The “Ghost Army” was a unit of artists and engineers who used phony inflatable tanks and weaponry, fake radio calls, and sound effects to confuse the Germans in World War II. Their unusual story is the subject of an ongoing exhibition at ihmec
A soldier stands next to a dummy M8 Greyhoud armored car. Credit: National Archives / Illinois Holocaust Museumby Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein premieres on September 18 at 7:00 pm on WTTW. Stream it and find more stories atWhen the United States army sought to deceive German forces during World War II, it turned to an unlikely group: artists.
“They just grabbed this camouflage unit and said, ‘Okay, you're not doing camouflage anymore. You're going to be doing this visual deception.’” The soldiers for the Ghost Army arrived in Europe a few weeks before D-Day. Inflatable vehicles, artillery, and other important weapons or buildings were a big part of the visual deception—“all the things that you would need to fool enemy aerial reconnaissance, or somebody watching from a distant church tower,” Beyer explains. They had specific inflatables for any kind of vehicle or weapon an infantry or armored division might have.
But the Ghost Army had to sell the story with more than just inflatables. For instance, what follows a tank? “For a week or so, George Patton’s flank is being protected by two rubber tanks and guys with sound effects,” Beyer says. When they weren’t using their skills to trick the enemy, the men found time to practice their craft in their downtime.
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