In the spring of 1943, Allied planners faced a problem that no amount of firepower could solve on its own. The invasion of Sicily was the next major step in the Mediterranean campaign, but its target was painfully obvious. Sicily sat squarely between Allied-held North Africa and the Italian mainland, and any competent strategist on the German side could see it coming. The challenge, then, was not to hide the fact that an invasion was being prepared, but to cloud the question of where it would land. The answer to that challenge was Operation Barclay, one of the most ambitious and carefully orchestrated strategic deception campaigns of the Second World War.