Courtesy ff www.allthatsinteresting.com/
Deception is a key part of war. It has always been part of war, but the Ghost Army was the first unit to expand to its full potential. They had all sorts of means of deception and illusion from inflatable tanks and artillery, radio units, to forms of impersonation. Casting as fake generals and setting up phony headquarters would trick the Nazis into thinking there was a U.S. base in a spot where there actually wasn't. Although they were only made up of 1,100 men, they could impersonate 30,000.
"The natives would say to each other, 'Did you see the tanks moving through town last night?' And they were not lying. They thought they were seeing them! Imagination is unbelievable."
- Gilbert Seltzer
Courtesy Of www.npr.org
Images below provided by Princton Agricultural Press
Operation Fortitude might have ultimately saved the D-Day operations from disaster
Giant speakers could project sound as far as 50 miles
With the help from engineers at Bell Labs, a team from the unit's 3132 Signal Service Company travelled to Fort Knox to record sounds of armoured infantry units
Soldier paints a fake unit number on a real vehicle
Ariel view of fake tanks and tracks
Inflatable dummy tank
A dummy artilery piece created by the Ghost Army
Map created in 1945 showing Operation Brest, with both real units and the 23rd
Inflatable tank instructions
OBJECTIVE; Draw the German troops 10 miles away from the real crossing of the Rhine River by the Army.
MISSION SUCCESSFUL!
"It was amazing the fakery, that we were able to portray among the enemy"
- Irving Stempel
OBJECTIVE; Draw the German troops to the flanks when the real strengh is in the center.
MISSION UNSUCCESSFUL!
