'Hardman' was a British deception undertaking designed to persuade the Germans to fall back from their positions on the Sangro river in eastern central Italy by raising the possibility that their left flank on the Adriatic Sea might be turned by an amphibious and airborne assault in the area of Pescara (October/November 1943).

'Hardman' was created to aid the crossing of the Sangro river by General Sir Bernard Montgomery’s British 8^th Army, and was largely a radio reception backed by double agent reports from North Africa that Major General E. E. Down’s British 1^st Airborne Division was being readied for a combined amphibious and airborne assault on Pescara.