User:ErrantX/Sandbox/List of Allied fictional units during World War II

During the Second World War the Allied nations created a number of fictional army units, usually as part of a military deception. Most notable were those used in Operation (Dudley Clarke's 1943 order of battle deception aimed at inflating the size of Allied forces in North Africa) and in Operation Bodyguard (the strategic cover deception for the 1944 Normandy invasion).

The created formations ranged in size from battalion to field army and were faked using documents, photographs, double agents, news reportage and physical subterfuge. Some of the units were either based on existing decommissioned formations (usually World War I formations) or created afresh. Many were used multiple times, Clarke in particular believed that reusing units in the long term would help establish their existence in the mind of the enemy.

US Formations
The most notable fictional US formation was the 1st US Army Group (FUSAG); this field army was originally intended as the main invasion force for the Invasion of Normandy, however that was renamed to the 12th Army Group. FUSAG remained in existence on paper and was used during Fortitude South to divert Axis attention to the Pas de Calais area.

British formations
British deception formations during the war largely fell into two camps. Firstly as part of Operation Fortitude, and its predecessors, on the Western front. But also those created by Dudley Clarke in the Middle East. In 1943 Clarke instituded a major order of battle deception, Operation Cascade, in which he created a pool of fictional units. The intention was to provide consistency in later deceptions (reusing the same units to convince the Germans of their existence) and to increase the apparent size of Allied forces in the area. It was a successful endeavour, and by the end of the war almost all of Clarke's units were accepted by the Axis as real.