D-Day Deception on the Deben – Bigbobs and Operation Quicksilver (updated by Bob Crawley)

D-Day Deception on the Deben by in Boat, Deben, Defence, / River Deben (Update by Bob Crawley 2024)

The Allied invasion of France in 1944 was perhaps the largest, most complex project ever attempted. One element, Operation Fortitude, begun in early 1943, was a grand deception to persuade Nazi Germany that the invasion would land at Calais and not Normandy. The deception was masterminded by Sir John Turner, Director of Works at the Air Ministry. The South of England was to host a fake Army under General Patton with mock encampments and dummy landing craft moored on East Coast rivers from Yarmouth to Folkestone.Another part of the plan dealt with the North of the UK indicating an invasion of Norway. The landing craft element was Operation Quicksilver centred on the rivers Deben and Orwell. Waldringfield, a small village on the Deben was key to this ‘ruse de guerre’ as was Woolverstone Hall on the Orwell. This was but a miniscule part of Operation Overlord, yet one wonders whether the same results could be achieved today in the time required. Largest craft ever on the Deben There were both real and fake landing craft of several types on the Deben in 1944. The fakes were large, tank landing craft, the 34m Mark V and much bigger 56m MkIV. Have there ever been larger craft on the River Deben? Probably not.

Sources

The specification called for mock craft that, from a distance, would perfectly mimic a Landing Craft Tank (LCT) Mark V. They had to be assembled and moored in less than eight hours, the brief period of Summer darkness, and be suitable for mooring in estuaries in a force four wind.

These craft were officially called Device 36. Device 36 – reference for this lost, but were commonly known as  Bigbobs. This was to distinguish them from the inflatable rubber dummy landing craft known as Wetbobs Drybobs and Wetbob are terms used at Eton, this tells us something about the planners. The sketch plan provided by Peter Tooley shows how they were constructed. There is a discrepancy in in the dimensions on Tooley’s plan as the Mk V was actually 114′ in length with a 33′ beam (34mx9.8m),

By late March 1943 work on prototype dummy craft had started and, by July, trials were underway on the South coast. The Royal Engineers considered the task did not need their skills and so early versions were built by the Pioneer Corps.

Producing the kits

The engineering firm Cox of Watford, specialists in tubular steel, was engaged for the production of the kits of parts and orders were placed in December 1943 for delivery in March 1944. The kits were manufactured with the cover story that they were mechanical elephants.

Each kit was made up of a frame of 3″ (75mm) steel tubes assembled on top of empty oil drums for buoyancy. The frame was covered by lace-up canvas sheets, that’s a lot of canvas, and crowned with a wooden wheelhouse. Roughly seventyTaking the weight of the kit at fourteen tons and dividing by 200 litre buoyancy of a standard oil drum. forty-five gallon oil drums would be needed for flotation.

Training the teams

In all, two hundred and sixty six, (for context, the D-Day invasion involved around 3,000 to 4,000 Landing Craft) which had to be moored and embarked along the English coast. Bigbobs had to be assembled and launched on the East Coast rivers during three weeks of Summer 1944, just before the invasion, this would require around seven hundred men. From documents provided by Dr P. Tooley to Waldringfield Boatyard in 1995

These men needed training on how to build and deploy the Bigbobs without error in seven hours. Waldringfield was chosen as the training centre with the Maltings, the three-storey house adjacent to the Maybush Pub, as Headquarters. The Officer in charge of training was Captain Allen of the Royal Engineers. Initially, men from the Worcestershire and Northamptonshire regiments were trained, with other units following. The courses started in February 1944 and, by the third week in April, training was complete. Officers were billeted at Deben House, Mrs Turner’s Guest House in Cliff Road with some men at the Maltings, although most were billeted in Ipswich due to the small size of the village.

Extra beer rations were provided for the Maybush, whose publican at the time, and many years afterwards, Albert Hill, was at HMS Beehive, Felixstowe as a Petty Officer at the MTB repair base. As their training would have been at night, how much advantage the men could have taken from the beer rations is unclear.

The construction site

A construction area with access to the river had to be cleared. Other than Felixstowe Ferry there is no suitable site, with road and all tide access, on the Deben, apart from Waldringfield.

The area chosen is now the sailing club’s dinghy park; beach huts were demolished or moved and the adjacent field, Sedge Close, was used to store the kits.

Hards were made, as the beach is mostly sand and shingle probably this was simply compacted. The slipways now south of the sailing club are later additions and not wide enough to accommodate the near 10m beam of the dummy LCTs. The aerial photograph from 1948[mfn]Aerial Photo – raf_58_103_v_5014[/mfn] does not show much detail (zoom to the top centre near the beach huts) although life appears to be back to normal. Click here for photo 5014 if the space below is blank.

[Aerial Reconnaissance photograph from English Heritage, two zoom levels on some browsers]

The hards were not only functional but, as observed by Colonel David Strangeways when he took charge of Fortitude South, an essential part of the deception.

While provision had been made for the landing craft, nobody had given any thought as to how the notional troops were meant to board them. ‘They’d forgotten,’ Strangeways says, ‘to make any hards along the coast.’ ‘Hards’ were embarkation slipways. ‘Once I got going,’ he continues, ‘I said, “Oi, where are the hards?” And you daren’t make dummy hards, because if they are dummy, and spotted as dummy, better no hards at all. So they were made.’

Colonel David Strangeways Colonel David Strangeways- From Joshua Levine, Operation Fortitude: The True Story of the Key Spy Operation of WWII That Saved D-Day (HarperCollins UK, 2011).

Building the dummy LCTs

Kits of parts were delivered during May and stored under camouflage. Traffic in the village must have been heavy since delivering four Bigbob kits would require twenty-eight three-ton trucks, from Cox at Watford, daily for nearly three weeks.

The Bigbob came as a five-hundred part kit and required a team of twenty to thirty officers and men working for around seven hours in overnight darkness to assemble and launch before dawn. At Waldringfield, the 4th Northamptonshire built the craft whilst the 10th Worcestershire were responsible for Woolverstone.

Three or four craft had to be assembled simultaneously. Each had three groups of men working in parallel, one each on the bow, middle and stern/wheelhouse sections. Canvas sheets, which must have been pre-painted, were laced onto the tubular structure. The partially pre-assembled wheelhouse was lifted on.

The design incorporated hinges so that, as the structure was rolled down the slipway on its forty-eight steel wheels to the water, the floating portion would float horizontally whilst the remainder rolled down the incline. There must have been a risk of the structure twisting at this point.

Launching the dummy LCTs

At the water’s edge responsibility transferred from the Army to the Royal Navy. Positioning and mooring the Bigbobs must have been difficult as it had to be done rapidly, in darkness, regardless of wind and tide conditions and, with no hull in the water, they cannot have been easy to manoeuvre. The shallow water and sticky mud must have been troublesome in the dark with tricky currents in that part of the river.

If construction was not complete by dawn, or there had been an unsuccessful launch, the whole assembly needed to be dismantled and concealed until the following night. Marks made on the ground had to be erased before daylight as these might have aroused Nazi suspicions. Similarly, all craft had to be moored before daylight since an image of one being towed would suggest that they were engineless and hence fake.

Two types of LCT on the Deben

According to accounts from the Worcestershire Regiment[mfn]See Worcestershire Regiment (29th/36th of Foot), an observation is that whilst the two types appear only at Waldringfield, the Worcestershire’s were at the Orwell where only one type appears, who assembled the kits on the Orwell, there were two types of landing craft with the smaller being 114′ in length with a 33′ beam (34mx9.8m) and weighing 13 tons. These dimensions are consistent with the Mk V. From the aerial photographs shown below it can be seen that there are indeed two distinct types on the Deben, although probably only one on the Orwell. There is a possibility that inflatable ‘Wetbob’ dummy Assault Land Craft were on the Orwell – see collision incident.. From the relative sizes the smaller craft are LCT MkV and the larger ones LCT MkIV. There is a difference in the weight of the kits: Tooley states 5.5 tons and the Worcestershire Regiment account says 13 tons. As the Mk IV was significantly larger that accounts for the higher figure.

As the dummy craft were identical in size and appearance to the real ones the images below give an idea of scale. The MkV was moored on the Orwell and Deben. These had a capacity of three fifty-ton tanks or nine trucks.

A Real LCT Mk V (smaller of the two types)- Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The significantly larger MkIV was only seen on the Deben although there were, probably real, MkIVs deployed earlier on. The length and beam of the MkIV was 187’3″ x 38’9″ (56m x 11.6m). These could carry nine M4 Sherman or six Churchill tanks. The image is of a MkIII which was almost the same size as the MkIV.

These landing craft, although dummies, are, quite possibly, the largest craft ever to have been on, or moored in, the DebenHMS Kingfisher was the largest ship built on the Deben as was 110′ (34m) long. A Mk IV LCT was 56m.

Secrecy

As the real invasion of Normandy approached draconian security measures were imposed. A one-mile-wide coastal exclusion zone was established from the Wash to Land’s End and, of course, this included the whole of Waldringfield: additionally, no civilian visits were allowed within ten-miles of the coast. Travel to Ireland was stopped, foreign diplomats were not allowed in or out of the UK and transatlantic telephone and radio communication was cut off.

There was one incident on the Orwell regarding the deception: at night, nothing on the river was lit as it was wartime; when a sailing barge collided with an inflatable Wetbob landing craft, it became obvious to the crew that the vessel was fake. Consequently, the skipper and crew were detained by police until D-DayWetbob collision according to Joshua Levine, Operation Fortitude: The True Story of the Key Spy Operation of WWII That Saved D-Day (HarperCollins UK, 2011) Not, apparently, a Bigbob. This is the only mention found of the inflatable Wetbobs being deployed in the area.

Mooring the dummy LCTs in the River Deben

The Deben’s sixty-six Bigbobs were the largest fleet, after Orwell’s seventy. They were built and launched over three weeks from May 19th 1944 to June 15th. Only one relevant RAF reconnaissance photograph (4006)[mfn]Aerial Photo – raf_106g_la_23_rs_4006[/mfn], from the English Heritage Collection, has been located: this shows Bigbobs moored in pairs around Ramsholt on July 6th 1944. It can be seen that there are two distinct types of LCT. Click here for photo 4006 if the space below is blank – (The image can be zoomed.)

[Aerial Reconnaissance photograph from English Heritage, two zoom levels on some browsers]

As the deception was continued after D-Day then all the dummy craft would still have been in position when the photograph was taken. Calculation shows that the fleet of sixty-six, moored in pairs, would have occupied over three miles of the river. The river below Ramsholt was probably kept clear for real LCTs. If the moorings continued up the river, then they would have reached to Waldringfield sailing club. A member of the Ipswich Historical Transport Society who, as a boy alighted from the train at Woodbridge in 1944 recollected seeing some vessels downriver which were probably Bigbobs.

Real LCTs on the Deben

These were not the only landing craft on the Deben in May and June 1944. On most days, real landing craft motored in stages from Great Yarmouth to Lowestoft and then to the Deben from where they sailed to Dover. These would have been moored overnight in Sea Reach near the Felixstowe Ferry. So, for almost a month, there were three or four dummy landing craft launched and moored, with a similar number of real ones arriving or departing. Co-ordinating all of this with the hours of darkness and the tidal entrance cannot have been easy, although, with only a 1.2m draught, the real landing craft could have crossed the Deben Bar before half tide.

Ensuring the deception worked

Test aerial photographs had revealed that the Bigbobs looked too good to be true, so they were painted with oil stains and rust to make them realistic. Once the sixty-six Bigbobs were moored then the White Ensign was flown daily, smoke generated, laundry hung out and regular visits made by tenders to the skeleton crews on board.

There was also intense signals traffic for the imaginary Army. This may have been in vain asit was subsequently found that enemy intelligence services were overwhelmed by the volume of information being collected.

Let the enemy know

 

Anti-aircraft gunners were given orders to fire at visiting enemy reconnaissance planes but ensure that they missed so that the images would arrive safely in Germany. What photographs were taken by the Luftwaffe is not known, perhaps a search of the archives will find them. One frustration was the lack of reconnaissance flights by them, for example there were none at all over Southern England between the 15th to 21st of May although, as deployment of the Bigbobs only commenced on the 19th or 20th, Operation Quicksilver was little affected.

This communication from Field Marshall Montgomery stresses the importance of the operation:

“Whilst it is fully realised that the launching and maintenance of the craft is an extremely arduous task, it is requested that every possible effort may be made to ensure that as much life and animation is given to the craft as possible. You should explain to all ranks that they are playing an extremely important part in the plan and that, in view of this, they are required to make as great an effort as Battalions deployed in the battle area.”

worcestershireregiment.com

The Bigbobs were designed for only four weeks of flotation, but a request was made by Field Marshall Montgomery to extend their use to keep the enemy guessing and keep their troops at Calais. Consequently, efforts were made to keep the fleet in good order until the operation concluded in September 1944.

There were also fleets moored at Yarmouth and in the open waters of Dover and Folkstone. These latter had a far more difficult time and there were instances of craft having to be repaired or even scuttled in bad weather to maintain their real appearance.

The outcome

Operation Quicksilver was a complete success with captured enemy records showing that they believed there to be 500 landing craft and forty two divisions in reserve whereas there were, only fifteen divisions and no landing craft available. On May 25th 1944, just before D-day on June 6th the German Commander in Chief, West still believed that the invasion would be between Dunkirk and Dieppe. Even on June 25th, he believed that the Anglo-American main force was uncommitted. The Germans did not move a division from the Calais area to Normandy until July 25th. This was a major contribution to the eventual defeat of the Nazis with Waldringfield and the River Deben playing their part.

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Even more dummies

There were other dummy landing craft but made of concrete. These were built in Devon in order to train soldiers in embarkation and dis-embarkation on the beach. See here for more.

This article is based upon ‘Waldringfield Threatens Hitler’ written for the River Deben Association Magazine Autumn 2010.

10th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment – 1939-1945 – an excellent account, extract below:

 

There were two types of dummy craft, the smaller measuring some 112 ft. by 35 ft. and weighing 13 tons.

Although assembly differed considerably in detail, the main frame of both types consisted of specially manufactured tubular scaffolding, fitted with commercial oil drums for flotation, and covered with painted canvas to present an exact picture both to air and ground. Funnels, ventilators, chart boxes and other essential features were fitted during various stages of construction.

Craft were assembled on land and incorporated 48 sets of metal wheels enabling launching to be effected on completion. A skilled team of 30 Officers, N.C.O.’s and men could complete a craft in some 7 hours under good conditions in hours of darkness. Launching involved tides, tugs, wind, winch lorries, brain, brawn and a little luck.

By the third week in April approximately 600 Officers and men of each Battalion had received training, and it was not long before operation orders were received from 21st Army Group.

The 4th Northamptonshires were to be responsible for fleets at three sites on the East Coast. The 10th Worcestershire were to build, launch and maintain dummy fleets at Dover, Folkestone and Wolverstone, on the River Orwell, near Ipswich.

Detailed reconnaissance of sites began, bards were constructed, building areas were cleared and levelled (entailing the removal of thousands of tons of soil and two houses on the Marine Parade at Dover), and stores of all kinds began to arrive from factories and Naval and Military Depots. Under the orders of the Flag Officers in Charge, buoys were laid by the Royal Navy and fleets of small craft with their crews of Naval Ratings, Royal Marines, R.A.S.C. Motor Boat personnel and selected civilians were assembled with an eye to launching, towing, maintenance and animation when the operation proper began.

Peter Tooley, Operation Quicksilver (Romford, Essex: Ian Henry Publications, 1988).

‘D-Day Deception’, Bloomsbury

Joshua Levine, Operation Fortitude: The True Story of the Key Spy Operation of WWII That Saved D-Day (HarperCollins UK, 2011).

Decoy sites, wartime deception in Norfolk and Suffolk, H Fairhead

Suffolk’s Defended Shore: Coastal Fortifications from the Air. (excellent, available as free download).

This document The Green List of Landing Craft etc., which does not mention the dummy landing craft for obvious reasons, gives an idea of how amazing the D-day operation was.

Woolverstone FB post, another Woolverstone FB post giving an account.

Audio from IWM from Dame Marion Kettlewell.

Woolverstone personal account p.7