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R-Force
R Force was a British deception force during World War II that consisted of armoured vehicles, field engineers and a wireless unit. During Operation Fortitude it attempted to exaggerate the strength of Allied forces in Britain, and deceive German intelligence about Allied intentions. Later it performed a similar role during the fighting in Western Europe in 1944–45. It was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel David Strangeways. History Lieutenant Colonel David Strangeways served in the North African Campaign with Brigadier Dudley Clarke's A Force, a special unit that used radio nets to give out false information, and decoy tanks and other vehicles to divert Axis forces away from the areas of Allied attack. Strangeways implemented a deception plan designed to fool the Axis powers as to the time and place of the Allied invasion of North Africa. Later in the campaign, using a combination of bluff, boldness and speed Strangeways was able to seize the German headquarters at Tunis ...
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David Strangeways
David Inderwick Strangeways DSO, OBE (26 February 19121 August 1998) was a colonel in the British Army who helped organise several military deceptions during World War II. After leaving the army in 1957, he took holy orders.Obituary: Canon David Strangeways
''The Independent''.


Early life

Strangeways was born in , the third son of Strangeways, founder of the
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Operation Fortitude
Operation Fortitude was a military deception operation by the Allied nations as part of Operation Bodyguard, an overall deception strategy during the buildup to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two subplans, North and South, and had the aim of misleading the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, German High Command as to the location of the invasion. Fortitude had evolved from plans submitted by Noel Wild, the head of Ops (B), and John Bevan (British Army officer), John Bevan, from the London Controlling Section in late 1943. Early revisions in January 1944 suggested a fictional buildup of troops in southern England with the hope of drawing German attention to the Calais region. Colonel David Strangeways, head of Montgomery's R Force deception staff, was unimpressed with the approach. He was widely critical of the original plan and eventually rewrote the Fortitude deception with a focus on creating a more realistic threat. Both Fortitude plans involved the creatio ...
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Reconnaissance
In military operations, military reconnaissance () or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnaissance is abbreviated to ''recce'' (in British, Canadian, Australian English) and to ''recon'' (in American English), both derived from the root word ''reconnoitre'' / ''reconnoitering''. The types of reconnaissance include patrolling the local area of operations and long-range reconnaissance patrols, which are tasks usually realized in the United States of America by U.S. Army Rangers, cavalry scouts, and military intelligence specialists, using navy ships and submarines, Aerial reconnaissance, reconnaissance aircraft, satellites to collect raw intelligence; and establishing observation posts. Moreover, espionage is different from reconnaissance, because spies work as civilians in enemy territory. Etymology The word is derived from the ...
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Jason Durr
Jason Durr (born 2 December 1967) is a British actor of theatre, television and film. Durr made his television debut as Alex Hartman in 1990 in the sci-fi drama '' Jupiter Moon'' in 1990 and went on to star as Mike Bradley in the Yorkshire-based police drama series '' Heartbeat'' from 1997 until 2003. Between 2016 and 2023, he appeared in the medical drama series ''Casualty'' as David Hide. Early life Durr was born on 2 December 1967 in Singapore. After leaving Leighton Park School, Durr trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Career In his early career Durr worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company under director Trevor Nunn. From 1997 to 2003, he starred as Mike Bradley in the Yorkshire-based police drama series '' Heartbeat''. In 2009, he appeared in a two-part British television drama, '' Above Suspicion''. He received favourable reviews for his performance as murder suspect Alan Daniels. In 2012, Durr starred as Guy Littleton in Noël Coward's ''Volcano ...
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Operation Plunder
Operation Plunder was a military operation to cross the Rhine on the night of 23 March 1945, launched by the 21st Army Group under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery. The crossing of the river was at Rees, Wesel, and south of the river Lippe by the British Second Army under Lieutenant General Miles Dempsey, and the United States Ninth Army under Lieutenant General William H. Simpson. The Battle of the Rhine was crucial for the Allied advance into Germany, and was planned by Montgomery as a three-army assault, including an airborne assault, a five-thousand-gun artillery barrage, and Anglo-American bombers. Thousands of tons of supplies were brought forward including huge amounts of bridging equipment. The First Allied Airborne Army conducted Operation Varsity on the east bank of the Rhine in support of Operation Plunder, consisting of U.S. XVIII Airborne Corps, the British 6th, and the U.S. 17th Airborne Divisions. Operation Grenade in February by Simpson's Ninth Ar ...
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Rouen
Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine, in northwestern France. It is in the prefecture of Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe, the population of the metropolitan area () is 702,945 (2018). People from Rouen are known as ''Rouennais''. Rouen was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy during the Middle Ages. It was one of the capitals of the Anglo-Normans, Anglo-Norman and Angevin kings of England, Angevin dynasties, which ruled both England and large parts of modern France from the 11th to the 15th centuries. From the 13th century onwards, the city experienced a remarkable economic boom, thanks in particular to the development of textile factories and river trade. Claimed by both the French and the English during the Hundred Years' War, it was on its soil that Joan of Arc was tried and burned alive on 30 ...
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Brussels
Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalities, 19 municipalities, including the City of Brussels, which is the capital of Belgium. The Brussels-Capital Region is located in the central portion of the country. It is a part of both the French Community of Belgium and the Flemish Community, and is separate from the Flemish Region (Flanders), within which it forms an enclave, and the Walloon Region (Wallonia), located less than to the south. Brussels grew from a small rural settlement on the river Senne (river), Senne to become an important city-region in Europe. Since the end of the Second World War, it has been a major centre for international politics and home to numerous international organisations, politicians, Diplomacy, diplomats and civil servants. Brussels is the ''de facto' ...
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Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful liberation of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day (military term), D-Day) with the Normandy landings (Operation Neptune). A 1,200-plane Airborne forces, airborne assault preceded an amphibious warfare, amphibious assault involving more than 5,000 vessels. Nearly 160,000 troops crossed the English Channel on 6 June, and more than two million Allied troops were in France by the end of August. The decision to undertake cross-channel landings in 1944 was made at the Washington Conference (1943), Trident Conference in Washington, D.C., Washington in May 1943. American General Dwight D. Eisenhower was appointed commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, and British General Bernard Montgomery was named commander of the 21st Army Group, ...
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Pas-de-Calais
The Pas-de-Calais (, ' strait of Calais'; ; ) is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments of France, with 890, and is the 8th most populous. It had a population of 1,465,278 in 2019.Populations légales 2019: 62 Pas-de-Calais
INSEE
The Calais Passage connects to the Port of Calais on the . The Pas-de-Calais borders the departments of
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Operation Quicksilver (WWII)
Operation Fortitude was a military deception operation by the Allied nations as part of Operation Bodyguard, an overall deception strategy during the buildup to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two subplans, North and South, and had the aim of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the invasion. Fortitude had evolved from plans submitted by Noel Wild, the head of Ops (B), and John Bevan, from the London Controlling Section in late 1943. Early revisions in January 1944 suggested a fictional buildup of troops in southern England with the hope of drawing German attention to the Calais region. Colonel David Strangeways, head of Montgomery's R Force deception staff, was unimpressed with the approach. He was widely critical of the original plan and eventually rewrote the Fortitude deception with a focus on creating a more realistic threat. Both Fortitude plans involved the creation of phantom field armies (based in Edinburgh and southern E ...
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Imperial War Museum
The Imperial War Museum (IWM), currently branded "Imperial War Museums", is a British national museum. It is headquartered in London, with five branches in England. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, it was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of the United Kingdom and its Empire during the First World War. The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims "to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience'." Originally housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill, the museum opened to the public in 1920. In 1924, it moved to space in the Imperial Institute in South Kensington and in 1936 it acquired a permanent home at the former Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark, which serves as its headquarters. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the museum expand bot ...
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Royal Signals
The Royal Corps of Signals (often simply known as the Royal Signals – abbreviated to R SIGNALS) is one of the combat support arms of the British Army. Signals units are among the first into action, providing the battlefield communications and information systems essential to all operations. Royal Signals units provide the full telecommunications infrastructure for the Army wherever they operate in the world. The Corps has its own engineers, logistics experts and systems operators to run radio and area networks in the field. It is responsible for installing, maintaining and operating all types of telecommunications equipment and information systems, providing command support to commanders and their headquarters, and conducting electronic warfare against enemy communications. History Origins In 1870, 'C' Telegraph Troop, Royal Engineers, was founded under Captain Montague Lambert. The Troop was the first formal professional body of signallers in the British Army and its duty ...
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