During the North African campaign, the British moved the city of Alexandria
to keep it from being bombed.
You heard me—they moved Alexandria. It was one of the many clever
deceptions British Intelligence carried out, this one with the help of Jasper
Maskelyne, who'd been a magician in civilian life.
Here's how it worked. They took photos of Alexandria's harbor (famous for
its distinctive ancient lighthouse), then went down the coast and found a place with a
similar coastline. They set up lights to simulate the city's and built another, much
shorter lighthouse (the heights of things on the ground can't be judged from the air,
as witness those damned hedgerows in France which nearly derailed the D-Day
invasion), and then blacked out Alexandria and lit up the fake city. Luftwaffe pilots—
looking for the harbor and the lighthouse—bombed the new location, and in the
morning when they sent reconnaissance planes over, found rubble where they'd
dropped their bombs the night before, which meant they were bombing the right
place. Except that the rubble had actually been piled there the night before to match
the spots bombed in the fake Alexandria, and the rubble was portable, so when the
Luftwaffe bombed "Alexandria" the next night, they simply moved the rubble to the
new locations. (Full article here.)
