The most destructive war in history and like all wars there were deceptions used by both sides to gain an advantage on the battlefield. Deceptions of World War II by William B. Breuer goes over various incidents of espionage and military trickery before and during the global conflict.

Over the course of roughly 240 pages, Breuer relates stories and anecdotes of incidents of underhand dealings, spying, and military intrigue surrounding World War II from both sides of the conflict. While some of them were interesting and worth reading about, many couldn’t be classified the same. Obviously what one person thinks is a deception could be different from someone else’s but to me when I think of deceptions in the context of a military conflict dropping spies behind enemy lines—while important to a military’s overall strategy—isn’t on the same level as the operations to create a phantom army to mask Operation Overlord or Operation Mincemeat neither of which were even mentioned in this book. And either Breur or his editors left in tiny mistakes that were factually incorrect with one of the most egregious being a line that said the Chief of German military intelligence was working for the British. So, while a nice book to pass the time overall I wasn’t impressed.

Deceptions of World War II is a slender volume of stories and anecdotes about the cloak-and-dagger events of the global conflict, but to me a lot didn’t feel like “deceptions”. ( )