88 Facts About Dudley Clarke

Dudley Clarke spent the First World War learning to fly, first in Reading and then Egypt.

Dudley Clarke returned to the Royal Artillery in 1919 and had a varied career doing intelligence work in the Middle East.

In late 1941 Dudley Clarke was called to London, where his deception work had come to the attention of Allied high command.

Dudley Clarke was released and after being questioned by the governor of Gibraltar, allowed to return to Cairo.

Dudley Clarke was sent to El Alamein, where Allied forces were on the retreat, to work on deception plans.

From 1942 to 1945, Dudley Clarke continued to organise deception in North Africa and southern Europe.

Dudley Clarke retired in 1947 and lived the rest of his life in relative obscurity.

From an early age, Dudley Clarke wanted a career in the armed forces.

Eager to be in active service, Dudley Clarke applied to sit the Army Entrance Exam in 1915, as soon as he had reached the minimum age of sixteen and a half.

In November 1916, Dudley Clarke was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.

When his regiment deployed to France, Dudley Clarke had to stay behind because, aged 17, he was too young to fight.

In 1925, during another period of leave, Dudley Clarke covered the Rif War for the Morning Post.

In 1936, Dudley Clarke was posted, at his request, to Palestine, just in time to participate in the 1936 Arab uprising.

Dudley Clarke first set to work improving communications between the small Royal Air Force contingent and the army.

Lieutenant-General John Dill was placed in command, and Dudley Clarke became his chief of staff.

In 1937, Dill was replaced by Major-General Archibald Wavell, the commander who would later give Dudley Clarke free rein in Middle Eastern deception operations.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Dudley Clarke was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and began working on intelligence tasks.

Dudley Clarke worked with Wavell in the Middle East to research possible Allied supply lines, undertook two trips to Norway, and conducted secret missions in Calais and Ireland.

In Dudley Clarke became a military assistant to Sir John Dill, now a full general and Chief of the General Staff, at the War Office.

On, inspired by childhood recollections of similar Boer forces as well as experiences during the Arab uprising in Palestine, Dudley Clarke sketched out an idea for small amphibious raiding parties, called Commandos.

On, while Dill was inspecting the troops evacuated from Dunkirk, Dudley Clarke suggested the idea to him, and the prime minister approved the plan on the following day.

Dudley Clarke obtained permission to accompany the 120-strong force, but was not allowed to go ashore.

Somehow Dudley Clarke was injured in the ear during, he said, an exchange of fire.

Dudley Clarke believed that deception was a key part of warfare.

Dudley Clarke held this position, under subsequent Mediterranean commanders, for the next five years.

On his arrival in Cairo, Dudley Clarke began to build a network of useful contacts.

Dudley Clarke befriended Lieutenant-Colonel Raymund Maunsell, who operated Security Intelligence Middle East, the agency in charge of counter-espionage in the region.

Maunsell later worked closely with Dudley Clarke, helping to feed misinformation to the enemy via double agents.

Dudley Clarke's first deception was a scheme to mislead Italian forces into expecting an invasion of Italian Somaliland instead of Eritrea, the real Allied target.

From this failure Dudley Clarke learned a first lesson, one he would teach to many other deception officers during the war: that the key to deception was not to make your enemy think what you wish but to get them to do what you want.

Dudley Clarke had not forgotten his previous pet scheme: the Commandos.

Dudley Clarke suggested the name "Rangers", after the frontier force Rogers' Rangers in the film Northwest Passage, for Donovan's unit.

Dudley Clarke was visited regularly by Maunsell who was, by that time, a firm friend.

At first Dudley Clarke worked alone and in secret, under the official title "Intelligence Officer to the Commander-in-Chief".

Dudley Clarke had neither staff nor official mandate, and worked from a "converted bathroom" at the British Army headquarters, Cairo.

Dudley Clarke's cover role was to establish a regional department for MI9, the less secret organisation tasked with helping Allied servicemen in escape and evasion tactics.

Dudley Clarke's one-man show in deception was not to last long.

In Dudley Clarke began Operation Abeam, fabricating the existence of a British paratrooper regiment in the region.

Dudley Clarke created a fictional 1st Special Air Service Brigade, using faked documents, photographs and reports, which leaked back to the Italians.

Dudley Clarke dressed two soldiers in "1 SAS" uniforms and set them to wander around Cairo, Port Said and Alexandria hinting at missions in Crete or Libya.

Dudley Clarke's work interviewing locals about the island could not be associated with the 6th so he adopted the guise of 'A' Force.

Dudley Clarke therefore had a hand in the formation of three famed military units.

Dudley Clarke recruited a Scots Guards officer, Captain Ogilvie-Grant, to manage the MI9 escape and evasion work, which had been adopted as cover for the whole of 'A' Force.

Dudley Clarke then embarked on a trip to Turkey, where he worked to establish a network of misinformation as well as carry out his MI9 role.

In Wolfson, Dudley Clarke had found an important resource and, in his own words, began "a long and profitable partnership for Deception and MI9 matters in Turkey which was to last for the rest of the war".

Dudley Clarke left Istanbul on, travelling covertly back to Egypt via Syria and Lebanon in order to reconnoitre the ground that British forces would have to invade when entering the country.

Dudley Clarke travelled to Lisbon on aiming, as with his earlier Turkey trip, to open up lines of deception into Axis forces.

Dudley Clarke spent around a month in the area, posing as a flamboyant journalist, before being summoned back to London.

Dudley Clarke attended meetings of the Twenty Committee and Chiefs of Staff Committee.

Dudley Clarke was offered the job, reporting directly to the Chiefs of Staff and the War Cabinet.

Dudley Clarke declined, citing loyalty to the Middle East, but his decision was in large part due to the greater operational freedom and status he enjoyed in North Africa.

Pleased with his success in London, Dudley Clarke returned to Lisbon on posing as a journalist for The Times named "Wrangal Craker".

Dudley Clarke's aim was to carry on the semi-undercover work of spreading rumours and misinformation to the Germans.

Dudley Clarke was ordered back to London to explain the Madrid incident to his superiors but the ship he was on, the Ariosto, was torpedoed by a U-boat on.

Rather than attempting another trip to London, Dudley Clarke was interviewed by the Governor of Gibraltar, Lord Gort, who judged Dudley Clarke's answers acceptable and concluded that "we can reasonably expect that this escapade and its consequences will have given him sufficient shock to make him more prudent in the immediate future".

Dudley Clarke was allowed to return to Cairo and reached Egypt on.

Back in Cairo, Dudley Clarke discovered that much had changed during his absence.

Dudley Clarke was annoyed at what he saw as a power grab and at the sudden high profile of deception operations.

In Dudley Clarke had begun to draft ideas for an ambitious order-of-battle deception.

Dudley Clarke had found that the process of convincing the enemy of the existence of a notional force was long and tedious.

Dudley Clarke introduced more and more fictitious divisions and by the end of the year the Germans had accepted many of them as real formations.

Cascade was a major success for Dudley Clarke; it supported most of the subsequent major deceptions for the remainder of the war and proved that deception on a grand scale was a realistic strategy.

Montgomery knew Dudley Clarke, having taught him infantry tactics at the Staff College in 1931, and instructed him to prepare deception plans for the Second Battle of El Alamein.

Dudley Clarke had his mind on other things besides awards and El Alamein.

Dudley Clarke delegated much of the ongoing planning to 'A' Force staff, as the department was now well established.

On Dudley Clarke again met Bevan, in Algiers, to discuss strategy for Barclay.

Dudley Clarke roved around the region acting as overseer of the department's operations.

The focus on France left Dudley Clarke supporting the Allied push through Italy.

Later that spring Dudley Clarke was inspired by a war film, Five Graves to Cairo, to create Operation Copperhead.

Dudley Clarke was involved in planning Operation Bodyguard, a major cover plan for the Allied landing in Normandy, and he was tasked with executing the deceptions in the Middle Eastern region.

Dudley Clarke was mentioned in despatches on 19 October 1944, relating to his work setting up 'A' Force.

In 1925 Dudley Clarke had found a publisher for his coverage for the Rif rebellion, but the work was never finished.

Dudley Clarke lived out his retirement in relative obscurity, despite the belief of his former commander, Field Marshal Harold Alexander, that "he did as much to win the war as any other single officer".

Dudley Clarke died on ; his address at the time was an apartment in Raleigh House, Dolphin Square, London.

Dudley Clarke was widely regarded as an expert in military deception, and viewed by some of his peers as nearly legendary in status.

Dudley Clarke evolved deception, almost from scratch, as a vital part of Allied strategy.

Dudley Clarke's thesis was that the lie was so precious that it should be flanked with an escort of truths.

Dudley Clarke had a good appreciation of the complex interplay between Operations and intelligence in deception operations.

Dudley Clarke understood how to manipulate enemy intelligence agencies to build up the story he was trying to sell, and saw the importance of getting Operations, on his own side, to fit into those stories.

Dudley Clarke was depicted by Dominic West in the 2022 television historical drama SAS: Rogue Heroes.

Dudley Clarke is described as a charismatic, charming and theatrical character with a streak of creativity, a personality reflected in the escapades of his life and career.

Dudley Clarke's self-deprecating humour and work ethic made Clarke a popular figure within the army, where he was considered to have odd "old world" habits and "an uncanny habit of suddenly appearing in a room without anyone having noticed him enter".

Dudley Clarke was considered to possess an "original intellect", and to have odd habits, but was never seen as eccentric.

From his time in Egypt during the First World War, Dudley Clarke fell in love with the country and he returned there as often as possible.

Dudley Clarke had a great respect for the inhabitants, writing that they had "the endearing qualities of humour and fortitude".

Dudley Clarke was involved in two bad relationships with women.

In 1922 he met a Slavic woman called Nina in Wiesbaden, but she disappeared after Dudley Clarke smuggled currency to her friend in Bulgaria.

Dudley Clarke often claimed to hate children and never married.