First United States Army Group

Fictitious WWII Allied military unit

For the oldest and longest-established field army of the United States Army, see First United States Army.

First United States Army Group

Insignia of First United States Army Group

Active| 1943–44
Country|  United States
Branch|  United States Army
Type| Army group
Role| Military diversion,
phantom formation
Commanders
Notable
commanders|

* Omar N. Bradley
* Courtney Hodges
* George S. Patton
* Lesley J. McNair
* William H. Simpson
* John L. DeWitt

Military unit

First United States Army Group (often abbreviated FUSAG) was a fictitious (paper command) Allied Army Group in World War II prior to D-Day, part of Operation Quicksilver, created to deceive the Germans about where the Allies would land in France. To attract Axis attention, prominent US general George S. Patton was placed in command of the fabricated formation.

## History

[edit]

First U.S. Army Group was activated in London in 1943 as the planning formation for the Allied invasion of France under General Omar Bradley. When Twelfth United States Army Group was activated on 1 August 1944, Bradley and his staff transferred to the headquarters of the new army group. Despite a lack of personnel, FUSAG continued to exist on paper as part of the deception of Operation Quicksilver. In order to make the German forces believe the Allied invasion would come at Pas de Calais, the phantom force was stationed at Dover, directly across the English Channel from the site. To further attract the Axis commanders' attention, General Dwight D. Eisenhower placed George S. Patton in command of the phantom force and increased the formation's apparent size to be larger than the British-led 21st Army Group under Bernard Montgomery. Patton was considered by the Germans to be a formidable offensive commander; he was temporarily unemployed as punishment for slapping a battle-fatigued soldier in Sicily.[1]

The deception worked so well that significant German forces remained in the Pas de Calais region for seven weeks after the real invasion at Normandy to defend against what they thought would be the true invasion force.[2]

Agents infiltrated by Germany into the United Kingdom who became double agents acting for Britain in the Double Cross System—notably Juan Pujol García (Garbo)—played a vital role in persuading the Germans that FUSAG was real. After it had become clear that Normandy, not Calais, was the invasion site, to preserve the credibility of the Double Cross network's agents in spite of the totally false information they had persuaded the Germans to believe, the Germans were persuaded that FUSAG had been real, but had been disbanded and attached to the forces at Normandy because the Normandy "diversion" had been so successful that the Calais landing had become unnecessary.

Shoulder patches of some nonexistent units of FUSAG

## Subordinate units

[edit]

What follows is the order of battle for the First United States Army Group at one point during Operation Fortitude. The various formations changed as the operation continued in order to mislead Axis intelligence.

* First United States Army Group
* British Fourth Army; fictitious (was real in WWI) – Edinburgh
* British 2nd Airborne Division; fictitious – Bulford
* British VII Corps; notional – Dundee
* 55th Infantry Division (United States); fictitious – Iceland
* 80th Division; fictitious – southern England
* 7th, 9th, and 10th US Ranger Battalions; fictitious – Iceland[3]
* British II Corps; notional – Stirling
* 55th (West Lancashire) Infantry Division; notional — Three Bridges
* 58th Infantry Division; fictitious — Gravesend
* 35th Armoured Brigade; notional — Maresfield
* US 14th Army; fictitious — Little Waltham
* 9th Airborne Division; fictitious — Leicester
* 21st Airborne Division; fictitious — Fulbeck
* XXXIII Corps; fictitious — HQ Bury St Edmunds
* 11th Infantry Division; fictitious — Bury St Edmunds
* 48th Infantry Division; fictitious — Woodbridge
* 25th Armored Division; fictitious — East Dereham
* XXXVII Corps; fictitious — HQ Chelmsford
* 17th Infantry Division; fictitious — Hatfield & Peverel
* 59th Infantry Division; fictitious — Ipswich
* Ninth United States Army; fictitious until 15 April 1944, when the name was taken by a new - real - US field army, which deployed to battle September 1944

## See also

[edit]

* Operation Fortitude
* Operation Bodyguard

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "The Crucial Deception Page 3 - Articles & Publications - Military History Institute - Projects - Dolph Briscoe Center for American History". Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 29 June 2011.
2. ^ Ben Macintyre (2012). Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies. Crown. ISBN 978-0-307-88876-1.
3. ^ Thaddeus Holt. The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War. Phoenix. 2005. ISBN 0-7538-1917-1

## Further reading

[edit]

* Jon Latimer, Deception in War, London: John Murray, 2001

## External links

[edit]

* GlobalSecurity: First US Army Group
* Omar Nelson Bradley, Lt. General FUSAG 12TH AG – Omar Bradley's D-Day June 6, 1944 Maps restored, preserved and displayed at Historical Registry

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* Category

* v
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Allied military deception in World War II

Deception planning|

| 'A' Force|

* Dudley Clarke
* Victor Jones

|

London Controlling Section|

* John Bevan
* Dennis Wheatley
* Ronald Wingate

Ops (B)|

* Noel Wild
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* List of Ops (B) staff

D Division|

* Peter Fleming

* Soviet military deception

Camouflage|

| Middle East Cmd Camouflage Directorate|

* Geoffrey Barkas
* Tony Ayrton
* Hugh Cott
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|

Ghost Army|

* Louis Dalton Porter
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* Art Kane
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Other|

* Ernest Townsend
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* more

Operational units|

| R Force|

* David Strangeways

|

Other|

Beach Jumpers

Decoys|

* Paradummy
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Double-Cross System|

| Twenty Committee|

John Cecil Masterman

|

Double agents|

* Johnny Jebsen (Artist)
* Juan Pujol García (Garbo)
* Roman Czerniawski (Brutus)
* Roger Grosjean (Fido)
* Günther Schütz (Rainbow)
* Arthur Owens (Snow)
* Gösta Caroli (Summer)
* Wulf Schmidt (Tate)
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* Werner von Janowski (Watchdog)
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* Josef Jakobs
* Mutt and Jeff

Fictional units|

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Operations|

| Bodyguard|

* Copperhead
* D-Day naval deceptions
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* Graffham
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* Quicksilver
* Zeppelin

|

Other|

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Books|

* Bodyguard of Lies
* British Intelligence in the Second World War (Vol. 5)
* The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War

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