Now Playing
The Lie That Won the Beach: Garbo, Fortitude & the Phantom Army
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Before a single soldier hit the sand at Normandy, a Spanish double agent and a fake army had already decided the outcome. This is the story of Operation Fortitude, Juan Pujol Garcia, and Eisenhower's storm-lashed decision that launched the largest invasion in history.
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Most people think D-Day was won on the beaches. It wasn't.
By the spring of nineteen forty-four, both sides understood that the invasion was coming. The question Germany couldn't answer was where.
Juan Pujol Garcia had tried to offer his services to British intelligence before the war and been turned down. He then approached the Germans, convinced them he was a Nazi sympathizer operating in Britain, and started feeding them fabricated intelligence.
Step back to June fifth. Supreme Commander Dwight D.
On the night of June fifth and the early hours of June sixth, thirteen thousand four hundred American paratroopers boarded C-47 aircraft and flew toward France. They were the men of the Eighty-Second and the One Hundred and First Airborne Divisions.
Dawn broke over five beaches simultaneously. American forces hit Utah and Omaha.
Now comes the piece that determined whether any of it held. The landings worked.
Here's how to hold all of this together. D-Day wasn't just a military operation.
Chapter summary auto-generated from the verified script. Listen to the full episode for the complete content.