{"id":10366,"date":"2016-01-02T08:11:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T14:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=10366"},"modified":"2016-01-02T08:11:44","modified_gmt":"2016-01-02T14:11:44","slug":"ww2-history-the-most-amazing-lie-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/02\/ww2-history-the-most-amazing-lie-in-history\/","title":{"rendered":"WW2 History: The Most Amazing Lie in History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WW2\"<\/p>\n

How a chicken farmer, a pair of princesses, and 27 imaginary spies helped the Allies win World War II<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of <\/i>Mental Floss Magazine.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the weeks leading up to D-day,<\/b> Allied commanders had their best game faces on. \u201cThis operation is not being planned with any alternatives,\u201d barked General Dwight D. Eisenhower. \u201cThis operation is planned as a victory, and that\u2019s the way it\u2019s going to be!\u201d Indeed, more than 6,000 ships were ready to cruise across the English Channel to plant the first wave of two million troops on the white beaches of Normandy. Nearly 20,000 vehicles would crawl ashore as 13,000 planes dropped \u00adthousands of tons of explosives and thousands of paratroopers.<\/p>\n

The sheer size of the invasion\u2014it would be the largest in history\u2014was staggering. But so were the stakes. With the first day\u2019s casualty rate expected to reach 90 percent and the outcome of World War II hanging in the balance, the truth was that Eisenhower was riddled with doubt. He\u2019d transformed into an anxious chimney, puffing four packs of cigarettes a day. Other Allied leaders felt equally unsure. \u201cI see the tides running red with their blood,\u201d Winston Churchill \u00adlamented. General George S. Patton privately complained of feeling \u201cawfully restless.\u201d Chief of the Imperial General Staff Alan Brooke was more blunt: \u201cIt won\u2019t work,\u201d he said. The day before the invasion, Eisenhower quietly penciled a note accepting blame in case he had to order retreat. When he watched the last of the 101st Airborne Division take off, the steely general started to\u00a0cry.<\/p>\n

They were worried for good reason. With so many troops and so much artillery swelling in England, it was impossible to keep the attack a secret. Hitler knew it was coming, and he\u2019d been preparing a defense for months. Only one detail eluded him, and he was confident in a Nazi victory if he could figure it out\u2014he needed to know where, exactly, the attack would happen. To make D-day a success, the Allies needed to keep him in the dark: They\u2019d have to trick the Germans into thinking the real invasion was just a bluff, while making it seem like a major attack was imminent elsewhere. The task seemed impossible, but luckily, the British had a secret weapon: a short, young balding Spaniard. He was the king of con men, an amateur spy gone pro, the world\u2019s sneakiest liar. He was also, of all things, a chicken\u00a0farmer.<\/p>\n

Read the Remainder at Mental Floss<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How a chicken farmer, a pair of princesses, and 27 imaginary spies helped the Allies win World War II This story originally appeared in the September 2014 issue of Mental Floss Magazine. In the weeks leading up to D-day, Allied commanders had their best game faces on. \u201cThis operation is not being planned with any…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[475,1286,1898,1899],"tags":[3579,3580,3581,3582,3583,3584,3122],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}