There was such a secret army on the battlefield of World War II. The soldiers of this army included singers, illustrators and sound engineers. They used their acting skills and creativity to scare off the Germans again and again. Their most effective weapon was art, and their job was to fool Hitler.
On June 6, 1944, the Allies landed in Normandy, France, opening up a second battlefield. A few days later, two Frenchmen rode their bicycles across the cordon of the 23rd Special Forces of the U.S. Army Command. They were deeply shocked by the scene before them: they saw four American soldiers lifting a Sherman tank weighing about 40 tons. One of the American soldiers, Arthur Hillston, said: "The French are a bit dumbfounded, obviously waiting for us to say, and I told him 'The American army is very strong.'"
The soldiers of this special unit have no other superhuman than patriotic enthusiasm
Military forces – their tanks are inflatable tanks. The unit is called the Phantom Force, and its soldiers are artists, including singers, illustrators, radio announcers, and sound engineers.
In January 1944, the men were recruited from art academies in New York and Philadelphia with the task of fooling the Germans. Their methods included deploying inflatable tanks, using 500-pound megaphones to play the sound of troops assembling, and some fake wireless telegraphs. Jack Messi was only 18 years old when he was recruited into the Ghost Army. When Jack was told they would fool the Germans by posing as a team with inflatables, he thought, "I joined a rubber army."
From the beginning of 1944 until the end of World War II, they performed a total of 20 "hidden skies across the sea" and saved the lives of some 15,000 to 30,000 American soldiers. They never showed their true colors, and even the other soldiers in the war didn't know anything about it.
After 40 years of secrecy, this "ghost army"
The story first appeared in newspapers in 1985, when the painter Hillston revealed his military experiences. In 2013, Hillston and 18 other soldiers of the 23rd Special Forces recounted their strange experiences in the war in PBS's documentary Ghost Force.
Rick Bell is the director of the documentary. He was also surprised when he first heard the story. "When people hear this story for the first time, they think they misunderstood the story, or that this kind of thing could have happened once." This is also how many people feel.
Once, when Rick Bell told the story of "Ghost Force" to the old man, some viewers questioned it. The old man was a veteran who had fought in General Patton's Third Army. As Rick Bell prepares to speak, he points out that Bell's story is pure nonsense because he has never heard of any "ghost troops." But after Dumbert patiently showed the audience all sorts of pictures, the old man finally walked up to him and said, "This is the most amazing story I've ever heard!"
"This story shows that although nearly 70 years have passed since the end of World War II, there are still many amazing and even absurd stories waiting for us to discover," Bell said.
All deception and deception have always been part of the history of human warfare, and the Trojan horse is perhaps the most famous example. The Ghost Force takes this spirit of camouflage to the extreme. They use various technologies to "tour" sound, light, and electricity, "acting" on the battlefield, designing sounds, and creating scenes. Moreover, after the first day of the show, they packed up all the performance props and then rushed to another place the next day to perform the same good show. To make up for the weaknesses in the Allied lines, the force could use inflatable tanks and use large stereos with a range of 15 miles to create the illusion of a mass buildup, plus some false wireless information, making these battlefield "hoaxes" work every time.
From the Normandy landings to the Battle of the Ardennes, this ghostly army performed many vivid "military shows". Their most successful performance was shortly before the end of World War II. By then the Germans had retreated to China, met with resistance from the Rhine. The U.S. 9th Army was to cross the Rhine to fight in Germany. The task of the 23rd Army was to attract the attention of the Germans and distract their defenses. The 23rd Army, with only 1,100 men, needed to disguise itself as the 30th and 79th Divisions, which had a total strength of about 30,000 men.
The 23rd Army mixed real tanks with inflatable tanks, creating the illusion that the army was surrounded to confuse the enemy. The fake reconnaissance planes they built even fooled their own people: some American pilots tried to park their planes next to these fake ones. Their lifelike performances helped the Allied vanguard cross the Rhine smoothly, and the Germans resisted with little resistance. The Germans surrendered the bridgehead of the Rhine, and the "Ghost Force" was rewarded for it.
Because this army had to operate in secret, they often impersonated other armies. When they are on vacation in the city, their tanks are painted with fake numbers or sewn with fake badges to evade spies.
The secrecy of the mission separates them from other units, which also provides a very unusual perspective on the war. During the procession, they found a church destroyed by a bomb in the northern French town of Treville. Some artists stopped and tried to paint the structure of the church.
In Paris and Luxembourg, these artists recorded with their brushes what they saw: charming women on bicycles, skylines made up of rooftops and picturesque streetscapes. Bell has collected more than 500 such sketches during his eight years of making the documentary, which will be on display at the Edward Hope Center for the Arts in New York as the documentary airs.
"Speaking of war," Bell said, "one might think of soldiers fighting bloody battles on the front lines and generals strategizing at headquarters. The experience of war for ordinary people never seems to have been overlooked. ”
"Whether it's painting a bombed-out church, spending a frustrating Christmas after the Battle of the Ardennes, or comforting Polish orphans in the Verdun refugee camp, these are all part of that war. I want to tell you these humane war stories. ”
In July 1945, the Ghost Force returned to China. After the surrender of Japan, the unit ended its mission on September 15, 1945, and was disbanded on the spot.
Many of the people in this particular unit later worked in the arts, including painter and sculptor Ellsworth Kelly and fashion designer Bill Blass. Until classified documents were declassified, they were not allowed to tell their wives, family and friends about their experiences in World War II, and there is no account of the unit in the official history of World War II. Bell said there's a lot of stuff hidden here for everyone to discover.
Bell wanted to correct the views of some Americans through this documentary: For the history of World War II, Americans always talked about the "elegance" of the British army when fighting with their opponents, while the American army appeared to be brave, only guns and machine guns rushed up: "The history of the ghost force tells us that the AMERICAN camouflage unit is also very creative and imaginative."
General Wesley Clark, a retired NATO commander, agreed with the documentary, saying, "The core of winning a war is the plan to defeat the enemy." Imaginative and creative ghost troops are masters in this area.