was delivered on the right wing. With equal success buoys were placed • in the night along the Belgian coast ! when we advertised a sham threat, ana lit was great sport the next day to watch the German shore batteries and huge single guns "registering", for all they were worth on these suspicious anchorages. . . Both sideß had many sham batteries made of iron pipes, or even trees, and the enemy went so far as to shoot sham flashes from sham guns. But tno immense superiority of our airmen in observation and photography made ub much less gullible than the Germans, even when their efforts were more : elaborate. The final testimonial to tho 6ucoess of all this prctence came from a rather ' unexpected direction. It was found iji I the report of the chief German intelligence officer before the battle of Arras. He had before him plentiful evidence of an approaching attack, but came to the triumphant conclusion that the trains observed by German airmen were ; empty, that the tanks were the results jof nerves, that extra hospitals and • what not were mere pretence, and reported to headquarters that no British offensive was meditated. A copy of this document, taken in tho actual attack, made delicious reading. I So far has the art oT camouflage ; advanced that now the schools havo : two distinct branches of activity, one 'for "dissimulation" or hiding . what exists, one for "simulation" or displaying what does not exist.
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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16506, 25 April 1919, Page 8
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693GULLING THE HUN. Press, Volume LV, Issue 16506, 25 April 1919, Page 8
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