[6][b] The soldiers were given five weeks of additional training at the section, platoon and company level, before undertaking a final three-day exercise.

The design included "two long and prominent bow waves from the ship", which resulted in the troops giving it the nickname the "torpedoed troopship".

Over the following six months, up to 75 per cent of these men would be deployed to reinforce 21st Army Group following the completion of their training and certification of fitness.

[15] Stephen Hart comments that, by September, the 21st Army Group "had bled Home Forces dry of draftable riflemen" after the losses suffered during the Normandy Campaign, leaving the army in Britain, with the exception of the 52nd (Lowland) Infantry Division, with just "young lads, old men, and the unfit".

During 1944, the British Army was facing a manpower crisis as it did not have enough men to replace the losses to front line infantry.

It was claimed that with the war nearing an end, several Territorial Army divisions would revert to their peacetime recruiting role and release their equipment and resources to other units.

This plan aimed to make the Germans believe that the notional 250,000-strong Fourth Army, based in Scotland, would assault Norway.

The deception plan aimed to keep the German garrison of nearly half a million men stationed in Norway to resist such an attack.

[26] Fortitude South aimed to convince the Germans that FUSAG had 500,000 men in more than fifty divisions and would launch the main Allied invasion in the Pas de Calais, 45 days after the Normandy landings.

[29] In addition, Juan Pujol García, the British double agent known as Garbo who played a vital role in Fortitude, reported to the Germans that the 80th Division was undertaking assault training.

[32] Gerhard Weinberg stated that the Germans "readily accepted the existence and location" of FUSAG, believed the threat to the Pas de Calais was real and "it was only at the end of July" that they realized a second assault was not coming; "by that time, it was too late to move reinforcements".

She argues that 15th Army was largely immobile and not combat-ready,[g] that despite the deception numerous German divisions – including the 1st SS Panzer Division, which was held in reserve behind the 15th Army – from across Europe were transferred to Normandy to repel the invasion, and that the Germans had realized as early as May that a real threat to Normandy existed.