Operation Fortitude was a military deception operation by the Allied nations as part of Operation Bodyguard, an overall deception strategy during the buildup to the 1944 Normandy landings. Fortitude was divided into two subplans, North and South, and had the aim of misleading the German High Command as to the location of the invasion.

The Pas-de-Calais is a department in northern France named after the French designation of the Strait of Dover, which it borders. It has the most communes of all the departments of France, with 890, and is the 8th most populous. It had a population of 1,465,278 in 2019. The Calais Passage connects to the Port of Calais on the English Channel. The Pas-de-Calais borders the departments of Nord and Somme and is connected to the English county of Kent via the Channel Tunnel.