In late October 1942, the fate of the Suez Canal and Middle Eastern oil was defended by packing crates, calico cloth and a fake wooden water pipeline. This episode explains why the 40-mile gap between the Mediterranean and the impassable Qattara Depression made flanking impossible, and why the intelligence picture was so lopsided: Ultra decrypts gave Montgomery Rommel's order of battle and fuel state, while Rommel had gone blind after Australians captured a signals unit revealing the compromised American code of Colonel Bonner Fellers, stolen from the US embassy in Rome by Italian agents.

Operation Bertram conditioned Axis reconnaissance to ignore static rubbish dumps that were later filled with shells and petrol, while dummy tanks and a deliberately slow pipeline in the south convinced Rommel to split his armour. We then walk through the D ...