page_title: Operation Bertram
section_title: Final stages
hierarchical_section_title: Operation Bertram / Execution / Final stages
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of dummy filling station and dummy vehicles on the "Diamond" dummy pipeline, part of the military deception en:Operation Bertram for the battle of El Alamein, October 1942
context_page_description: Operation Bertram was a Second World War deception operation practised by the Allied forces in Egypt led by Bernard Montgomery, in the months before the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942. Bertram was devised by Dudley Clarke to deceive Erwin Rommel about the timing and location of the Allied attack. The operation consisted of physical deceptions using dummies and camouflage, designed and made by the British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate led by Geoffrey Barkas. These were accompanied by electromagnetic deceptions codenamed Operation Canwell, using false radio traffic. All of these were planned to make the Axis believe that the attack would take place to the south, far from the coast road and railway, about two days later than the real attack.
  Bertram consisted of the creation of the appearance of army units where none existed and in concealing armour, artillery and matériel. Dummy tanks and guns were made mainly of local materials including calico and palm-frond hurdles. Real tanks were disguised as trucks, using light "Sunshield" canopies.
context_section_description: To achieve the deception, trucks were parked openly in the tank assembly area for some weeks. Real tanks were similarly parked openly, far behind the front. Two nights before the attack, the tanks replaced the trucks and were covered with "Sunshields" before dawn. The tanks were replaced that same night with dummies in their original positions so that the armour remained seemingly two or more days' journey behind the front line. To reinforce the impression that the attack was not ready, a dummy water pipeline was constructed in "Operation Diamond", at an apparent rate of 5 miles per day. Two of Barkas's camouflage officers, Phillip Cornish and Sidney Robinson, supervised the work. Some days' worth remained to be built at the time of the actual attack. The pipeline was supported by dummy pump-houses, overhead tanks and filling stations, complete with straw men. Real traffic was made to drive nearby to create tracks.
caption: Operation Bertram dummy vehicles and filling station at Diamond dummy water pipeline, October 1942
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