Karl, I believe you’re referring to a real mistake during Market Garden:
“During the operation, the Germans recovered a copy of the Market-Garden plan from the body of an American officer, who should not have carried it into combat.” – Wikipedia
Karl, sorry – I see you were referring to the Overlord briefcase incident. Sorry, I have no idea when that occurred – but it’s fascinating how a counterintelligence action can influence later decisions by the fooled party!
No, it was on June 8, just two days after the initial landings.
Intentional disinformation by 17M of the British Intelligence Service - they dropped a dead body with incorrect secret invasion plan papers, handcuffed to his wrist in a briefcase, off the coast of Spain - Hitler bought it hook, line and sinker!
This page describes a fascinating mistake made by the planners of Operation Mincemeat, which fortunately was not detected by the Germans. One of the items planted on “Major Martin” (the corpse) was a letter from his (fictitious) father, sent from the Black Lion Hotel in Wales. Sometime after the body had been dumped, they realized that a German agent might check the hotel register to see if a Mr. Martin was staying there at the time. So the creator of the operation actually went to the hotel and added the name “J.C. Martin” to the hotel register. However the register page was already full, so he just wrote it in at the bottom of the page, out of sequence with the other dates. This could have been a clue that something wasn’t right with this story.
This shows the extraordinary meticulousness that went into planning the backstory for Major Martin. (Of course with a little more meticulousness they would have thought of this earlier.)
–Mark
Coastal defenses and the types of soldiers at coastal defenses must be considered, beyond just the numbers. Germans saw some positions as so bolstered that they were seen as a deterrent. Distance to some made it less likely that you predict an attack there. Lack of a harbor? I mean, the Allies attacked under the pretense they’d build their own! To this day, that alone is amazing. Germans were in no way predicting the artificial harbor was in play (nevermind predicting. They never imagined). This made them think about attacks where Allies could secure a harbor.
Good defenses, but was hard to have awesome positions and the best guns that cover all the D-day territory. The most feared ''German" positions had certain elite guns and better bunkers, but not all had the most deadly guns, training, soldiers, equipment, morale, etc. The five beaches (Sword, Gold Juno, Omaha, Utah), plus Point du Hoc (between Omaha and Utah): Even if the Germans could predict 1 or 2 actual landing waves/sites out off what was 6 actual sites, it was a strategic challenge even if the Germans guessed some things right.
Even in hindsight, it’s quite amazing the number of sites (6) and the number of ships (the landing force was spotted and reported, but the sheer size and depth of it was not believed (as the story goes).
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Have you been reading the other posts in this thread?