January 28, 2015 • 30 mins
During WWII, the U.S. Army formed a top-secret military unit with one goal: Use artistic and theatrical skills to confuse the enemy. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops turned their creativity into incredible strategic trickery. Read the show notes here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Steph you missed in History class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Colly Frying and I'm trace Abe Wilson. And today
we're gonna talk a little bit about military history, and
it's World War two specifically. And even though this particular piece,
(00:22):
uh that we're discussing is in fact military history, if
there were a history of ingenuity or sleight of hand,
I think this would probably be one of the big
events on that timeline. Uh So we're gonna be talking
about the US Ghost Army, which was a top secret
group that was assembled to create confusion and mislead access forces.
And it's a really amazing story that stars ingenuity and
(00:44):
bravado as sort of the the main elements of the piece.
And the idea of military deception was of course not
new to World War Two. Everyone has heard of like
the Trojan Horse for example, and deceit is a tactic
as part of Sun SU's art of war. Almost any
culture in history that found itself at war with another
culture use some type of trickery to try to outsmart
(01:06):
the enemy, because that's sort of a vital part of
getting the upper hand in a conflict is misleading so
that you can kind of swoop in with your forces.
But this group really went to some pretty extraordinary measures
to achieve their goals, and they did some really fascinating
and cool things, uh and so, and it was classified
for a long time and then kind of came to light.
So we are going to talk about it today because
(01:27):
it is really cool. So to start out at the
beginning like we normally do that. Twenty third Headquarters Special
Troops was the one and only deception outfit that the
US Army had ever authorized. The goal was to corral
a group of creative thinkers to approach warfare in new ways.
(01:49):
And this sort of trickery focused effort was inspired by
the success of Operation Bertram, in which Allied forces used
dummy tanks and camouflage to trick Romwel's for which is
into an incorrect assessment of the Allies position and strength
during the Second Battle of l A l Amain in
North Africa. And also bolstering this case for a deception
(02:10):
unit was the U S success in misleading German intelligence
leading up to the Battle of Tunisia. They realized deception
was working and they thought, let's just have a unit
that's focused on this. The idea of forming a unit
dedicated just to this is attributed to Captain Ralph Ingersoll.
Before the war, he had been a celebrity journalist and
(02:31):
he had been working with Great Britain on deception techniques
to mislead the Germans in the time leading up the
D Day. On Christmas Eve of ninety three, a memo
to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations War Department
at Washington, d C officially requested the creation of a
unit with a mission quote to simulate a core of
two infantry divisions and one armored divisions and core installations
(02:55):
railhead dumps, etcetera. So, beginning in nineteen forty or more
than one thousand young men were recruited and they were
often recent art school graduates or ad agency creatives and
they were handpicked for this assignment. Recruits were sent to
Camp Forest and Tellahoma, Tennessee to train. Within the three
(03:15):
were several companies. The two four Signal Company worked on
radio counter intelligence. Second Signal Service Company, which was actually
trained at Pine Camp, New York, worked to develop sonic
deception techniques. The four of six Engineer Combat Company worked
on the big construction projects and was in charge of security.
(03:37):
And often you'll hear this effort mentioned, like when people say, oh,
the Ghost Army they used inflatable tanks to deceive the Germans,
and that is partially true, but as we mentioned in
breaking down these different companies within the twenty three, it
was a whole lot more than that. Yeah, I feel
like the tanks get the big like kind of bud
speedy headlines all time, which is understand Well, there's really
(04:00):
cool video that exists, like where you can see them
rolling over these inflated tanks and there. I don't know
that I have ever heard any of the audio recordings,
and I don't think I've ever seen anyone reference them online.
So you can see where the tanks get all the attention.
But I was not all there was. For instance, audio work,
sometimes referred to as sonic deception, was a huge piece
(04:24):
of the Ghost Army puzzle. Yeah, they would mount these
huge speakers to project elaborate soundscapes and radio plays that
were created by the Second Signal Service Company. And these
men had recorded tanks and trucks and artillery units and
they sound engineered them into a number of different soundtracks
and these recordings would include sounds of tanks on the
(04:46):
move or military construction, and they would even have things
like vehicle sputtering. And they basically amassed this really amazing
sound catalog basically every military vehicle that they had access to,
doing everything those miss jeans could do, so they could
kind of piece them together and create unique and specific
radio dramas. Basically, so if you wanted to broadcast a
(05:09):
battalion of vehicles starting up in the distance and moving closer,
they could create that with their vast library of recordings,
complete with idiosyncratic engine noises for specific vehicles and kind
of mimic that distance too slowly moving forward nearness that
you would hear if you were in one position with
(05:29):
an actual troop going by. I like to imagine this
as an extremely high tech version of following King Arthur
around banging coconuts together. But it was very high tech
even for the time. I mean, they were really kind
of on the advanced edge of technology and how they
were using sound. Yeah. Well, and it's like these that
(05:51):
kind of sound work happens in movies and TV and
things like that all the time. Now, Like that's yeah,
that's just sort of how it works, so this is
a different use for that. In addition to the three
companies created with new recruits, another company was looped into
the twenty third Headquarters Special Troops, and that was the
sixth h third Engineer Camouflage Battalion. The men of the
(06:12):
six h third had been working on camouflage for a
couple of years already, so they brought their expertise to
a group already in a fairly polished state. They had
already managed an impressive accomplishment that by disguising the plant
in Baltimore where B twenty six bombers were assembled, and
the event that access forces wished to look for the plant,
(06:33):
what they would see when they flew over was just
a regular rural area. And before we get to how
the twenty third trained and then made their way to Europe. Uh,
do you want to pause for a moment for a
word from a sponsor, Yes, I do so. During the
spring of n the men of the twenty third were training,
but they were training in skills that seemed in many
ways more appropriate for a touring theater company than for
(06:56):
a group of soldiers. So they built prototype prop vehicles,
first out of wood and burlap and then out of rubber.
The rubber versions looked incredibly realistic, but they weighed less
than a hundred pounds apiece. The men would also train
with dummy artillery and other prop equipment. They practiced sending
each other fake radio messages, and they learned just enough
(07:18):
about other different outfits that they could impersonate them, either
as individuals or as a group, and men who couldn't
so had to learn because they were going to have
to quickly alter their uniforms and switch out patches as
they sort of performed these presto changeo masquerades. In May,
the majority of the twenty three boarded the U S. S.
(07:40):
Henry Gibbons in New York, bound for Great Britain. They
spent about a month near Stratford on Avon while they trained,
although by all accounts there was also quite a bit
of partying. Yeah, this sounds like really a lovely time
that they had while they were in Britain. Uh. But
the first wave of men from the twenty third shipped
out to France just following DD and this was a
(08:00):
small platoon. It was just fifteen men, and they landed
at oma Omaha Beach on June fourteenth, so just out
a week a little more uh, and nurses actually flew
with them so that they could tend to the wounded
that we're waiting there on the beach. Going from a
month in the idyllic British countryside having what was kind
of a party esque atmosphere into the reality of war
(08:25):
in France was of course something of a shock. Knowing
that they were there to draw fire. Some of the
men thought that the twenty three was really a suicide outfit. Yeah.
They they had been trained in different sort of arts
and uh deceptions, but not so much in actual combat,
so they really did. Some of them really did think
(08:45):
at that point like, oh, they're just sending us there
to die and take the heat off the real soldiers.
But over the course of the next two months, the
rest of the twenty three joined their fellows in France,
leading up to their first big mission, which was Operation Elephant.
About half of the men in the unit were involved
in Operation Elephant, during which they pretended to be the
(09:05):
Army's Second Armored Division. The real Second Armored Division was
on the move while the twenty three kept up the appearances. Yeah,
and that's sort of a theme of their their missions
throughout and while this sham did indeed work, nearby German
troops held their position rather than following the real second
Armored Division because they did believe they were still there.
(09:26):
This was also a pretty big learning experience. During this
particular operation, it was revealed that if the inflatable tanks
that they three used lost even a small amount of air,
the cannons would droop and give it the whole thing away.
They really there are some paintings that you can find
online and in documentaries where you see sort of this
(09:47):
droopy cannon barrel, and it really does look comical. It's
an inherently comical image. Yeah, their tanks are not made
to fire into the ground, so it looked very, very silly.
And while they were not discovering their theatrics during Operation Elephant,
it also became apparent that setting up an entire false
(10:08):
division was going to be better executed in the dark
of night. They had not waited until really late. They
used some daylight hours to do it, and they also
realized that they really needed to like tighten up their
disguise and camouflage game if they wanted to ensure future success.
The entire twenty three was then tasked with Operation Breast,
which was named for the nearby French ports city that
(10:30):
was in August. The Sonic unit was the last to
arrive in France, so Breast was the first time that
the twenty three had their full arsenal of tricks at
their disposal, and the goal was to create the impression
of an existing tank unit having far greater power than
it actually did, with the hopes that they would trick
(10:51):
the Germans into a surrender. And so the twenty three
used a mix of actual tanks and dummies, flash canisters
to sort of fake tanks firing, and sound mixing to
create this really convincing illusion of a huge tank division.
And the main bravado move of this mission came in
the delivery of some of these soundscapes that they had mixed.
(11:14):
So late at night, members of the twenty three would
actually sort of creep forward with their sound equipment. They
would get within about five yards in the enemy line,
and they would play sounds of what sounded like officers
issuing orders and people yelling counter orders, and even like
fake situations of arguments where there would be accidents that
(11:36):
were staged and that there would be cursing at these
imaginary errors. They were all doing this really pretty close
to enemy lines. Uh. It was pretty to think about
what that must have been like, sitting there in the
dark with your speaker playing these things, knowing how very
close you were. It's so bring to think about. It
(11:56):
was effective, so effective that it confused friend the units
positioned about a mile away. And while it didn't get
the Germans under General Herman B. Von Ramkat to turn tail,
it did keep them from going anywhere. This was a
good thing, since that was an estimated thirty eight thousand troops,
and that was almost double what the Allies had initially estimated.
(12:19):
If they had not been tricked into holding their line
against this perceived threat from this puffed up, half fake
tank battalion, they might have gone on the offensive and
then really damaged the Allied forces. And throughout the rest
of four and on into the twenty three, continued to
run these military masquerade games, and with every mission they
(12:41):
would kind of regroup and refine their playbook and see
what had worked and what hand and they just got
better and better and better. They learned how to stage
and set dress their fake camps. More and more authentically.
I'm gonna say, I feel like I said that weird.
They learned how to stage and set dress their fake
camps more and more authentically, and they started hand painting
(13:02):
patches to mimic those of existing units, so they if
they can get a hold of real ones, then they
would stage fake headquarters to give out fake promotions so
low ranking men would look like generals and other officers,
creating the full illusion of real operations. And then late
at night they would you know, go where they were
(13:23):
called and inflate their fox vehicles and artillery undercover of darkness,
so that when dawn came, it would appear as though
a huge surge of troops had arrived in the area.
And in addition to providing this false image of battle
ready army troops where there was really only a line
of fake vehicles and prerecorded noise, the twenty Third's ability
to seem to appear out of thin air and vanish
(13:45):
just as quickly actually had a really unnerving effect on
the enemy, so the German Army started calling them the
phantom Army. Other tricks included the ongoing burning of fires
at camps that were deserted in different ways to create
fake tank tracks. In addition to the inflatable tanks and trucks,
they also used dummy planes and buildings. They could mix
(14:05):
fake radio transmissions within with the real ones to confuse
the enemy, and they mounted fake parachute drops and put
up signs directing Allied vehicles that were never actually coming.
But this elaborate spectacle also included a whole lot of
acting on the part of the troops. So knowing that
any US troops were always being watched by German soldiers
(14:29):
or spies, or sometimes there were French people working for
the Germans as informants, the boys of the twenty three
would really employ all manner of ruses. They would change
out their unit insignias as we mentioned, on uniforms as
well as on vehicles. They would do quick stencil work
to change everything up, and they would make sure that
they were seen about town wherever they were kind of
(14:50):
drinking and hanging out. And if they were asked what
unit they were a part of, they would just make
up names or reference the unit that they were covering for.
And some of them even would uh sort of mount
these these fake little tableau where they would feign drunkenness
and blab false information in public places. So this sort
of became this ongoing game of misinformation and subterfuge where
(15:13):
they were just sort of always acting. This wasn't completely flawless,
though sometimes there were mistakes and problems. On occasion, a
dummy tank would be inflated facing the wrong direction. Because
all of these set up parts are being done at night,
it was easy enough to lift one and turn it around,
but if it was already daylight when they realized the problem,
(15:33):
they were going to have to do it with really
careful timings so as not to be noticed. At one point,
several vehicles that had been inflated in the night were
warmed so much the sun came up that the air
expanding inside them caused them to pop loudly as they
sprang leaks. And while while this sort of sounds hilarious,
it was happening during a war. So all of these
(15:56):
accidents put the men involved at serious risk. And all
in all, there were twenty one missions mounted by the
twenty three and before we get to sort of the
biggest one that they undertook, uh, if you want to
do a quick word from a sponsor, let's do so.
The biggest in what is arguably the most successful of
the twenty third missions was Operation Vierson, and this took
(16:18):
place near the war's end, relatively speaking, it wasn't right
at the end, but it was in March, and this
basically launched a big visible decoy mission to once again
cover the movements of other troops. While parts of the
Ninth Army were moving north to quietly cross the Rhine,
the twenty three was making a big show of pretending
to be those troops farther south. They masqueraded as the
(16:41):
ninth and ran practice and training maneuvers for a crossing
at Beierson and just publicly enough to draw lots of attention.
And this was really a massive effort. So they set
up fake medical and engineering facilities. They had trucks and
sonic crews creating the illusion of convoys moving supplies. At
(17:03):
one point they were just having trucks loaded up where
they would be driving them back and forth, and they
would put two guys at the very back, so it
looked like it was full of troops, but in fact
there are only two guys at the back. They arranged
everything perfectly so that an aerial reconnaissance taking pictures would
have no idea that the entire thing was a hoax.
They one of the reasons that they used artists was
(17:25):
so they could conceptually visualize, like how things would look
from multiple angles, even when they didn't have those angles
available to them, So they really made this whole thing
beautifully realistic, even though it wasn't back to all a hoax.
When the real Ninth crossed the rhyme, the Germans were
taken totally by surprise. Those German troops that could resist
(17:45):
them were disorganized and unprepared, so US casualties were very few.
The twenty three received a commendation from the Ninth Army
Commander William Simpson for their effort. A later estimate by
Simpson placed the number of troops that were saved by
this deception at ten thousands UH and it ended up
being the twenty last mission of the war, and in
(18:08):
September the three was completely shut down. So one of
the inherent dangers of being in a ghost army designed
to draw attention is that it also draws fire. So
it's easy to think of all this pageantry and strategic
slide of hand is really fun and fascinating, but it
(18:28):
really put the men involved at great risk. At one
point they were actually set up in Bastone, and they
actually missed the start of the Battle of the Bulge
by about four hours. They had been pulled out around
midnight of December six, and this is at point and
the fighting started around four am. So had those men
(18:49):
been trapped there with their phony equipment, they would have
been in incredibly dire straits and unable to defend themselves.
During the Battle of the Bulge. The three returned to
Luxembourg's any where they had already spent a lot of time,
and fired from the rooftops at the incoming Liftwaffe aircraft.
This is the only time they ever really for real
fired at the enemy. Yeah, it was there one there,
(19:13):
one time that they actually got to perform actual combat activities. Uh.
And the twenty three after that was very quickly moved
to Verdunn. So, in part, the Allies wanted to maintain
the secrecy of the Ghost Army, and in another part
they realized that this blow up dummy artillery was not
going to be any good in a fight, so they
just wanted to clear them out. And the men ended
(19:34):
up spending Christmas in Verdune. While the group had been
extraordinarily lucky throughout their time, their luck finally ran out
in the spring of n On March twelfth, while impersonating
the eightieth Infantry, the twenty three drew German artillery fire.
Two of their men were killed in fifteen others were wounded.
(19:54):
This was really their worst day. In spite of having
been an incredibly dangerous areas any times, they kept up
false appearances all through the war. And one of the
problems that comes up when UH discussing the twenty three
and their effectiveness and sort of assessing what they were
able to achieve lies in the fact that so much
(20:15):
of their work was secret, and often it fooled Allied
forces as well as the enemy. Like the Allied forces
didn't even really know what was going on with them
a lot of the time, they thought they were just
another unit. After the war, most of the men stayed
quiet about the amazing works of deceptive aren't that they
had been part of. The work was classified, so in
(20:36):
the event that the US found itself at war again,
having a ghost army would be a really valuable asset.
So the military didn't want to tip its hand and
reveal this resource. But finally in NINETI so almost nineteen
years ago from when we're recording this, the work of
the twenty three was declassified and the men who had
only been able to give KG answers to their families
(20:57):
about what they had done in the war were now
free speak of their incredible efforts. One of the truly
significant aspects of the twenty three and the work that
they did is the fact that an entire division of
creative people was successfully managed within the structure of the military. Yeah.
This is one of those things that people often go like, look,
these were all artists and they totally were able to
(21:19):
work together in this this effort. And I don't know
if that speaks to like their level of commitment or independence.
You know, It's one of those things that often likes
to get bandied about, particularly when you're talking about modern business, like, oh,
it's hard to manage creative people. It's like these guys
managed and they were doing some scary stuff. Yeah. I
think it also speaks to the like perpetual mythologizing of
(21:40):
creative work as some kind of extraordinary thing, when in
a lot of cases it is work. Yeah, which isn't
to say that like creative inspiration isn't really fabulous and
cool and unique in many ways. But I just I
find that to be a really interesting one that we
do mythologize working with creative types. And I say of
this as a creative person married to an artist as well, Like,
(22:03):
but they can it can be anybody can be managed,
any sort of effort that can be put together. Uh,
it's it's all about, you know, using people's assets. And
another really incredible legacy is the artwork that a lot
of these men were doing while they were deployed. I'll
talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Yeah,
(22:24):
it's really no surprise that a lot of the men
who were involved in effectively doing art for the army
went on to careers in the arts. So for example,
Bill Blast of course went on spuilt a fashion empire.
He had actually been sketching women's clothing during the war. Yeah,
there was one interview that I saw with one of
(22:44):
the other members of the twenty three and he was saying,
and I don't know if he was serious or not,
that Bill Blast would read Vote magazine in foxholes, But
I have no idea, but I loved it. Art Kane,
of course, became a very well known photographer. His photo
entitled A Great Day in a Loan, which was taken
in nine, featured fifty seven prominent jazz musicians and it's
(23:05):
still considered one of the most important images of jazz history.
And he also took a lot of incredible celebrity portraits,
and he was the photographer for the one and only
DeLorean magazine ad to ever run. Ellsworth Kelly made a
career as a painter and a sculptor and became known
for use of really bright color and very hard edges.
(23:25):
Arthur Singer became an illustrator and he really became known
for his incredibly detailed bird illustrations. So if you have
ever looked at an illustrated birding field guide, odds are
really good that you've seen as work because it's been
in everything. Jack Macy went on to design backdrops for
the State Department. Eventually he designed the kitchen set that
(23:47):
was used for the Nixon Cruis Chef debate of nineteen
fifty nine. And there's a really wonderful documentary called The
Ghost Army that I highly recommend for people that UH
want to hear accounts from some of the surviving members
of the twenty third And one of the reasons I
really loved it too, is that, uh, it being a
visual medium, they're able to show a lot of the
artwork that these men were doing while they were in
(24:10):
France and in performing all these amazing maneuvers. And one
of the men said something like, you know, we were
in all these crazy circumstances, but we could always find
time or a place to duck away and do a
quick watercolor. But I think it's just super terming, like
they just were all artists at heart, even though they
were part of this amazing war effort. And that documentary
is as of this recording in early fifteen, is available
(24:33):
on Netflix, and it's a little longer than an hour, uh,
and you get to see a lot of this really
amazing art and just interviews with these guys, and it
deals a little bit more with with them as individuals
rather than like what we've covered is so much of
sort of the bigger, kind of broad strokes of the
whole unit, but this really focuses on some of the
different men and has interviews with them that are really
quite charming and touching and really really entertaining. Uh. So
(24:58):
I highly recommend that. And that is the Ghost Army,
which is just such a The whole thing is so cool,
and I'm surprised even though it does pop up sometimes
in like uh, you know list goals online, Uh, people
don't really know about it. Like it's another one of
those things where I thought, oh, everyone's heard about this,
We've had a few requests for it. But then when
(25:18):
I mentioned it to people, they look at me like,
I don't know what you're talking about. And then when
I say a few things, they get sort of this,
like agog really what. So clearly this is there's there's
some gap in in their uh, in the knowledge about
these guys, and it's they did such amazing things that
I think everybody should know what their work was. Like.
(25:38):
Do you also have some listener mail for us? I do.
I have two pieces, and they're both super fun and
one is really more of a thank you, but so
the first one is from a very young listener and
it is so charming that, uh it made me crazy. Yes,
so this is from our listener Penny, and she says,
dear stuff you missed in history class people. I extremely
(25:59):
love the podcast on the Curse and Mary Celeste. I
think that the crew breathing the whiskey fumes was bad
for them. What do you think. I run to one
or two of your podcasts every day, but dad makes
me run. I would rather just listen to your podcast alone.
We went on vacation to Colorado and listen to your
podcast in the car, but we did not have to run.
(26:19):
I have a podcast request about the Emperor Penguins of
and Antarctica, as I am a great fan of penguins
and my room is stuffed with them, and this is
from our listener, Penny. She says, ps, I love your
podcast pps. I'm seven years old and homeschooled, and your
podcasts are a lot of help to me. And then
she drew this amazing picture of penguins and they're holding
little flags, and one of them says Tracy and Holly,
(26:42):
and I have a kinship with her because I too
love penguins. So I'm gonna figure out a way to
do something on emperor penguins in Antarctica. Thank you, Penny.
That was awesome. I've actually been hanging onto this one
for a few months. I just love it so much.
I kind of keep it out at my desk because
I find it terribly charming. I remember when that one
came in and we were both delighted. Oh that's so cute.
(27:02):
And the other one is from and I hope I
am pronouncing the name right our listener, Nicole, and she
sent us this amazing parcel and she wrote his postcard,
this is ladies, I thought you might enjoy these planners.
I make a small run of them each year and
chose these covers just for you. And this is from
Nicole at Year of the Calendar dot com. And she
sent it on the postcard of one of her sheep
(27:24):
named Uncle honey Bunch, who is a Shetland weather and
he's adorable. And I love that his name is Uncle
honey Bunch. And also, oh, my goodness, you don't even
know how you hit the sweet spot with planners for me.
I was so excited when they came that I started.
I am in tracy about all the lists I was
making in them, Uh, because they're awesome. They're really cool planners.
(27:44):
They're a little bit sassy. There's a little bit of
adult language in them, which I love. It just has
a fun way to lay out the year. It's really
organized in a really smart and fun way that. Uh,
I just I adored it. There's so many little extras
and little how to draw things within it, and oh
it's magical. I have such a calendar addiction and such
(28:06):
planner addiction specifically that that was a good one, cy Nicole.
I cannot thank you enough for that. That was an
absolute delight to open. And she's she's really not exaggerating, Nicole,
Like I was not physically present in the office when
these arrived. She texted me a video of paging through it.
So that is how excited Hollywood is about the planners.
(28:31):
I love them, like all caps love. I love them.
They're awesome. I also love them. But I am the
person that has good intentions about planners every year, and
I will keep up with the planner for about three days.
Oh yeah, No, mine is already gonna starting to look
dog eared because I drag it everywhere with me. That's awesome.
And it's good because it's a good size where I
(28:52):
can tuck in little notes and stuff, and like if
I do a little sketch of like a costumer or
something that I want a stitch, I can shove it
in there. There's some good spaces. It's really cool planner.
I love it. I love it again, all caps love UH.
You would like to write us an email, you can
do that at History Podcast at house stubworks dot com.
You can also connect with us on Twitter at mist
in History or at Facebook dot com slash missed in History.
(29:15):
Can also find us on Tumblr at mist in History
dot tumbler dot com, at pinterest dot com slash mist
in history. And I'm hoping we can find some good
examples of some of the artwork that we talked about today,
and I know there are photos of some of these
fake tanks and artillery pieces and stuff that hopefully we'll
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(29:36):
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(29:56):
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(30:21):
Because it has stuff works dot com. M
Welcome to Steph you missed in History class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Colly Frying and I'm trace Abe Wilson. And today
we're gonna talk a little bit about military history, and
it's World War two specifically. And even though this particular piece,
(00:22):
uh that we're discussing is in fact military history, if
there were a history of ingenuity or sleight of hand,
I think this would probably be one of the big
events on that timeline. Uh So we're gonna be talking
about the US Ghost Army, which was a top secret
group that was assembled to create confusion and mislead access forces.
And it's a really amazing story that stars ingenuity and
(00:44):
bravado as sort of the the main elements of the piece.
And the idea of military deception was of course not
new to World War Two. Everyone has heard of like
the Trojan Horse for example, and deceit is a tactic
as part of Sun SU's art of war. Almost any
culture in history that found itself at war with another
culture use some type of trickery to try to outsmart
(01:06):
the enemy, because that's sort of a vital part of
getting the upper hand in a conflict is misleading so
that you can kind of swoop in with your forces.
But this group really went to some pretty extraordinary measures
to achieve their goals, and they did some really fascinating
and cool things, uh and so, and it was classified
for a long time and then kind of came to light.
So we are going to talk about it today because
(01:27):
it is really cool. So to start out at the
beginning like we normally do that. Twenty third Headquarters Special
Troops was the one and only deception outfit that the
US Army had ever authorized. The goal was to corral
a group of creative thinkers to approach warfare in new ways.
(01:49):
And this sort of trickery focused effort was inspired by
the success of Operation Bertram, in which Allied forces used
dummy tanks and camouflage to trick Romwel's for which is
into an incorrect assessment of the Allies position and strength
during the Second Battle of l A l Amain in
North Africa. And also bolstering this case for a deception
(02:10):
unit was the U S success in misleading German intelligence
leading up to the Battle of Tunisia. They realized deception
was working and they thought, let's just have a unit
that's focused on this. The idea of forming a unit
dedicated just to this is attributed to Captain Ralph Ingersoll.
Before the war, he had been a celebrity journalist and
(02:31):
he had been working with Great Britain on deception techniques
to mislead the Germans in the time leading up the
D Day. On Christmas Eve of ninety three, a memo
to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations War Department
at Washington, d C officially requested the creation of a
unit with a mission quote to simulate a core of
two infantry divisions and one armored divisions and core installations
(02:55):
railhead dumps, etcetera. So, beginning in nineteen forty or more
than one thousand young men were recruited and they were
often recent art school graduates or ad agency creatives and
they were handpicked for this assignment. Recruits were sent to
Camp Forest and Tellahoma, Tennessee to train. Within the three
(03:15):
were several companies. The two four Signal Company worked on
radio counter intelligence. Second Signal Service Company, which was actually
trained at Pine Camp, New York, worked to develop sonic
deception techniques. The four of six Engineer Combat Company worked
on the big construction projects and was in charge of security.
(03:37):
And often you'll hear this effort mentioned, like when people say, oh,
the Ghost Army they used inflatable tanks to deceive the Germans,
and that is partially true, but as we mentioned in
breaking down these different companies within the twenty three, it
was a whole lot more than that. Yeah, I feel
like the tanks get the big like kind of bud
speedy headlines all time, which is understand Well, there's really
(04:00):
cool video that exists, like where you can see them
rolling over these inflated tanks and there. I don't know
that I have ever heard any of the audio recordings,
and I don't think I've ever seen anyone reference them online.
So you can see where the tanks get all the attention.
But I was not all there was. For instance, audio work,
sometimes referred to as sonic deception, was a huge piece
(04:24):
of the Ghost Army puzzle. Yeah, they would mount these
huge speakers to project elaborate soundscapes and radio plays that
were created by the Second Signal Service Company. And these
men had recorded tanks and trucks and artillery units and
they sound engineered them into a number of different soundtracks
and these recordings would include sounds of tanks on the
(04:46):
move or military construction, and they would even have things
like vehicle sputtering. And they basically amassed this really amazing
sound catalog basically every military vehicle that they had access to,
doing everything those miss jeans could do, so they could
kind of piece them together and create unique and specific
radio dramas. Basically, so if you wanted to broadcast a
(05:09):
battalion of vehicles starting up in the distance and moving closer,
they could create that with their vast library of recordings,
complete with idiosyncratic engine noises for specific vehicles and kind
of mimic that distance too slowly moving forward nearness that
you would hear if you were in one position with
(05:29):
an actual troop going by. I like to imagine this
as an extremely high tech version of following King Arthur
around banging coconuts together. But it was very high tech
even for the time. I mean, they were really kind
of on the advanced edge of technology and how they
were using sound. Yeah. Well, and it's like these that
(05:51):
kind of sound work happens in movies and TV and
things like that all the time. Now, Like that's yeah,
that's just sort of how it works, so this is
a different use for that. In addition to the three
companies created with new recruits, another company was looped into
the twenty third Headquarters Special Troops, and that was the
sixth h third Engineer Camouflage Battalion. The men of the
(06:12):
six h third had been working on camouflage for a
couple of years already, so they brought their expertise to
a group already in a fairly polished state. They had
already managed an impressive accomplishment that by disguising the plant
in Baltimore where B twenty six bombers were assembled, and
the event that access forces wished to look for the plant,
(06:33):
what they would see when they flew over was just
a regular rural area. And before we get to how
the twenty third trained and then made their way to Europe. Uh,
do you want to pause for a moment for a
word from a sponsor, Yes, I do so. During the
spring of n the men of the twenty third were training,
but they were training in skills that seemed in many
ways more appropriate for a touring theater company than for
(06:56):
a group of soldiers. So they built prototype prop vehicles,
first out of wood and burlap and then out of rubber.
The rubber versions looked incredibly realistic, but they weighed less
than a hundred pounds apiece. The men would also train
with dummy artillery and other prop equipment. They practiced sending
each other fake radio messages, and they learned just enough
(07:18):
about other different outfits that they could impersonate them, either
as individuals or as a group, and men who couldn't
so had to learn because they were going to have
to quickly alter their uniforms and switch out patches as
they sort of performed these presto changeo masquerades. In May,
the majority of the twenty three boarded the U S. S.
(07:40):
Henry Gibbons in New York, bound for Great Britain. They
spent about a month near Stratford on Avon while they trained,
although by all accounts there was also quite a bit
of partying. Yeah, this sounds like really a lovely time
that they had while they were in Britain. Uh. But
the first wave of men from the twenty third shipped
out to France just following DD and this was a
(08:00):
small platoon. It was just fifteen men, and they landed
at oma Omaha Beach on June fourteenth, so just out
a week a little more uh, and nurses actually flew
with them so that they could tend to the wounded
that we're waiting there on the beach. Going from a
month in the idyllic British countryside having what was kind
of a party esque atmosphere into the reality of war
(08:25):
in France was of course something of a shock. Knowing
that they were there to draw fire. Some of the
men thought that the twenty three was really a suicide outfit. Yeah.
They they had been trained in different sort of arts
and uh deceptions, but not so much in actual combat,
so they really did. Some of them really did think
(08:45):
at that point like, oh, they're just sending us there
to die and take the heat off the real soldiers.
But over the course of the next two months, the
rest of the twenty three joined their fellows in France,
leading up to their first big mission, which was Operation Elephant.
About half of the men in the unit were involved
in Operation Elephant, during which they pretended to be the
(09:05):
Army's Second Armored Division. The real Second Armored Division was
on the move while the twenty three kept up the appearances. Yeah,
and that's sort of a theme of their their missions
throughout and while this sham did indeed work, nearby German
troops held their position rather than following the real second
Armored Division because they did believe they were still there.
(09:26):
This was also a pretty big learning experience. During this
particular operation, it was revealed that if the inflatable tanks
that they three used lost even a small amount of air,
the cannons would droop and give it the whole thing away.
They really there are some paintings that you can find
online and in documentaries where you see sort of this
(09:47):
droopy cannon barrel, and it really does look comical. It's
an inherently comical image. Yeah, their tanks are not made
to fire into the ground, so it looked very, very silly.
And while they were not discovering their theatrics during Operation Elephant,
it also became apparent that setting up an entire false
(10:08):
division was going to be better executed in the dark
of night. They had not waited until really late. They
used some daylight hours to do it, and they also
realized that they really needed to like tighten up their
disguise and camouflage game if they wanted to ensure future success.
The entire twenty three was then tasked with Operation Breast,
which was named for the nearby French ports city that
(10:30):
was in August. The Sonic unit was the last to
arrive in France, so Breast was the first time that
the twenty three had their full arsenal of tricks at
their disposal, and the goal was to create the impression
of an existing tank unit having far greater power than
it actually did, with the hopes that they would trick
(10:51):
the Germans into a surrender. And so the twenty three
used a mix of actual tanks and dummies, flash canisters
to sort of fake tanks firing, and sound mixing to
create this really convincing illusion of a huge tank division.
And the main bravado move of this mission came in
the delivery of some of these soundscapes that they had mixed.
(11:14):
So late at night, members of the twenty three would
actually sort of creep forward with their sound equipment. They
would get within about five yards in the enemy line,
and they would play sounds of what sounded like officers
issuing orders and people yelling counter orders, and even like
fake situations of arguments where there would be accidents that
(11:36):
were staged and that there would be cursing at these
imaginary errors. They were all doing this really pretty close
to enemy lines. Uh. It was pretty to think about
what that must have been like, sitting there in the
dark with your speaker playing these things, knowing how very
close you were. It's so bring to think about. It
(11:56):
was effective, so effective that it confused friend the units
positioned about a mile away. And while it didn't get
the Germans under General Herman B. Von Ramkat to turn tail,
it did keep them from going anywhere. This was a
good thing, since that was an estimated thirty eight thousand troops,
and that was almost double what the Allies had initially estimated.
(12:19):
If they had not been tricked into holding their line
against this perceived threat from this puffed up, half fake
tank battalion, they might have gone on the offensive and
then really damaged the Allied forces. And throughout the rest
of four and on into the twenty three, continued to
run these military masquerade games, and with every mission they
(12:41):
would kind of regroup and refine their playbook and see
what had worked and what hand and they just got
better and better and better. They learned how to stage
and set dress their fake camps. More and more authentically.
I'm gonna say, I feel like I said that weird.
They learned how to stage and set dress their fake
camps more and more authentically, and they started hand painting
(13:02):
patches to mimic those of existing units, so they if
they can get a hold of real ones, then they
would stage fake headquarters to give out fake promotions so
low ranking men would look like generals and other officers,
creating the full illusion of real operations. And then late
at night they would you know, go where they were
(13:23):
called and inflate their fox vehicles and artillery undercover of darkness,
so that when dawn came, it would appear as though
a huge surge of troops had arrived in the area.
And in addition to providing this false image of battle
ready army troops where there was really only a line
of fake vehicles and prerecorded noise, the twenty Third's ability
to seem to appear out of thin air and vanish
(13:45):
just as quickly actually had a really unnerving effect on
the enemy, so the German Army started calling them the
phantom Army. Other tricks included the ongoing burning of fires
at camps that were deserted in different ways to create
fake tank tracks. In addition to the inflatable tanks and trucks,
they also used dummy planes and buildings. They could mix
(14:05):
fake radio transmissions within with the real ones to confuse
the enemy, and they mounted fake parachute drops and put
up signs directing Allied vehicles that were never actually coming.
But this elaborate spectacle also included a whole lot of
acting on the part of the troops. So knowing that
any US troops were always being watched by German soldiers
(14:29):
or spies, or sometimes there were French people working for
the Germans as informants, the boys of the twenty three
would really employ all manner of ruses. They would change
out their unit insignias as we mentioned, on uniforms as
well as on vehicles. They would do quick stencil work
to change everything up, and they would make sure that
they were seen about town wherever they were kind of
(14:50):
drinking and hanging out. And if they were asked what
unit they were a part of, they would just make
up names or reference the unit that they were covering for.
And some of them even would uh sort of mount
these these fake little tableau where they would feign drunkenness
and blab false information in public places. So this sort
of became this ongoing game of misinformation and subterfuge where
(15:13):
they were just sort of always acting. This wasn't completely flawless,
though sometimes there were mistakes and problems. On occasion, a
dummy tank would be inflated facing the wrong direction. Because
all of these set up parts are being done at night,
it was easy enough to lift one and turn it around,
but if it was already daylight when they realized the problem,
(15:33):
they were going to have to do it with really
careful timings so as not to be noticed. At one point,
several vehicles that had been inflated in the night were
warmed so much the sun came up that the air
expanding inside them caused them to pop loudly as they
sprang leaks. And while while this sort of sounds hilarious,
it was happening during a war. So all of these
(15:56):
accidents put the men involved at serious risk. And all
in all, there were twenty one missions mounted by the
twenty three and before we get to sort of the
biggest one that they undertook, uh, if you want to
do a quick word from a sponsor, let's do so.
The biggest in what is arguably the most successful of
the twenty third missions was Operation Vierson, and this took
(16:18):
place near the war's end, relatively speaking, it wasn't right
at the end, but it was in March, and this
basically launched a big visible decoy mission to once again
cover the movements of other troops. While parts of the
Ninth Army were moving north to quietly cross the Rhine,
the twenty three was making a big show of pretending
to be those troops farther south. They masqueraded as the
(16:41):
ninth and ran practice and training maneuvers for a crossing
at Beierson and just publicly enough to draw lots of attention.
And this was really a massive effort. So they set
up fake medical and engineering facilities. They had trucks and
sonic crews creating the illusion of convoys moving supplies. At
(17:03):
one point they were just having trucks loaded up where
they would be driving them back and forth, and they
would put two guys at the very back, so it
looked like it was full of troops, but in fact
there are only two guys at the back. They arranged
everything perfectly so that an aerial reconnaissance taking pictures would
have no idea that the entire thing was a hoax.
They one of the reasons that they used artists was
(17:25):
so they could conceptually visualize, like how things would look
from multiple angles, even when they didn't have those angles
available to them, So they really made this whole thing
beautifully realistic, even though it wasn't back to all a hoax.
When the real Ninth crossed the rhyme, the Germans were
taken totally by surprise. Those German troops that could resist
(17:45):
them were disorganized and unprepared, so US casualties were very few.
The twenty three received a commendation from the Ninth Army
Commander William Simpson for their effort. A later estimate by
Simpson placed the number of troops that were saved by
this deception at ten thousands UH and it ended up
being the twenty last mission of the war, and in
(18:08):
September the three was completely shut down. So one of
the inherent dangers of being in a ghost army designed
to draw attention is that it also draws fire. So
it's easy to think of all this pageantry and strategic
slide of hand is really fun and fascinating, but it
(18:28):
really put the men involved at great risk. At one
point they were actually set up in Bastone, and they
actually missed the start of the Battle of the Bulge
by about four hours. They had been pulled out around
midnight of December six, and this is at point and
the fighting started around four am. So had those men
(18:49):
been trapped there with their phony equipment, they would have
been in incredibly dire straits and unable to defend themselves.
During the Battle of the Bulge. The three returned to
Luxembourg's any where they had already spent a lot of time,
and fired from the rooftops at the incoming Liftwaffe aircraft.
This is the only time they ever really for real
fired at the enemy. Yeah, it was there one there,
(19:13):
one time that they actually got to perform actual combat activities. Uh.
And the twenty three after that was very quickly moved
to Verdunn. So, in part, the Allies wanted to maintain
the secrecy of the Ghost Army, and in another part
they realized that this blow up dummy artillery was not
going to be any good in a fight, so they
just wanted to clear them out. And the men ended
(19:34):
up spending Christmas in Verdune. While the group had been
extraordinarily lucky throughout their time, their luck finally ran out
in the spring of n On March twelfth, while impersonating
the eightieth Infantry, the twenty three drew German artillery fire.
Two of their men were killed in fifteen others were wounded.
(19:54):
This was really their worst day. In spite of having
been an incredibly dangerous areas any times, they kept up
false appearances all through the war. And one of the
problems that comes up when UH discussing the twenty three
and their effectiveness and sort of assessing what they were
able to achieve lies in the fact that so much
(20:15):
of their work was secret, and often it fooled Allied
forces as well as the enemy. Like the Allied forces
didn't even really know what was going on with them
a lot of the time, they thought they were just
another unit. After the war, most of the men stayed
quiet about the amazing works of deceptive aren't that they
had been part of. The work was classified, so in
(20:36):
the event that the US found itself at war again,
having a ghost army would be a really valuable asset.
So the military didn't want to tip its hand and
reveal this resource. But finally in NINETI so almost nineteen
years ago from when we're recording this, the work of
the twenty three was declassified and the men who had
only been able to give KG answers to their families
(20:57):
about what they had done in the war were now
free speak of their incredible efforts. One of the truly
significant aspects of the twenty three and the work that
they did is the fact that an entire division of
creative people was successfully managed within the structure of the military. Yeah.
This is one of those things that people often go like, look,
these were all artists and they totally were able to
(21:19):
work together in this this effort. And I don't know
if that speaks to like their level of commitment or independence.
You know, It's one of those things that often likes
to get bandied about, particularly when you're talking about modern business, like, oh,
it's hard to manage creative people. It's like these guys
managed and they were doing some scary stuff. Yeah. I
think it also speaks to the like perpetual mythologizing of
(21:40):
creative work as some kind of extraordinary thing, when in
a lot of cases it is work. Yeah, which isn't
to say that like creative inspiration isn't really fabulous and
cool and unique in many ways. But I just I
find that to be a really interesting one that we
do mythologize working with creative types. And I say of
this as a creative person married to an artist as well, Like,
(22:03):
but they can it can be anybody can be managed,
any sort of effort that can be put together. Uh,
it's it's all about, you know, using people's assets. And
another really incredible legacy is the artwork that a lot
of these men were doing while they were deployed. I'll
talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Yeah,
(22:24):
it's really no surprise that a lot of the men
who were involved in effectively doing art for the army
went on to careers in the arts. So for example,
Bill Blast of course went on spuilt a fashion empire.
He had actually been sketching women's clothing during the war. Yeah,
there was one interview that I saw with one of
(22:44):
the other members of the twenty three and he was saying,
and I don't know if he was serious or not,
that Bill Blast would read Vote magazine in foxholes, But
I have no idea, but I loved it. Art Kane,
of course, became a very well known photographer. His photo
entitled A Great Day in a Loan, which was taken
in nine, featured fifty seven prominent jazz musicians and it's
(23:05):
still considered one of the most important images of jazz history.
And he also took a lot of incredible celebrity portraits,
and he was the photographer for the one and only
DeLorean magazine ad to ever run. Ellsworth Kelly made a
career as a painter and a sculptor and became known
for use of really bright color and very hard edges.
(23:25):
Arthur Singer became an illustrator and he really became known
for his incredibly detailed bird illustrations. So if you have
ever looked at an illustrated birding field guide, odds are
really good that you've seen as work because it's been
in everything. Jack Macy went on to design backdrops for
the State Department. Eventually he designed the kitchen set that
(23:47):
was used for the Nixon Cruis Chef debate of nineteen
fifty nine. And there's a really wonderful documentary called The
Ghost Army that I highly recommend for people that UH
want to hear accounts from some of the surviving members
of the twenty third And one of the reasons I
really loved it too, is that, uh, it being a
visual medium, they're able to show a lot of the
artwork that these men were doing while they were in
(24:10):
France and in performing all these amazing maneuvers. And one
of the men said something like, you know, we were
in all these crazy circumstances, but we could always find
time or a place to duck away and do a
quick watercolor. But I think it's just super terming, like
they just were all artists at heart, even though they
were part of this amazing war effort. And that documentary
is as of this recording in early fifteen, is available
(24:33):
on Netflix, and it's a little longer than an hour, uh,
and you get to see a lot of this really
amazing art and just interviews with these guys, and it
deals a little bit more with with them as individuals
rather than like what we've covered is so much of
sort of the bigger, kind of broad strokes of the
whole unit, but this really focuses on some of the
different men and has interviews with them that are really
quite charming and touching and really really entertaining. Uh. So
(24:58):
I highly recommend that. And that is the Ghost Army,
which is just such a The whole thing is so cool,
and I'm surprised even though it does pop up sometimes
in like uh, you know list goals online, Uh, people
don't really know about it. Like it's another one of
those things where I thought, oh, everyone's heard about this,
We've had a few requests for it. But then when
(25:18):
I mentioned it to people, they look at me like,
I don't know what you're talking about. And then when
I say a few things, they get sort of this,
like agog really what. So clearly this is there's there's
some gap in in their uh, in the knowledge about
these guys, and it's they did such amazing things that
I think everybody should know what their work was. Like.
(25:38):
Do you also have some listener mail for us? I do.
I have two pieces, and they're both super fun and
one is really more of a thank you, but so
the first one is from a very young listener and
it is so charming that, uh it made me crazy. Yes,
so this is from our listener Penny, and she says,
dear stuff you missed in history class people. I extremely
(25:59):
love the podcast on the Curse and Mary Celeste. I
think that the crew breathing the whiskey fumes was bad
for them. What do you think. I run to one
or two of your podcasts every day, but dad makes
me run. I would rather just listen to your podcast alone.
We went on vacation to Colorado and listen to your
podcast in the car, but we did not have to run.
(26:19):
I have a podcast request about the Emperor Penguins of
and Antarctica, as I am a great fan of penguins
and my room is stuffed with them, and this is
from our listener, Penny. She says, ps, I love your
podcast pps. I'm seven years old and homeschooled, and your
podcasts are a lot of help to me. And then
she drew this amazing picture of penguins and they're holding
little flags, and one of them says Tracy and Holly,
(26:42):
and I have a kinship with her because I too
love penguins. So I'm gonna figure out a way to
do something on emperor penguins in Antarctica. Thank you, Penny.
That was awesome. I've actually been hanging onto this one
for a few months. I just love it so much.
I kind of keep it out at my desk because
I find it terribly charming. I remember when that one
came in and we were both delighted. Oh that's so cute.
(27:02):
And the other one is from and I hope I
am pronouncing the name right our listener, Nicole, and she
sent us this amazing parcel and she wrote his postcard,
this is ladies, I thought you might enjoy these planners.
I make a small run of them each year and
chose these covers just for you. And this is from
Nicole at Year of the Calendar dot com. And she
sent it on the postcard of one of her sheep
(27:24):
named Uncle honey Bunch, who is a Shetland weather and
he's adorable. And I love that his name is Uncle
honey Bunch. And also, oh, my goodness, you don't even
know how you hit the sweet spot with planners for me.
I was so excited when they came that I started.
I am in tracy about all the lists I was
making in them, Uh, because they're awesome. They're really cool planners.
(27:44):
They're a little bit sassy. There's a little bit of
adult language in them, which I love. It just has
a fun way to lay out the year. It's really
organized in a really smart and fun way that. Uh,
I just I adored it. There's so many little extras
and little how to draw things within it, and oh
it's magical. I have such a calendar addiction and such
(28:06):
planner addiction specifically that that was a good one, cy Nicole.
I cannot thank you enough for that. That was an
absolute delight to open. And she's she's really not exaggerating, Nicole,
Like I was not physically present in the office when
these arrived. She texted me a video of paging through it.
So that is how excited Hollywood is about the planners.
(28:31):
I love them, like all caps love. I love them.
They're awesome. I also love them. But I am the
person that has good intentions about planners every year, and
I will keep up with the planner for about three days.
Oh yeah, No, mine is already gonna starting to look
dog eared because I drag it everywhere with me. That's awesome.
And it's good because it's a good size where I
(28:52):
can tuck in little notes and stuff, and like if
I do a little sketch of like a costumer or
something that I want a stitch, I can shove it
in there. There's some good spaces. It's really cool planner.
I love it. I love it again, all caps love UH.
You would like to write us an email, you can
do that at History Podcast at house stubworks dot com.
You can also connect with us on Twitter at mist
in History or at Facebook dot com slash missed in History.
(29:15):
Can also find us on Tumblr at mist in History
dot tumbler dot com, at pinterest dot com slash mist
in history. And I'm hoping we can find some good
examples of some of the artwork that we talked about today,
and I know there are photos of some of these
fake tanks and artillery pieces and stuff that hopefully we'll
find and put on Pinterest. And you can also visit
the mist in History spreadshirt store, which is missed in
(29:36):
History dot spreadshirt dot com, so you can buy missed
in History goodies to where or towed around. You can
put your planner in one of those, or you can
get a phonecase you're covered. You would like to learn
a little bit more about what we talked about today,
you can go to our parents sitehouse stuff works type
of the word camouflage and you'll get how military camouflage works. Well,
(29:56):
it's some other camouflage articles about how it works in nature.
You can also visit us at Miston history dot com
for show notes and archive of all of our episodes
all kinds of little goodies uh, and if you would
like to do that, we highly encourage you to visit
at again, house to works dot com or Mr Hisstory
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(30:21):
Because it has stuff works dot com. M
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Tracy V. Wilson
Holly Frey
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