As previously mentioned, as the Allies prepared to bring Overlord into effect, a priority for Britain was to ensure that as few German and Italian troops would be defending the Peloponnese as possible. In order to achieve this aim, British intelligence officers aimed to deceive Germany through a plan code-named Operation Mincemeat [1] – under this plan, the body of a homeless man named Glyndwr Michael who had recently died was obtained by Ewen Montagu and Charles Cholmondeley, two members of British intelligence, who duly dressed up the body as a member of the Royal Marines. In addition to this, allegedly ‘top secret documents’ were placed inside the body’s uniform, revealing that the Allies intended to land in Normandy and Brittany in late 1943. With the approval of Churchill and the British Government, the body was then transported to the Mediterranean in April 1943, where it was dropped into the sea near the Spanish coast. As the officers intended, the body was retrieved by Spanish fishermen, who duly sent it to the Spanish Government. When the documents were uncovered inside the body, Franco ordered that copies be sent to Berlin, so as to give warning to Hitler, before the body was sent back to Britain. Mincemeat proved to be a success, as, when the documents reached Hitler, he immediately ordered that significant reinforcements be sent to defend Northern France, at the expense of the Balkans, in particular Greece.
From this point onwards, Hitler, whose mental health was deteriorating as the war progressed, became convinced that landings would take place in Northern France, and rejected any request for reinforcements by generals outside of France. Indeed, the Führer went so far as to order the delaying of Barbarossa once again, to May 1944, in order to combat what he deemed the ‘imminent threat’ of Allied landings in France. The German belief that landings would take place in Normandy and Brittany was reinforced in June 1943, when a general election took place in Ireland which resulted in the toppling of Eamon de Valera’s Fianna Fail Government and its replacement with a Fine Gael-Labour Coalition, led by Richard Mulcahy [2] as Taoiseach – Mulcahy, a long advocate for Ireland joining the war, duly passed through the Dáil Éireann a motion declaring war on Germany. After this, Mulcahy’s Government signed a treaty with Britain enabling the Royal Navy to use the former treaty ports of Spike Island and Berehaven for the duration of the war. This turn of events led to the Nazi Government believing that Irish ports would be used to assist Allied landings in France, and so it appeared that their decision to move extra divisions to Northern France was vindicated.
Meanwhile, the British Government was delighted that their deception strategy had proved to be an effective one, and so a date was set for Overlord’s launch – October the 3rd 1943. This provided time, from July when Overlord’s planning was concluded, to send the necessary soldiers to the Eastern Mediterranean to prepare for the operation’s launch. As the numerous divisions arrived in Crete, several coastal villages on the island were evacuated for the time being, so as to allow British, Commonwealth and Greek troops to conduct mock landings, due to the physical similarity of Crete and the Peloponnese Peninsula – this granted the Allied forces a general idea of how the landings would be carried out. It is important to note that, during this time, the exact location of the Overlord landings was kept strictly secret from the Allied forces who would be undertaking the operation, so as to prevent any Nazi spies in Crete ruining the carefully orchestrated British deception tactics. Instead, soldiers were simply not told the location of the landing sites – or, if necessary, they were informed that the landings would take place in Central Greece, with the intention of capturing Athens immediately.
Eventually, the launch date for Overlord drew closer and closer to the Allied corps on Crete and, on the evening of the 2nd, the commanders present informed their soldiers of their true destination. And so, shortly afterwards, the soldiers present retired to bed for the night and woke up long before sunrise, ready to carry out their task.
Operation Overlord was about to commence.
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[1] This was a plan from our timeline to deceive Germany on the Allies’ landings in Sicily – in this timeline it is used to deceive the Germans on the Allies’ landing in Greece.
[2] In this timeline, W.T. Cosgrave resigns earlier, and consequently Richard Mulcahy leads Fine Gael into the 1943 general election.