science

Ghost Army

Ghost Army is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Ghost Army rather than just read about it. In short: The Ghost Army was a United States Army tactical deception unit during World War II officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The 1,100-man unit was created to deceive the Axis forces and mislead them as to the size and location of Allied forces, while giving the actual units elsewhere time to maneuver.

Key takeaways

Ghost Army belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Ghost Army to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Ghost Army from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Ghost Army was a United States Army tactical deception unit during World War II officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The 1,100-man unit was created to deceive the Axis forces and mislead them as to the size and location of Allied forces, while giving the actual units elsewhere time to maneuver. Activated on 20 January 1944, the Ghost Army arrived in Europe in May shortly before D-Day and returned to the US at the end of the war in July 1945. During their tenure, the Ghost Army carried out more than 20 deception campaigns, putting on a "traveling road show" using inflatable tanks, sound trucks, fake radio transmissions, scripts and pretense. Their story was kept a secret for more than 50 years after the war, until it was declassified in 1996. The unit was the subject of a PBS documentary The Ghost Army in 2013. In February 2022, members of the Ghost Army were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service.

History and deployment

The Ghost Army was created by U.S. Army planners Ralph Ingersoll and Billy Harris, and led by Colonel Harry L. Reeder. Inspiration for the unit came from the British units who had honed the deception technique for Operation Bertram during the battle of El Alamein in late 1942. The unit had its barracks at Camp Forrest, Tennessee, and was fully formed at Camp Pine, New York (now Fort Drum), before sailing for the United Kingdom in early May 1944. In Britain they were based near Stratford-upon-Avon, and troops participated in Operation Fortitude, the British-designed and led D-Day deceptions of a landing force designated for the Pas-de-Calais. Some troops went to Normandy two weeks after D-Day, where they simulated a Mulberry harbour at night with lights intended to draw German artillery from the real ones. After this the entire unit assisted in tying up the German defenders of Brest by simulating a larger force than was actually encircling them. As the Allied armies moved east, so did the 23rd, and it eventually was based within Luxembourg, from where it engaged in deceptions of crossings of the Ruhr river, positions along the Maginot Line, Hürtgen Forest, and finally a major crossing of the Rhine to draw German troops away from the actual sites. Ghost soldiers were encouraged to use creative solutions to mislead the German Army. Many were recruited from art schools, advertising agencies and other occupations that involved creative thinking. In civilian life, ghost soldiers had been artists, architects, actors, set designers, engineers and lawyers. The 406th Combat Engineers handled security. The officers were Captain George Rebh (commander), Lt. William George Aliapoulos (3rd Platoon), Lt. George Daley (1st Platoon), Lt. Ted Kelker (HQ Platoon) and Lt. Thomas Robinson (2nd Platoon). Captain Rebh trained his men in infantry tactics.

Tactics The visual deception arm of the Ghost Army was the 603rd Camouflage Engineers. It was equipped with inflatable tanks, cannons, jeeps, trucks, and airplanes that the men would inflate with air compressors and then camouflage imperfectly so that enemy aerial reconnaissance could see them. They could create dummy airfields, troop bivouacs (complete with fake laundry hanging on clotheslines), motor pools, artillery batteries, and tank formations in a few hours. Many of the men in this unit were artists, recruited from New York and Philadelphia art schools. Their unit became an incubator for young artists who sketched and painted their way through Europe. Several of these soldier-artists went on to have a major impact on art in the postwar US. Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, wildlife artist Arthur Singer, and Art Kane were among the many artists who served in the 603rd. The 3132 Signal Service Company Special handled sonic deception. Aided by engineers from Bell Labs, a team from the 3132 went to Fort Knox to record sounds of armored and infantry units onto a series of sound effects records that they brought to Europe. For each deception, sounds could be "mixed" to match the scenario they wanted the enemy to believe. This program was recorded on state-of-the-art wire recorders (the predecessor to the tape recorder), and then played back with powerful amplifiers and speakers mounted on halftracks. These sounds were audible 15 miles (24 km) away.

Legacy No active Army unit traces formal lineage from the 23rd. Both the psychological and Information Operations (IO) communities use the ghost patch as an informal identity as these disciplines specialize in influence Psychological Operations (PO) and deception activities (IO), which the 23rd pioneered. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops were made Honorary Members of the U.S. Army Psychological Operations Regiment on 3 November 2022. On Tuesday, 1 February 2022, U.S. president Joe Biden signed into law S. 1404, the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act, which provides for the award of a Congressional Gold Medal to the Ghost Army, in recognition of their service in conducting deception operations in Europe during World War II.

See also 4th Psychological Operations Group 56th Theater Information Operations Group Operation Bodyguard Military dummy First United States Army Group Operation Bertram List of Congressional Gold Medal Recipients

References

Further reading Beyer, Rick; Sayles, Elizabeth (28 April 2015). The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery. Princeton Architectural Press. ISBN 978-1616893187. Gawne, Jonathan (2002). Ghosts of the ETO : American tactical deception units in the European theatre, 1944–1945. Havertown, PA: Casemate. ISBN 978-0971170957. Gerard, Philip (2002). Secret soldiers : the story of World War II's heroic army of deception (1 ed.). New York: Dutton. ISBN 978-0525946649. Kneece, Jack (2001). Ghost army of World War II. Gretna: Pelican Publishing. ISBN 978-1565548763.

External links Ghost Army Legacy Project Official website of The Ghost Army documentary Holley, Joe. (8 July 2006). Louis Dalton Porter; Used Artistic Skills to Trick German Army. The Washington Post, p. B6 NPR: Artists of Battlefield Deception: Soldiers of the 23rd National Army Security Agency Association 99% Invisible Podcast - A Show of Force ArtCurious Podcast- Episode #28: The Ghost Army (Season 2, Episode 8) Video: World War II Ghost Army Receives Congressional Gold Medal, CSPAN, 21 March 2024

Illustrations

Ghost Army: Ghost Army insignia, not used by the actual unit, but associated with the unit after the war — Ghost Army insignia, not used by the actual unit, but associated with the unit after the war

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Ghost Army

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Ghost Army claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Ghost Army before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Ghost Army ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Ghost Army

In research: Ghost Army appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Ghost Army in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Ghost Army is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Congressional Gold Medal recipients, Electronic warfare, Military deception during World War II, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Ghost Army outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Ghost Army in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Ghost Army means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Ghost Army out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Ghost Army in simple terms?

Why does Ghost Army matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Ghost Army?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Ghost Army.