During the Second World War, the British Army made extensive use of fictional formations as part of various military deception efforts to inflate their order of battle. The use of such formations was pioneered by Lieutenant-Colonel Dudley Clarke, based within the Mediterranean and Middle East theatre, and later joined by colleagues located in the UK. The initial efforts were small and created a fictional brigade with no long-term goal. As the war progressed, the deception efforts escalated into elaborate plans that included entire notional armies. In total, 36 notional divisions were created although they were not all employed at the same time. Some of these were based on real units that had previously been disbanded.