As set out in detail in the book's Epilogue, the German plan constitutes a vast, audacious military deception. While the British would observe the major German ports and the array of German battleships and detect no signs of an impending invasion, the invasion force would gather unnoticed in the Frisian countryside. German troops – infantry with the lightest type of field guns – would board big sea-going lighters, towed by powerful but shallow-draught tugs, which would proceed to the sea through the Frisian canal network that had unobtrusively been widened and extended for years, in preparation for this day. Seven invasion flotillas would emerge – not from any major port, but out of seven contemptible tiny Frisian harbours which are open only at high tide and then only to small vessels; harbours of whose existence the British Admiralty is barely aware, and which were certainly never viewed as having any kind of military value or posing any threat. From there, the invaders quickly dash over a distance of 240 sea miles and land completely unexpected and unopposed at The Wash on the eastern shore of England. With the beachhead secured, more German ships would follow with munitions and heavy artillery.