The Real Story Of Ghost Army

Its artillery couldn't fire, tanks couldn't move, and its soldiers were better at painting than shooting. However, the “Ghost Army”—1,100 American painters, designers, and sound engineers—staged ingenious ruses to confuse Nazi Germany about the location and quantity of Allied troops, winning World War II.

23rd Headquarters Special Troops and 3133rd Signal Company Special members who physically practiced combat rescued hundreds of American troops and received one of the nation's highest civilian medals.

The Ghost Army used inflatable decoys, phony radio chatter, and loudspeakers to mimic a force 30 times its size as near as a quarter mile from the front lines. A U.S. Army study said, “Rarely, if ever, has there been a group of such a few men which had so great an influence on the outcome of a major military campaign.”

Ghost Army member Freddy Fox called his group “a traveling road show that went up and down the front lines impersonating the real fighting outfits.” From D-Day until the Battle of the Bulge, the Ghost Army flew over 20 missions in Europe in 1944 and 1945.

In January 1944, the U.S. Army developed the Ghost Army as a self-contained organization to perform visual, acoustic, and radio deception in time for D-Day, inspired by British subterfuge in North Africa. With a 119 average IQ, the Ghost Army's painters, ad men, radio broadcasters, sound gurus, actors, architects, and set designers included fashion designer Bill Blass and painter Ellsworth Kelly.

As its name implies, the Ghost Army operated at night. The Meriden Daily Journal reported on December 6, 1945, that camouflage specialists employed gasoline-powered air compressors to inflate rubber tanks, jeeps, vehicles, artillery, and aircraft with painted embellishments to fool Nazi aerial surveillance. Radio experts lied and copied operators' techniques to make their reports seem legitimate. Sound engineers played pre-recorded military maneuvers and motions on massive speakers that could be heard 15 miles away.

During D-Day preparations in May 1944, most of the Ghost Army landed in England. Four individuals participated in the Normandy invasion, while a 17-man platoon landed on Omaha Beach eight days later to set up false artillery that attracted German fire.

The Ghost Army placed 50 fake tanks and sound vehicles within a few hundred yards of the front line during the siege of Brest in the summer of 1944, its first large-scale deception. In Operation Brittany, the Ghost Army hid General George Patton's 3rd Army from the Germans as it raced east across France.

The Ghost Army helped Patton again in September 1944 when a gap appeared in his line during his advance on Metz. The illusionists maintained the hazardous line for seven days using inflatables and loudspeakers that played rumbling tanks, yelling troops, and sergeants ordering men to put out their cigarettes until a division came to repair the breach. The Ghost Army's radio deception distracted the Germans from Patton's rescue of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge.

Rick Beyer, co-author of The Ghost Army of World War II and producer and director of a 2013 documentary on the group, claimed Patton was one of their easier generals. Patton was quite kind and offered recommendations to improve the deception. He accepted their suggestions, he claims.

In Operation Viersen in March 1945, the Ghost Army staged their biggest prank. To deflect German notice, the Ghost Army positioned itself 10 miles south of the designated landing area while the 9th Army prepared to cross the Rhine River. The Ghost Army impersonated two divisions and 40,000 men to inflate 600 dummies and themselves.

To make the 30th and 79th infantry divisions seem to be gathering, radio chatter propagated false rumors about their movements and sonic vehicles played pontoon bridge building, artillery fire, and officials swearing. The Ghost Army painted false division numbers and insignias on their vehicles and built fake headquarters and command posts with fake commanders and generals. To alert German agents, they stitched fake shoulder patches onto their uniforms and boisterously shared their phony intelligence in local pubs and cafés.

The trick worked. While the Nazis attacked the Ghost Army, the 9th Army crossed the Rhine easily.

WWII ended weeks later, ending the Ghost Army's purpose. Though they lied, the troops were brave. Three members were killed and 30 injured, but the Ghost Army rescued 15,000–30,000 American personnel, according to military estimates.

Ghost Army veterans came home to work in advertising, architecture, design, theater, art, fashion, and radio. Members were ordered to keep the Ghost Army's accomplishments a secret for decades to avoid deploying a comparable outfit against the Soviet Union, a new Cold War foe.

After the war, a few Ghost Army publications passed by the censors, but the military did not declassify them until 1996.

Beyer founded the organization Ghost Army Legacy Project and a grassroots campaign for the Congressional Gold Medal to honor the Ghost Army. “I was very conscious of the fact that these guys had not received any recognition because of secrecy and thought that was something due to them,” Beyer adds. "I thought what they did was remarkable, and I was amazed at their lack of World War II pantheon status."

Two sonic deception operations against the Nazis in Italy by the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and 3133rd Signal Company Special earned the Congressional Gold Medal in February 2022 for “their unique and highly distinguished service in conducting deception operations.”

According to Beyer, “performance and art are not just things we do as recreation, they are a critical part of human endeavor.” “The Ghost Army saved lives with creativity and illusion.”