Small units which could collect information and engage in sabotage … the use of so-called irregular forces. Secrets of War s1e4: Weapons of the Shadow War
The Special Operations Executive or SOE … The SOE recruited volunteers … irregular warfare, sabotage and subversion. ibid.
The availability of secret lightweight and reliable radios was a significant factor in the pitched battles of the shadow war. ibid.
No plunder however was as great or as well organised as just that executed by Nazi Germany in World War II. From the moment he was democratically elected in 1933 Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party lieutenants used their power to personally enrich themselves. Secrets of War s1e5: Nazi Gold
Hitler needed accomplices in Switzerland’s banking community. ibid.
Stealing the gold was only the first part: then the Nazis had to launder it. ibid.
Almost immediately the Battle of the Atlantic was joined. This was a conflict neither side was prepared for. There were only 27 ocean-going U-boats in the German fleet, and the Allies had barely enough anti-submarine warships to counter this small threat. Secrets of War s1e6: The Battle of the Atlantic
The convoy system was critical for transporting much-needed men and supplies across the north Atlantic. ibid.
The cryptanalysts had succeeded in breaking the Luftwaffe and Wehrmacht Enigma codes. ibid.
As many as ten submarines would converge on a convoy. ibid.
The curious period known as the Sitzkrieg – phoney war – an eight-month span from the end of September 1939 to the beginning of May 1940 without battles. Secrets of War s1e7: Sitzkrieg: The Phoney War
For months the British had been contemplating an invasion of neutral Norway in order to cut off Germany’s supply of iron-ore. ibid.
Over 300,000 British and French troops were brought back to England. ibid.
Britain faced a military juggernaut that had conquered most of western Europe in less than two months and that now stood poised 22 miles across the English channel. Secrets of War s1e8: The Battle of Britain
In 1936 RAF Fighter Command was created. ibid.
The Luftwaffe had almost 3,000 aircraft of which 1,000 were any one of nine fighters compared to the RAF’s 800 Hurricanes and Spitfires. ibid.
The legend of the Few was born. ibid.
On 7th September Hermann Goering initiated a campaign of terror against the people of London. ibid.
The means and goals of military deception are essentially the same. Secrets of War s1e9: Tools of Deception
By the Second World War camouflage was an accepted facet of tactical planning … Both sides instituted massive civil camouflage programmes. ibid.
Perhaps the most widely and effectively used decoys were fake tanks. ibid.
The decoy itself evolved … Inflatable decoys were quite convincing. ibid.
Fake airfields were fabricated. ibid.
Disinformation: The deliberate manipulation of truths, half-truths and lies … Leaflets: they could be packed in special artillery shells and fired over enemy lines. ibid.
Both sides used radio to spread propaganda. ibid.
The British assumed that the discovery of a body of a British officer would be brought to the attention of the Nazis. ibid.
In February 1941 Hitler’s favourite general, Erwin Rommel, landed in north Africa to take command of the Afrika Korps … the perfect battleground for his tanks. Secrets of War s1e10: Rommel’s Enigma
That weapon was the intelligence he gathered through various means but the British too had covert means. In Bletchley Park outside of London a secret army of cryptographers worked on breaking the German Enigma. ibid.
Malta was hit by tremendous bombardment. ibid.
The British realised that brute force could not create an advantage; they would have to turn to deception once again. ibid.
The Magic Gang had struck again. ibid.
Secret weapons that seemed so incredible they defied belief. There were warnings about giant rockets that could travel into space and rain down on their targets hundreds of miles away. There were rumours about electronic beams that could guide bombers to their targets in darkness or in bad weather. There was even talk about guided bombs … Secrets of War s1e11: Secret Weapons of the Third Reich
What Winston Churchill called the Wizard War. ibid.
German weapons development was also greatly hindered by the absence of any central organisation capable of supervising the various projects. ibid.
German designers created remote-control weapons that could not be jammed. ibid.
Eventually Von Braun created a masterpiece: the world’s first ballistic missile. ibid.
The German Navy also created its share of secret weapons. ibid.
6th June 1944: As dawn breaks on western Europe savage naval barrage pounds off the coast of France. Secrets of War s1e12: D-Day Deceptions
The overall deception plan, codenamed JL, was presented to the Allied Chiefs of Staff in October 1943. ibid.
The aim of Fortitude South was to convince the Germans that the target of the upcoming invasion was the Pas de Calais. ibid.
Beneath the heavy cloak of secrecy the Mulberry Project was born. ibid.
This Nazi drive took thousands of prisoners from towns and villages in its path, and the bodies of 100,000 victims littered the Earth. Secrets of War s1e13: The French Resistance
[Jean] Moulin created the CNR – the national committee of the Resistance. ibid.
But in 1942 the letters OSS meant different things to different people: to an outsider they stood for Oh So Secret, an enigmatic shadow organisation of spies and saboteurs, the predecessor to today’s CIA. Secrets of War s1e28: The OSS
The [UK] SOE had recently been formed for the purposes of sabotage and subversion in German occupied territory. ibid.
There was a kind of elite esprit to serving in Intelligence. ibid.
Donovan divided his organisation into two groups: the choirboys – scholars, scientists and propaganda writers who stayed in Washington analyzing information; and the Cowboys – the field agents who roamed the world gathering information behind enemy lines. ibid.
As tensions mounted in the Pacific the importance of breaking the enigmatic cipher became all the more pressing. Secrets of War s1e29: Breaking the Japanese Code
William Friedman: The Index of Coincidence and its Applications in Cryptography. ibid.
Elizabeth Friedman became not only the Treasury Department’s primary cryptologist but also the government’s star witness in a number of high-profile smuggling cases. ibid.
The American codebreakers called it [Japanese machine] simply Purple. ibid.
In January of ’42 they finally succeeded in breaking the Japanese naval code JM25. ibid.
These were the sites of unimaginable crimes against humanity. They were the culmination of an enterprise in deceit that began with eviction and imprisonment spiralling into mass execution. An industry of death. Secrets of War s1e31: The Holocaust Secret
400 laws … prevented Jews from making a living. ibid.
British Intelligence very quickly came to the only possible solution. ibid.
Mengele was far from alone in experimenting on human specimens. ibid.
This was the apocalyptic fruition of the final solution. ibid.
With articles appearing in American newspapers … The public was not roused by the plight of the Jews. ibid.
A paranoid manic depressive man who exploited his friends, his political party, an entire nation in his quest for conquest and destruction. Secrets of War s1e32: Hitler’s Secrets
The executions began a bloody rampage by Stalin. ibid.
Hitler’s string of victories in western Europe stalled. ibid.