'Clairvale' was an Allied deception plan to suggest that Lieutenant General Sir Oliver Leese’s British 8^th Army was preparing to undertake a major advance to the north along the eastern coast of Italy with the aid of an amphibious landing near Pescara (January/February 1944).

The object of the undertaking was designed to persuade the Germans not to transfer any major formations of Generoloberst Heinrich-Gottfried von Vietinghoff-Scheel’s 10^th Army from the Italian eastern littoral area westward to reinforce the formations facing the Allies near the western coast at Cassino and Anzio.

'Clairvale' was the first of a series of operational-level deceptions undertaken in Italy in parallel with 'Zeppelin' (i), and can in some respects been regarded as a successor to 'Chettyford'. The undertaking was based on the 'story' that Lieutenant General E. L. M. Burns’s Canadian I Corps on the 8^th Army’s right wing would drive to the north along the Adriatic coastal road aided, as noted above, by a landing at Pescara. Im­plemented largely by highly visible activities at Termoli, the base from which the Pescara landing was notionally be launched, 'Clairvale' ran through a time late in January and much of February, by which time General the Hon. Sir Harold Alexander had brought to an end the efforts of his Allied Forces in Italy command at Cassino with the conclusion of 'Avenger', otherwise the '2^nd Battle of Cassino', on 15 February.