Invasion Preview

Last week Britain was invaded--fortunately by a British Army. The British War Office, alert for the real thing, ordered large-scale invasion exercises on the east coast north of London.

It was supposed that four divisions of Germans attempted a landing, succeeded in getting ashore with 50% casualties, and with the remainder--an armored division and a division of mobile artillery and infantry--attempted to drive on London. Tough, well-trained assault troops were pitted against equally tough, equally practiced defenders. In all, 75,000 men and 10,000 vehicles took part.

For days and nights the troops maneuvered, "fighting" desperately--marching for hours, sleeping in uniform, attacking in realistic attitudes, simulating war up to the very trigger-pull. The defenders discovered the "Nazis' " main attack, concentrated at the strategic point, hemmed in the invaders, and in a vast tank battle drove them back to the sea. Then the weary, wiser troops went to bed, hopeful that the real performance would not differ much from the dress rehearsal.

Lieut. General Sir Guy Williams, Commander in Chief of the Eastern Command, who was in charge of the exercises, learned and taught many lessons, none of which, naturally, was divulged. The best stories to come out of the exercises were in connection with the "Fifth Column."

The attackers used officers with phony papers, parachutists, soldiers in mufti, even pretty girls to spy, to confuse the defenders, to carry out specific missions. ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service) glamor girls gathered in hotel lounges and went to work on officers--and reported back to headquarters indiscretions both by "Nazis" and by defenders. Home Guardsmen were so good at catching Fifth Columnists that invaders avoided Home Guard road blocks like poison, sometimes detouring for miles in order to escape detection. One officer with a phony pass, who was finally caught by the Home Guard, had previously got through two regular Army sentries' examinations. One parachutist, whose instructions were to reach a given spot within a given time, using every possible means of conveyance, stopped an R.A.F. officer along a country road and demanded his car. Not knowing that his motherland was being invaded, the officer refused. The parachutist thereupon knocked him out and drove off.

The invasion's funniest story came from "Fifth Column Headquarters in East Anglia," which announced that a young lieutenant disguised as a butler had made his way into enemy headquarters, served a three-course dinner to the commanding general, then put a box of chocolates into the general's bed. Inside the box was a note: "Dear Sir: This is to inform you that this is a bomb which would have exploded when you touched it with your foot. Yours respectfully, Fifth Columnist."

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