[10] On 17 July 1942, Barkas made Ayrton his deputy, replacing the brilliant camoufleur Steven Sykes, who was exhausted and ill.[11][12] Still short of camouflage officers, Barkas heard of a private soldier, Brian Robb, who was known to be skilful at drawing, and finding him enthusiastic and likeable, quickly brought him to General Headquarters in Cairo and had him promoted to Staff Lieutenant.

[15][16][17] On 27 September 1942, 28 days before the planned start of battle, Barkas instructed Ayrton and Robb to organise the camouflage and dummies representing the whole of Eighth Army's armoured force and artillery.

[18] Ayrton planned and supervised the building of the "Diamond" dummy pipeline, which ran southwards to help give Rommel the impression that an Armoured Corps was massing in the south.

Ayrton's plan was to flatten and join thousands of the non-returnable 4-gallon petrol cans to make 5 miles of dummy pipe, which was laid in a trench and left for one day.

The trench remained about 10 miles short of its destination - the southern part of the British front line - on 23 September, showing Rommel that the pipeline and the attack were not ready.

Unknown to Ayrton or Richardson, Ultra showed that the Royal Air Force had ensured that no German aircraft flew over the Eighth Army preparations between 18 and 23 October.

Barkas wrote that "all the other schemes mounted by Ayrton, Robb, and the other Eighth Army camouflage men were also ready.

"[23] The attack in the north at El Alamein on the night of 23 October 1942 came, as Winston Churchill reported to parliament, as a "complete tactical surprise".

[24] Richardson wrote "Thanks to the unfailing support of the corps commanders, the discipline of every unit in the Army, the devoted work of Ayrton and Robb,[25] and of many other camouflage specialists, and the magnificent performance of the Desert Air Force's fighter pilots, the deception plan succeeded.