History Channel - Dead Mens Secrets Set 2 (2002) Part 11 Secrets of the Desert War

Dead men don't tell tales - or do they? Are there forensic clues left in the sands of time? Are there traces of archive film which even today are waiting to unveil their grisly secret? Not all the captivating and fascinating stories of military escapades in the 20th Century have been fully examined and many fascinating insights are still to be revealed and told. These have been known until now as DEADMEN'S SECRETS. Who really was 'The Man Who Never Was'? This and many other fascinating questions are answered in this pivotal series entitled DEADMEN'S SECRETS. With newly discovered archive film and new state of the art 3D computer graphics the series sets out to answer some of the most baffling questions and war mysteries of the 20th Century. What was the truth about Odessa File and whatever happened to Raoul Wallenberg? What did the Oslo Report reveal and who wrote it? And how close was Hitler to developing the atomic bomb at the end of World War II? Some of the answers are both frightening and unexpected. With the release of new Government information on both sides of the Atlantic it is now possible to painstakingly reconstruct some of the most famous mysteries of recent military history. DEADMEN'S SECRETS is the first serious attempt this Century to lay some of the last Century's most puzzling ghosts to rest.

Part 11 Secrets of the Desert War

The fighting in North Africa was some of the most ferocious in World War II. In those inhospitable conditions, ideas of warfare could be pushed to their limits. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel earned his laurels first by deceiving the British with his Victory at Gazala, becoming the 'Desert Fox'. Deceiving your enemy is a useful tool in the “theater of war.” In WWII, Operation Bertram - an Allied victory over Rommel's Axis forces in the desert of Egypt - imported elements from the stage, theater and film to deceive, surprise, and defeat the enemy. To win, the Allies relied on the research and materials produced by the Camouflage, Development and Training Centre (CDTC) - The War Illusionists. Tricks included blinding and disorienting Luftwaffe pilots with spinning high-intensity searchlights. Also active in North Africa during 1942-1943 were The Long Range Desert Group (LRDG) and the Special Air Service (SAS) roaring around the desert in American Jeeps armed with Browning .50 calibre machine guns, destroying larger and better armed Afrika Korps convoys. This programme explores the ingenuity behind the desert war, which included using magic to hide the entire Suez Canal, and camouflage to fool the enemy into believing in the presence of whole fake armies. Misinformation and subterfuge defeated the Germans as much as guns and tanks.

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