Talk:Operation Bodyguard

Removal of Operation Mincemeat
Operation Mincemeat should not be included with the deception plans under Operation Bodyguard. Mincemeat was a plan associated with Operation Husky, which was the invasion of Sicily in July 1943. Therefore it should not be associated with Bodyguard at all. RashBold 14 July 2005 (UTC)


 * See Talk:Operation Fortitude for references backing up the statement that Fortitude was a part of Bodyguard. DJ Clayworth 16:13, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

Expansion of Article and Correction of Errors
Having recently completed an undergrad paper on the subject of Operation Bodyguard, I find the lack of sources and information presented by this article a little disconcerting. I am going to add some information and take out what is critically incorrect.

What really needs to be added is that the main components of Operation Bodyguard were the three Operation Fortitude sub-operations and the influences of the London Controlling Station (LCS) and the 'XX' Committee (Double Cross System), which I also intend to correct in the poorly researched and heavily biased Operation Fortitude article.

Largely, Operation Bodyguard was the command and control portion of the strategic deception operations leading to the Allied invasion of Normandy (Battle of Normandy [''with the four (not three)sub-operations (Fortitude North, Fortitude South, Fortitude South II and Zeppelin).  The article does provide a good primer, but lacks the more detailed information necessary to provide real insight and information. ( Added by User:142.109.100.30 at 17:54. 20 March 2006 ''] If anyone has objections to this, feel free to contribute to the article yourself.

-Onward_KOCR User:OnwardKOCR,17:42, 20 March 2006
 * Please do contribute. Expanding this is somewhere way down my to-do list, and you clearly know more about it than I do. I would draw your attention to the user who contributed to this article and talk page and also Operation Fortitude who (according to his own user page) is the author of a major book on the subject and contends that Fortitude was not part of Bodyguard, but separate. I don't have the knowledge to judge the validity of this. But seriously, write whatever you know. What we have here is very sketchy. DJ Clayworth 18:07, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Correct name?
Every print source I've seen refers to the pre-invasion deception operations as "Plan Bodyguard." There's an apparent distinction in Allied military terminology of the time (and which I'm not entirely clear on) between what constituted a "plan" and what was an "operation" -- and it's not just between what was talked about and what actually happened. More than that, "Bodyguard" appears in the sources I've read to refer to the planning that preceded "Operation Fortitude," which was what was actually carried out -- divided into "Fortitude North" (Norway) and "Fortitude South" (Pas de Calais). So, are we sure the correct term is used in this article? -- Michael K Smith Talk 14:28, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that D-Day naval deceptions be merged into Operation Bodyguard. The operations detailed in the D-Day naval deceptions article are a subset of Operation Bodyguard, there is a major summary of Operation Bodyguard as part of that article, this article has very little details about those three minor operations and there's probably only 600 or so words which would be added here in the Normandy Landings section. This article is relatively short currently and would benefit from some more detail. Thanks! Kirk (talk) 19:35, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the thought. But no that is not a good idea. In fact I'm afraid it's a pretty thoughtless proposal by someone who hasn't taken the time to study the topic in some depth. Bodyguard has a number of sub operations. I spent a long time figuring out which ones .needed a seperate article. The D-Day deceptions are a relatively minor part of the overall strategy, meaning that a lot of detail here would have been pointless. With it's own article that detail has space to breath. There are a good number of other articles, of some length that will also be summarised here so while the articke is currently very short it will eventually be very long. Hopefully by the end of the year :) I'll write more later, but hopefully you can appreciate why I'm a bit peeved by this suggestion abd the lack of discussion with me re my approach overall to this content. unless you intend to spend significant amounts of time, like I have, in writing about deception can I please suggest you leave me to it in peace? Because I have to confess your approach here is putting me off bothering to write any more. --Errant (chat!) 20:40, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay at home so I can write a little more detail to explain why the D-Day deceptions are a seperate article. It's definitely borderline, so I understand where you are coming from, but it would have been much better to try and engage over the matter with me on the FAR, or on my talk page - doing it like this feels like you're telling me that I've not thought this through. Anyway, if I seem a little arsey that is why. Right. In terms of size a merge here is a bad idea. In total there are three main operations within the scope of Bodyguard. It's also worth noting at this point that not all of the Background section (of the D-Day article) is general Bodyguard content, around half of it is content directly concerned with these operations that does not exist in this article. So with the lead and general content removed this leaves approx. 1200 words of prose. Operation Titanic is going top be even larger - I expect around 2000 words of prose. Operation Fortitude will be massive - if I can keep it under 15,000 words it will be an achievement. Based on my notes and plans, merging all of this content to here (assuming you'll allow me to write Fortitude as a standalone and merely summarise it here) it will be pushing 20,000 words. So as soon as I try and get it reviewed I'll be asked to split it.
 * I have other concerns with a merge too; each operation (or small group of similar ops, remember the D-Day article is already the merge of three articles!) has its own analysis as to its efficacy. Plus Bodyguard has an overall analysis of how much it achieved. How do I present this content? The impact section for Bodyguard will be monolithic, with analysis for each Op. a long way from the original content. Alternatively the analysis could go within the prose, but that disrupts the chronology and I don't plan to take that approach. Packaging the operations like this means we can keep things short and sweet and accessible for our readers :) This is important to me.
 * Finally, I see no issue with the small amount of duplication between these articles. Or the article length, which is fine. The brief Bodyguard summary is totally okay because then I customise it for each article to establish a context. This neat package of context, operation, analysis/impact makes the topic easily accessible to the reader. It also then allows this article to focus on the broader strategy of Bodyguard without spending masses of time on the sub-operations (were you familiar with the topic you would understand why this makes sense).
 * Hopefully this shows how deeply I've considered the topic in general and how detailed my plan for these articles is. And I do hope I've convinced you that this is the right approach.
 * PS I also refer you to WP:SIZE, which I use as a handy guideline, which emphasises that above 10,000 words it is best to begin to split the article if possible. And fortunately this article delineates wonderfully, allowing us to split things down neatly! --Errant (chat!) 00:07, 27 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose I see no need to merge this article merely because it is a sub operation of a larger one. In fact such an idea nearly borders on the ridiculous. By the same logic, all of the separate Normandy beach articles could be merged into Operation Neptune - that is obviously not going to happen. I would also be opposed to operations like Fortitude or Titanic being merged into Bodyguard for exactly the same reason. Ranger Steve   Talk  19:05, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Operation Copperhead
I have tried to install a link to the current page titled 'I Was Monty's Double (film)' by keying-in I Was Monty's Double, but it only shows-up in red type, which is taken to mean that there is no such page. What am I doing wrong? Valetude (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I've just fixed this by copy and pasting from the film's Wikipedia article title into the wikilink. Wikipedia claims I've added or subtracted two characters by doing so, but I can't see what they might be.


 * The main recent author of this article, User:ErrantX, has quite some experience in computer forensics, so this can be his next challenge when he has some free time :-) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 23:08, 17 January 2014 (UTC)


 * I think it's the famous single quote vs tick mark problem. Had us all deceived. --Errant (chat!) 23:25, 17 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Ah... I'll be sure to include that in my next private key, then :) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 02:23, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Calais delais

 * Following the invasion, Hitler delayed redeploying forces from Calais and other regions to defend Normandy for nearly seven weeks. (The original plan had specified 14 days.)

Clarify: whose original plan? Hitler originally planned to shift forces in two weeks, or the deception hoped merely to delay the shift by two weeks? —Tamfang (talk) 20:21, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Goods point; it was the plan that was supposed to delay the moves Errant (chat!) 10:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)