The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops “Ghost Army” activities are now declassified. And speakers that blared pre-recorded soundtracks into the forests of France. So was Ellsworth Kelly. There are numerous weird schemes that were thought up or carried out by Allied forces over the years of the war, including bat bombs, pigeon guided missiles, and bomb laying dogs, as well as using cadavers as spies, and even parachuting dog soldiers. The Ghost Army is a breezy, mostly oral and visual history, ... as it was top secret during the war, and only gradually declassified in the decades after. The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery. The Army would dispatch a few of its members to drive canvas-covered trucks -- sometimes as few as two of those trucks -- in looping convoys that would create the impression (sorry, the "illusion") of an entire infantry unit being transported. Mysterious Universe is a property of 8th Kind Pty Ltd, including bat bombs, pigeon guided missiles, and bomb laying dogs. They were dispatched to spend time at French cafes near the war's front to spread gossip among the spies who might be there -- to, as one Ghoster put it, "order some omelets and talk loose." By the end of the war the Ghost Army would engage in 22 different missions to varying degrees of success, in the process losing some of their men but saving perhaps tens of thousands of lives through their various displays of brilliant trickery. But, this fascinating story of battlefield deception is told in a documentary now streaming on Netflix. The Ghosters' role was, in some sense, to cause chaos and confusion. By the middle of September 1944 the Allied drive east across France towards the German border had almost reached the end of its tether. Many of the men involved would go on to successful careers in the art world, such as the famous fashion icon Bill Blass, photographer Art Kane, and artist Ellsworth Kelly. Get the MegaPack collection now for this great price. According to the article, the CIA asked military intelligence officials to let them house ghost … They had sound tricks so they could make it sound like columns of trucks and soldiers and tanks were moving in at night. GHOST ARMY 8 AMER ICA IN WWII JUNE 2013 JUNE 2013 AMER ICA IN WWII 9 mounted to deceive the Germans about where the June 1944 D- ... the unit that would become known as the Ghost Army. However, ... You'd never expect to see the CIA taking a page from Ghost Hunters, but declassified papers definitely show otherwise. Declassified in 1996, the Ghost Army is now being considered for a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest civilian honors available. The FBI began one of the largest counterintelligence investigations in history to neutralize the threat of the Russian sleeper agents. And they relied on what the Ghost Army termed, awesomely, "atmosphere" -- creating the overall impression of an omnipresent military force. Some actors in the Ghost Army would also play the parts of Allied generals, dressing up as the officers and visiting towns where enemy spies would be likely to see them. Topies include Gulf of Tonkin, Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs), U.S.S. They wore fake uniforms with fake insignias, and their equipment was not real weaponry, but rather inflatable tanks, fake artillery and aircraft, an idea that the Americans had gotten from the British in 1942, when they had successfully used a similar tactic in the battle of El Alamein under the code name “Operation Bertram.” The inflatable toys they had in their arsenal included tanks, cannons, jeeps, trucks, and airplanes, all filled with air through the use of special compressors and which with training could all be set up within a few hours. The Army called it V2K technology, and yes, they’ve used it in the past. But they were a particular kind of soldier, serving in a particular kind of unit: Blass and his brothers in arms were recruited from art schools and ad agencies. The Operation Ghost Stories was the investigation on the sleeper agents. I think their legacy is in lives saved. And I think that legacy is summed up by what one soldier said, which was: “If one mother or one new bride was spared the agony of having to put a gold star in their front window, that’s what the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was all about. The rubber army used its dramatic streak to its advantage. It accomplished all that by, among much else, taking "the art of war" wonderfully literally. And Art Kane. The Ghost Army used inflatable tanks, sound effects, and imagination to fool the Germans on the battlefields of Europe. It staged a series of, basically, "traveling shows": elaborate plays designed to intimidate and/or confuse the Axis. There is a lot of artwork that was done by members of the Ghost Army both during and after the War. It is all a very wild ride in the history of World War II, already populated by weird tales from both sides of the conflict, and an off-beat historical oddity. They had fake radio. "It's a great example," he told Smithsonian magazine, "of how many fantastic, amazing, sort of mind-bending stories there still are 70 years later coming out of WWII. Abu Ghraib's "ghost detainees" The practice of ghosting first achieved widespread attention in 2005 when the Washington Post broke a story suggesting that the U.S. Army and the CIA were detaining "unlawful enemy combatants" at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with little or no due process. The Ghost Army was a United States Army tactical deception unit during World War II officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Bernard Bluestein and Seymour Nussenbaum, veterans of the Ghost Army of World War II look back on their battles in combat and in art. How 'Ghost Army' helped foil the Nazis: Amazing pictures show inflatable tanks and huge speakers playing audio of non-existent machinery that … Ghost Army Insignia circa 1944. From the landing at Normandy to the Battle of the Bulge, the work of 23rd Headquarters Special Troops was shrouded in secrecy. In 1996, the Ghost Army was officially declassified, and these photographers, painters, and fashion designers were finally revealed as true American heroes. And although their heroics helped, in part, win the war against the Nazis, the soldiers of the Ghost Army were forbidden from telling the stories of their top-secret work until their accounts were finally declassified in 1996. In early May of 1944, just before D-Day, the Ghost Army landed in the UK near Stratford upon Avon, and quickly began their secretive work starting in Normandy, and working throughout France and the Rhine Valley, often operating dangerously close to the front lines. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 10-11. To bolster the visual illusions the 603rd created, there was a unit charged with creating auditory illusions, or sonic deception, as they preferred to call it. The unit even went as far as to create fake radio transmissions that mimicked real operators from real units and gave bogus information, as well as utilize special effects such as smoke and light flashes to complete the illusion. The Ghost Army joined Allied forces in the siege of Brest, ... Anderson never even told her about his service in the Ghost Army until after the project was declassified 14 years ago. The Ghost Army's sonic illusions, in this case, were so convincing that they fooled Axis Sally, the radio propagandist, into reporting that an entire Allied division was preparing for battle in a spot that actually contained, at the time, no troops at all. After one of the planes went down, the public believed every bomb therein had been accounted for. Except that their wooden horses took the form of inflatable tanks. "I used to refer to us," one of its soldiers says, "as 'the Cecil B. DeMille warriors. They were being called in to complement Gen. George Patton 's Third Army and reinforce a 25-mile stretch of Allied front line that was lightly held and presenting a massive weak spot. (Rick Beyer/Hatcher Graduate Library) The Ghost Army's story was a matter of military secrecy until its declassification in 1996. Some actors in the Ghost Army would also play the parts of Allied generals, dressing up as the officers and visiting towns where enemy spies would be likely to see them. These were tense times, in which they were often up against a seemingly unstoppable enemy, so on some occasions the Allies were forced to get creative. For decades the exploits of this creative band of brave men were forgotten and swept away until 1996, when the government declassified the project, although some of it remains top secret. The Ghost Army was also able to use these props to set up convincing-looking camps, which made it seem as if thousands of Allied troops were on the ground, whereas in reality there were none. And rubber airplanes. They had inflatable tanks, trucks and artillery to fool enemy air reconnaissance. So they had all sorts of tricks up their sleeve. They were selected for their creativity. It would not be declassified for good until 1986. (Rick Beyer/Hatcher Graduate Library). As Jack Masey, who was recruited into the Ghost Army at age 18, remembered: "We were told we were going to be using inflatable equipment to try and fool the Germans into thinking that we were a real army, when we were in effect, I suppose, a rubber army.". From June 1944 to March 1945 it staged 20 battlefield deceptions, … These fake vehicles and weapons were so meticulously designed and looked so realistic, with even tread marks being created for the fake tanks, that from a distance or from the air they appeared as indistinguishable from the real thing. Schmidly, D. J. Digital Archive "The Digital Archive contains once-secret documents from governments all across the globe, uncovering new sources and providing … with its deceptions, and to have been instrumental in several Allied victories in Europe. All of which went to serve the Allies' ultimate illusion: that their military force was bigger and more powerful than it actually was. I think we would’ve won pretty much the same way without them. The Wisconsin Dogman Phenomenon: How Did it All Began? The ‘Ghost Army’ was kept secret even from allied soldiers on the ground, and its existence only become known when some military files were declassified in the 1990s. Copyright © Mysterious Universe. According to the Ghost Army Legacy Project, it was Sept. 14, 1944, when they were summoned to coordinates along the Moselle River. Thanks to Congressman Mike Rogers, this documentary offers unprecedented access to the secret world of espionage. ", It's hard to imagine a more mind-bending story, though, than the Ghost Army's tale of military magic. And they also had “special effects,” so they set up phony headquarters, they wore patches of the units they were impersonating, so that all of these messages would tell the enemy who might be listening in on the radio, watching, or having their spies there, who said the 75th Infantry Division was there, when in fact it was somewhere else 10 miles away. Declassified documents revealed that one nuclear bomb was in fact never found. They pretended to be members of fellow units (units that were actually deployed elsewhere) by sewing divisional patches onto their uniforms and painting other units' insignias onto their vehicles. The Ghosters mimicked, as well, departing operators' idiosyncratic methods of sending Morse Code -- creating the illusion, for Axis armies, that the Allied unit was in the vicinity when in fact it had already departed the area. They even went as far as to drive real trucks amongst the fake ones with just two soldiers sitting in the rear to simulate the effect that it was full of men, and real artillery and vehicles were interspersed amongst the fake ones for added realism. The Ghost Army, some 1,100 men in all, ended up staging more than twenty battlefield deceptions between 1944 and 1945, starting in Normandy two weeks after D-Day and ending in the Rhine River Valley. The 1100-man unit was given a unique mission within the Allied Army: to impersonate other Allied Army units to deceive the enemy. Before these men embarked on the artistic careers they would become known for, they served together during World War II. That top-secret unit was also known as the "Ghost Army." All of this was given an added layer of realism through giant speakers that would blare out recordings of the sounds of a large infantry unit or an airfield, which could then be remixed and changed on the fly to fit the particular situation. It accomplished all that by, among much else, taking "the art of war" wonderfully literally. ... whose mission was not declassified … A Super Bowl Ad That the Biden Presidency Made Possible, The Absurd Logic of Internet Recipe Hacks, within a few hundred yards of the front lines, a team from the unit's 3132 Signal Service Company Special traveled to Fort Knox, is estimated to have saved tens of thousands of soldiers' lives. Feb 8. Yet one of the oddest was the time the U.S. built an army of inflatable tanks, special effects and actors to battle the enemy in truly clever ways. (National Archives via PBS), Members of the 23rd lift a "tank." This was a unit in which creativity was prized, and to this end rather than enlisted soldiers, they focused on recruiting artists, architects, actors, set designers, and engineers, all handpicked from places like art schools and advertising agencies, and among their ranks were also real Army personnel pulled from the ranks of 406th Combat Engineers (which handled security), the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, the 3132 Signal Service Company Special, and the Signal Company Special as support. Rumors of a secret US military program to develop supersoldiers with psychic powers exploded in the 1970s. Over the course of the war, the Ghost Army took part in 20 major deceptions and saved an estimated 10,000 to 30,0000 lives. Jupiter May Be Responsible For Killing the Dinosaurs, Mysterious Lifeforms Discovered Underneath Antarctica Ice, The Strange Case of the Berkshires UFO Incident, Strange Paranormal Mysteries at Canada’s Bell Island, The Mysterious Otherwordly Sphere of Florida. But their mission was kept secret from their family and friends for decades. With help from engineers at Bell Labs, a team from the unit's 3132 Signal Service Company Special traveled to Fort Knox to record sounds of armored and infantry units onto wire recorders (the predecessors to tape recorders) that were cutting-edge at the time. Now, though, it's the subject of a documentary, the straightforwardly titled Ghost Army. A number of other publications picked up on the story, ... former director of research at the US Combined Arms Center, the official history was briefly declassified, and then re-classified again. 1996 | The activities of the Ghost Army remained a closely guarded secret until their official history was declassified in 1996 Vow of secrecy The Ghost Army continued to distort reality as the Allies advanced into Germany. Many of those performances -- "illusions," the men appropriately preferred to call them -- took place within a few hundred yards of the front lines. Paul Beban sets out to expose the truth, gaining access to a modern-day US government initiative to create the superhuman army of the future. They were soldiers whose most effective weapon was artistry. For decades the exploits of this creative band of brave men were forgotten and swept away until 1996, when the government declassified the project, although some of it remains top secret. (Wikipedia) The members of the 23rd were hand chosen for their unique non-combat-related skills, as this mission would take abilities not usually prized in soldiers. The Ghost Army journeyed from New York to England on May 2, 1944, alongside many American troops crossing the Atlantic ahead of the Normandy invasion. Story Declassified WHEN I CAME ACROSS THE STORY of this remarkable army decep - tion unit eight years ago, I was immediately captivated. In the theater, they then "mixed" those sounds to match the atmosphere they wanted to create, playing their faux soundtracks with powerful amplifiers and speakers that were mounted on halftracks -- a combination so effective that the sounds could be heard up to 15 miles away.
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