First United States Army Group
The U.S. 1st Army Group ( 1st U.S. Army Group, short FUSAG ) was activated in 1943 in London to prepare for the invasion plans for the European continent. In October 1943, General Omar Bradley moved the headquarters to the UK, and Bradley took over the duties of the commander of the U.S. 1st Army and the FUSAG, which was later renamed in the 12th U.S. Army Group. However, General Bernard Montgomery should retain the command of all located in northern France American ground forces to secure invasion. On August 1, 1944, the official commissioning ceremony of the 12th U.S. Army Group under Bradley took place, so the 903,000 soldiers, divided into 21 divisions commanded.
A fictitious army
After transferring all units of FUSAG the 12th U.S. Army Group remained the FUSAG than sham army that existed only on paper, made up to 18 October 1944. It served to mislead the Germans, which should be kept in the belief that the Pas de Calais instead of Normandy would be the actual landfall of the invasion. The staffing was issued by skillful ploy as significantly larger than that of the 21st British Army Group under Montgomery. General George S. Patton, of the Eisenhower knew that he enjoyed a certain prestige among the Germans, was used as a commander. As part of Operation Fortitude, the FUSAG got a barracks near Dover allocated to convince the Germans for a long time after the successful Normandy landing from their intended use. This enabled 19 important and heavily-stocked German units on D-Day to inaction be condemned because they were waiting at the Pas de Calais on a landing that never took place.
By means of an elaborate deception plan, which was the submission of bogus messages through radio and radio are essentially based on, managed to build the fictitious FUSAG as part of Operation Quicksilver. In the radio and radio transmissions was from a Canadian Army, a U.S. Army, a Canadian Corps, three U.S. Corps, a Canadian Infantry Division, a Canadian armored unit, six U.S. infantry divisions and four U.S. armored units of the question.
The FUSAG ghost army lived alone by the spun around them stories that made their existence against the Germans seem plausible. It was reported by the recruitment of soldiers from a variety of U.S. states. Fictional commanders were invented and transfer complete baseball and football games between departments. Even private messages from the non-existent soldiers back home were read. If German spies in the United States and Great Britain are recognized on the FUSAG, education officers had been entrusted with the special task of these to locate to move into their confidence and to provide them with false information. Also revealed by the British and American intelligence and own agent "rotated " German spies sent to their superiors relevant reports.
As a visible equipment of FUSAG served in contrast to the generally held opinion no tanks, aircraft and artillery dummies, because at that time did not take place German reconnaissance flights over England. Only dummies of landing ships were used. These were placed in ports in South East England, of which it was assumed that if they were particularly under observation by German reconnaissance flights in the English Channel.
On the basis of German operations maps that had fallen into the hands of the Allies, the success of the deception operation to get it checked. The information gathered at Pas de Calais German units showed a clear picture. Coinciding with the real invasion units took the fictitious forces of FUSAG position shifts, which completed the confusion on the German side on.