In 1915, Joan married her first husband, Sir William Younger. They had four children before divorce in 1923. She secondly married Capt. Hubert Pelham Burn by who she had a son. Hubert was killed in a car accident in 1927. Joan and Dennis' relationship developed slowly while he was still married. Joan persuaded Dennis to leave Nancy in the February 1930 and they were divorced in July. The couple married in St Ethelburga's, Bishopsgate on 8th August 1930. Dennis and Joan often spent weekends at Woolverstone with Gwendoline, the Hon. Louis Johnstone having died in 1922. Joan persuaded Dennis to take up writing after the failure and sale of the wine business in 1931, following the Depression years. He excelled. By 1936 Dennis was giving talks at local literary festival in Felixstowe where his work was described as futuristic. Writing rescued them from a difficult financial situation. Then WW2 intervened.

In May 1940, Sir Lawrence Darvall KCB MC gave Dennis a mission to find all the different defence systems Britain should have if an invasion were to come from Hitler. The results were impressive and he thought of many things that had not occurred to the top brass. A year later, Dennis found himself part of a team called the "London Controlling Section", led by a brilliant military strategist, Colonel John Bevan. He was promoted to the rank of Wing Commander, non-active. The team worked directly under Winston Churchill who is reputed to have said:

"Our intentions must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies."

Dennis Wheatley now worked on the deception plans for the invasion of Europe, Operation Overlord. He was part of the team that planned Operation Mincemeat, where a body with false papers was placed in the sea off the Spanish coast. In the War Cabinet Rooms there is a portrait of Dennis with the inscription underneath reading: "His work included a plan, code named "Bodyguard" to deceive the Germans about the place and date of the Allied D-Day invasion of Europe."

Planning started in 1943. The purpose was to lead the Germans to believe the invasion of Europe would target, in particular, the Pas de Calais in France. The main features were the creation of a fake army in Kent led by Gen George Patton, 1st US Army Group (FUSAG); hundreds of fake landing craft on the East Coast showing a powerful army mustering, use of double agents, radio traffic providing misinformation, a fake Montgomery appearing in Gibraltar.

The Germans believed the Pas de Calais was the most likely place for invasion and so was heavily fortified. The deception had to be maintained so that the Normandy landings were considered a feint. Success for even a few days would allow reinforcements. In fact, the deceit lasted for three weeks. The fake landing craft, Bigbobs, moored along the rivers Orwell and Deben, were part of the deception plans that persuaded the Germans that the main invasion was still to come. Dennis Wheatley's imagination helped maintain the deception.



FOOTNOTE

Wheatley's work reflects his conservative worldview. His protagonists are generally supporters of the monarchy, the British Empire and the class system, and many of his villains are villainous because they attack these ideas. Wheatley was an opponent of Nazism and Communism, believing the latter to be controlled by Satanic power.


Letter to Posterity: During the winter of 1947, Wheatley penned 'A Letter to Posterity' and buried it in an urn at his country home. The letter was intended to be discovered some time in the future (it was found in 1969, when the house was demolished for redevelopment of the property). He predicted in it that the socialist reforms, which were introduced by the post-war government, would result inevitably in the abolition of the monarchy, the "pampering" of a "lazy" working class and a national bankruptcy. He advised both passive and active resistance to the resulting "tyranny", including "ambushing and killing of unjust tyrannous officials".

"Employers are now no longer allowed to run their businesses as they think best but have become the bond slaves of socialist state planning. The school leaving age has been put up to 16, and a 5 day working week has been instituted in the mines, the railways and many other industries. The doctrine of ensuring every child a good start in life and equal opportunities is fair and right, but the intelligent and the hardworking will always rise above the rest, and it is not a practical proposition that the few should be expected to devote their lives exclusively to making things easy for the majority. In time, such a system is bound to undermine the vigour of the race."