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In the context of war, perfidy is a form of deception tactic where one side pretends to act in good faith, such as signaling a truce (e.g., raising a white flag), but does so with the deliberate intention of breaking that promise. The goal is to trick the enemy into lowering its guard, such as stepping out of cover to accept a supposed surrender, only to exploit its vulnerability.
Perfidy constitutes a breach of the laws of war and so is a war crime, as it degrades the protections and mutual restraints developed in the interest of all parties, combatants and civilians.
Article 37. – Prohibition of perfidy
Article 38. – Recognized emblems
Article 39. – Emblems of nationality
The Kilmichael Ambush (1921), part of the Irish War of Independence, was the scene of a notorious act of alleged perfidy. 36 members of the Irish Republican Army ambushed a truck carrying 18 Auxiliary Division officers. IRA leader Tom Barry claimed in his memoirs, Guerrilla Days in Ireland, that some of the Auxiliaries shouted, "We surrender, we surrender;" when IRA men stood up from their positions, they were fired upon by other Auxiliaries. This led Barry to not believe the Auxiliaries when, later in the battle, they attempted to surrender: all 18 were shot and left for dead. One Auxiliary escaped but was later captured and killed; another, Frederick Henry Forde, survived with severe injuries and was rescued by British forces. However, some historians have claimed that Barry invented the story of the false surrender in order to justify the killing of the entire unit.
During the Pacific Theatre of World War II, the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces were reported to often disguise their installations and transportation with such as the red cross, booby-trap their dead and wounded and to fake surrenders or injuries to lure Allied troops into a trap then surprise-attack them. One example of supposed perfidy was the "Goettge Patrol" during the early days of the Guadalcanal Campaign in 1942. Confusion regarding a possible surrender of Japanese troops came about due to a sighting of what the Americans believed to be a "white flag" along with faulty intelligence from a captured, drunken Japanese officer. This resulted in more than 20 US combat deaths from the Japanese soldiers the Americans assumed would surrender. It has been asserted that the incident, along with many other perfidious actions of the Japanese throughout the Pacific War, led to an Allied tendency to shoot dead or wounded Japanese soldiers, those who were no quarter and not to take POWs as readily as they might other enemy soldiers. Ulrich Straus, The Anguish Of Surrender: Japanese POWs of World War II (excerpts) Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003 , p. 116
At the Dachau Trials, the issue of whether the donning of enemy uniforms to approach the enemy without drawing fire was within the laws of war was established under international humanitarian law at the trial in 1947 of the planner and commander of Operation Greif, Otto Skorzeny. He was found not guilty by a US military tribunal of a crime by ordering his men into action in US uniforms. He had passed on to his men the warning of German legal experts that if they fought in US uniforms, they would be breaking the laws of war. During the trial, a number of arguments were advanced to substantiate this position and that the German and US militaries seem to be in agreement on it. In its judgement, the tribunal noted that the case did not require that the tribunal make findings other than those of guilty or not guilty and so no safe conclusion could be drawn from the acquittal of all accused.Source: Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals. United Nations War Crimes Commission. Vol. IX, 1949: Trial of Otto Skorzeny and others General Military Government Court of the U.S. zone of Germany 18 August to 9 September 1947 The tribunal also emphasized the difference between using enemy uniforms in espionage versus combat.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russian soldiers have been accused of perfidy on numerous occasions, including the Makiivka surrender incident.
Israeli forces have been accused of perfidy during its occupation of the West Bank by among others former executive director of Human Rights Watch Kenneth Roth and Dr. Aurel Sari, an associate professor of public international law at the University of Exeter and a fellow at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
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