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You mean you don't remember history that way? That's because it was a lie. It was an elaborate deception, possibly the largest, most elaborate and most successful deception in the history of warfare. FUSAG didn't exist; some of the units assigned to it were real (such as the British Guards) but most of the divisions in it were completely mythical. The purpose of Fortitude was, actually, to tie down German units uselessly in Calais so that they could not oppose the actual landing in Normandy, and in fact the majority of German armored units in France sat patiently in that area while their brothers were getting butchered in the hedgerows. The Germans finally wised up when it was too late, after the Cobra breakout. The kinds of things involved in Fortitude stagger the mind. Entire areas were populated with fake aircraft and trucks and tanks, often made of rubber which was inflated. From closeup they wouldn't convince anyone but from air they looked completely convincing. German aircraft were largely not permitted to scout the UK at that point, but some of the ones flying over these phantom units were permitted to live and report back. All the notional divisions and units had real radio units which sent fake traffic back and forth, consistent with what real units of those sizes would have been sending. Occasionally one of the radio units would "slip" and send a message to another in clear with chatty questions like "Know any good brothels in Calais?" In the US, factories were contracted to create unit insignias for divisions which never existed. National Geographic magazine published an issue which had a color spread showing insignias for various units, including some of the ones which didn't exist. Then, that issue was recalled and a new one was issued which didn't have them -- the idea being to try to fool German agents into thinking that the US had slipped up and was trying to hide their existence. Some units were shipped out of the US wearing insignias for fake divisions, and once at sea were issued the correct ones for the units they were actually going to join. During the preparatory bombing of France, for every bomb which was dropped in the Normandy area, two were dropped on Calais on targets consistent with trying to soften the area up for invasion. This is just a small sample of the things which were done; the deception involved thousands of men all over the world. The Germans went for it hook, line, and sinker; and this before the age of big telecommunications -- enormous planning went into figuring how to let Germany know about Fortitude without letting the Germans realize that they were getting fed. In 1944 there was no internet, no international television. Deception campaigns have to be designed for the era in which they take place. It should not come as a surprise that the same kind of thing happens all the time. During the Gulf War, there was also a great deal of deception intended to fool the Iraqis into not realizing that the attack would actually come out of the desert far to the west of Kuwait, the now-legendary "left hook". One part of that deception was feigned preparation for a Marine landing on the coast of Kuwait. This time the force making the feint wasn't phony; there was a real US battle group sitting off the coast of Kuwait and it had attack ships. There was a full marine unit (probably brigade strength) ready to go and it could have landed if the opportunity had arisen. But it wasn't expected to do so; its purpose was to tie down Iraqi forces, and it succeeded in doing that: one third of a US Marine division tied down more than three Iraqi divisions. That is economy of force; it was one of the major contributors to the victory. As a result, those Marines' mates on the shore didn't have to fight those same divisions frontally; they hit them in flank and rolled them up, causing them to rout. (Many of them were then caught on the "Highway of Death" by allied air power.) In that particular operation, the US relied heavily on the big media. The media were kept in the dark about the movement of troops to the west, but they were given ample opportunity to cover that Marine landing force -- and the Iraqis saw that coverage and prepared for it, to their detriment. Of course, that also meant that the US public were deceived, which was unavoidable -- and unimportant. To the men on the ground (and civilians at home), sometimes the orders they receive seem totally nonsensical. They often explain this as a general stupidity by top command, not realizing that there may be a method to their madness and one which cannot be explained at the time without rendering the entire operation useless. By its nature, a deception campaign is intended to fool the enemy about our intentions; and if we tell our own people the truth our enemy will learn it. So don't be surprised if you see things reported in the news about our upcoming war which are later corrected, or intimations of military operations which never happen. They may announce that bin Laden is in a certai 
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