The US Army’s “Ghost Army”
For over 40 years, the role of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops in the Second World War was shrouded in mystery, kept from the public as a matter of classified military intelligence. Then, in 1996, the unit’s story came to light, immortalizing the 1,100-man unit’s achievements and establishing them in the annals of military history as the “Ghost Army” that tricked Hitler, saved thousands of Allied lives and contributed to countless victories on the war’s Western Front.
The idea for the Ghost Army came from a trick the British played in 1942 in the prelude to the Battle of El Alamein in North Africa. In a deception mission, they called Operation Bertram, they used dummy tanks, fake munitions depots and false radio signals to trick the Germans into thinking they would mount an attack much further south than they actually did. In the short term, it was a roaring success. In the long term, it inspired the Americans to follow suit four years later.
Recruitment into the Ghost Army was unusual, to say the least. Rather than be pulled from military camps, they were sought out through ad agencies and art schools. Brain over brawn, it was creativity that was needed to hoodwink Hitler. And there was no shortage of that; it’s no coincidence that amongst their ranks were men who would go on to have outstanding careers in the art and fashion world: Art Kane, Bill Blass and Ellsworth Kelly just to name a few.
Much of the deception the Ghost Army used against the Germans was visual: achieved by poorly camouflaging inflatable tanks, transport vehicles and artillery pieces so they would be spotted by air reconnaissance or by parading them in the distance. It wasn’t just smoke and mirrors though. The Ghosters also poured resources into sonic deception. They armed themselves wire recorders, the most cutting-edge technology available at the time, to record the sounds of infantry and armored units before blasting them in the enemy’s direction from speakers and amplifiers mounted on half-tracks. Their range was phenomenal; the effects could be heard from up to 15 miles away.
But this wasn’t the only means of tricking the Germans through sound. The Ghosters also used what they called “spoof radio”, mimicking radio operators and sending Morse code to misdirect the enemy towards certain spots. On one occasion, they managed to convince Mildred Gillars—an American-born woman better known as Axis Sally who worked for the Axis as a radio propagandist—into falsely broadcasting the movements of an entire Allied division where there was in fact nothing.