In March 1943, General Frederick E. Morgan was appointed as chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander[a] (COSSAC), and he was tasked with operational planning in Northwestern Europe.

[3][1] Morgan's operational orders from Allied high command were received in April, and they referred to "an elaborate camouflage and deception" with the dual aims of keeping German forces in the west and drawing the Luftwaffe into an air battle.

Deception strategy fell to the London Controlling Section (LCS), a Whitehall department that had been established in 1941 and was then run by Colonel John Bevan.

For 1943 Ops (B) and the LCS, under the direction from Morgan, created three plans (Tindall, Starkey and Wadham), which received the overall codename Cockade.

[6][7] The deceptions would be carried out via double agents; decoy signals, fake troop concentrations; commando raids; and increased reconnaissance and bombing missions into the areas of Boulogne, Brest and Norway.

[10] Starkey was to culminate with a large feint involving an amphibious force aboard 30 ships, operating off the Boulogne coast, in the hope of luring the Luftwaffe.

Headquarters, VIII Air Support Command, noted that Starkey's planners had difficulty in agreeing on the rules of engagement for targets in Occupied France.

Despite those issues, Starkey provided a useful practical lesson in the complexity and the scale of the logistical supply chain that are needed to maintain flexible support to an invading force.

[11] Planners for Operation Wadham wanted the Germans to believe that the Americans were going to invade in the area of Brest, a seaport on the Breton Peninsula.

[9] The primary weakness in Wadham's story was that the US forces were going to land outside of Allied tactical air support range.

[21] Germans moved ten divisions out of northern France to other theaters, which indicated that Starkey and Wadham were complete failures.

The Royal Navy would not risk its battleships, and Eaker did not want to divert resources from the strategic bombing offensive.