Sunday, June 8, 2014

D-Day, daring, and deceptions

Friday, June 6th was the 70th anniversary of D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe. One reason for its success was the daring plan to attack at a different location than was obvious - the narrowest part of the English Channel with a natural harbor at the Pas-de-Calais.

Instead the Allies attacked where there was no natural harbor, but constructed two artificial Mulberry harbors for landing supplies. One was destroyed by a storm, but the other at Arromanches-les-Bains survived.

A second reason for the success was detailed deception plans. Operation Bodyguard convinced the Germans that General George S. Patton would lead the First U.S. Army Group in the invasion, which would occur at Calais. Even after the landings had begun Hitler still believed the deception and held back his reinforcements. 

It’s easy but dangerous to believe what seems obvious, and fits our preconceived notions.  

When I did a Google search on  the words public speaking fear, the very first search result was a wikiHow web page titled How to Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking that opens by claiming:

“Did you know that public speaking is the number one fear in North America?”

As I discussed in my June 3rd post,  A story outweighs a silly statistic, when you look a bit further you will find that is not so. It just sounds authoritative. 

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