 Operation Bertram was a major Second World War deception operation practised by the allied forces in Egypt led by Bernard Montgomery in the months leading up to the Second Battle of El Alamein in 1942 . Bertram was devised by Dudley Clarke to deceive Erwin Rommel about the timing and location of the allied attack . The operation consisted of physical deceptions using dummies , dummy tanks and dummy airfields . It also consisted of radio deceptions , using dummy radio operators to transmit false information to the Afrika Korps .

## Background

The British Army had been fighting the Afrika Korps led by Erwin Rommel in the Western Desert since 