Churchill's Wizards

This was such a fun book to read. It was completely awesome! The stories of deception and cunning that were employed in both World Wars, from the early efforts of the camofleurs, to the later, sophisticated deception operations including creating an entirely false alternative D-day landing, sticking documents in a dead body and floating it into occupied France, and racing about the desert with various false armies and camoflauged real ones. It covers deception from the earliest efforts at avoiding aerial reconnaissance, through sniper covers, false trees (one of which was unfortunately struck by a shell after a great deal of effort getting it into place and destroyed), dazzle paint, paranoid inventors who believed that the Germans had disguised entire roadways under massive false terrain, and all the way through to D-day. Incredibly well written, it turned what could have been a dry and dull book into not just an informative but also a fascinating read. I'd highly recommend this book, as it adds a fascinating insight into how the art of camoflauge came to be what it is today, and how deception was used throughout the Second World War to get the Germans to look in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like I said, it's a fun book to read and I really enjoyed it.