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NARRATOR:
March, 1945.

After nine months
of bitter fighting,

the Allies have driven
the Germans across Europe

to the Rhine River,

the last natural barrier
to the German heartland.

It is here that Allied generals
expect the battered remnants

of Hitler's once-proud army
to mount their final defense

of the fatherland.

Because the Germans had said,

"The Rhine River is going to run
red with American blood."

And they meant it.

NARRATOR:
German reconnaissance planes
take to the sky

to pinpoint where the Allies
will attack.

Across the river
from Dusseldorf,

the view from the air reveals
hundreds of American vehicles.

Intercepted Allied radio
transmissions confirm

the presence of two American
divisions.

German observation posts hear
them moving in across the river.

All signs suggest the attack
will come here.

But the tanks spotted
from the air

are 93-pound inflatable dummies.

The sounds come
from loudspeakers,

the radio transmissions
from a script.

It's amazing, the fakery
that we were able to perpetrate

upon the enemy.

NARRATOR:
A group of handpicked soldiers

waging a secret war of deception
was now trying to pull off

one last grand illusion,

with thousands of American lives
hanging in the balance--

including their own.

VICTOR DOWD:
Infantrymen would see us

and realize what we were doing
with these dummy tanks,

setting ourselves up as targets.

They'd say things like,
"You guys are crazy."

NARRATOR:
Many of the men were artists,

who used paintbrush and pencil
to chronicle their trek

across war-torn Europe.

We were sleeping in hedgerows
and foxholes,

but nothing kept us away

from going someplace
to do a watercolor.

NARRATOR:
Their wartime exploits remained
classified for decades.

DICK SYRACUSE:
I used to refer to us

as the Cecil B. DeMille
Warriors.

NARRATOR:
These artists of deception were
also known as the Ghost Army.

In the fall of 1943,

American GIs were pouring
into Great Britain

for the upcoming invasion
of France,

and a handful of U.S. Army
planners in London

was exploring how to use
deception to give those soldiers

an extra edge when they came
face to face

with the full fury
of Hitler's Wehrmacht.

WESLEY CLARK:
To win on the battlefield,

you would like every advantage.

One of the key advantages
in warfare is surprise.

Deception is intended to create
surprise in the enemy.

NARRATOR:
One of the deception planners
was Captain Ralph Ingersoll.

Before the war,

he was a controversial
celebrity journalist.

The New York Times
once called him

"a prodigiously energetic
egotist."

In 1943, he was helping
British Intelligence mislead

German generals planning
the defense of Europe

as to when and where the D-Day
landings would take place.

Inspired by British deception
efforts,

Ingersoll suggested that the
U.S. Army create a phantom unit

designed to fool the enemy
right on the front lines.

On Christmas Eve, 1943,
a memo was sent from London

to Washington,
requesting the creation

of a top-secret
"field deception unit"

in time for the upcoming
invasion.

"I considered it one
of my more improbable dreams,"

Ingersoll said later.

"But damned if the Pentagon
planners didn't buy it whole."

The mission was to try to be
able to take a thousand men

and put 'em in so that 15,000
men could move somewhere else

and not be detected.

We were going to be
in show business,

where we set up one-night stands
and, like ghosts, disappear.

NARRATOR:
Allied Commander
Dwight Eisenhower ordered

that the new unit,

officially known as the 23rd
Headquarters Special Troops,

be given the highest possible
priority.

Eisenhower believed that
deception could prove to be

one of his most potent weapons.

CLARK:
When people think of war,

they think of the infantryman
with the bayonet.

They think of the tank,

the artilleryman pulling
the lanyard

and the flash and
roar of the cannon.

But the essence of winning is
the defeat of the enemy's plan

and the imposition of your will
upon the enemy.

And to do that requires
creativity and deception.

NARRATOR:
The 23rd would employ
three types of deception

to con the Germans:
visual, sonic, and radio.

So it all added up.

"By God, there they are, the
35th and the 79th," or whatever.

"They're up there, and that's
where it's going to be.

Right on, bing, on the map."

Well, really they were
not there.

They were down here.

NARRATOR:
To carry out visual deception,

the Army selected a 350-man
camouflage battalion

heavily loaded with artists.

JOHN JARVIE:
We want somebody to tell us what
something is going to look like

from up in the air,

and we're down here,

we need artists who are pretty
good at concept.

They can imagine it.

And they imagine it pretty well.

NARRATOR:
Before the war even began,

the Army was on the lookout
for artists.

Army regulations emphasized
the importance

of enlisting the art world
to create camouflage.

ROY EICHHORN:
It actually says
in that regulation,

"You will need to go out and get
set designers, theater people,

movie people, artists."

NARRATOR:
The Army drew heavily

from New York and Philadelphia
art schools

to create the 603rd
Camouflage Engineers.

JARVIE:
And I had to write to this unit
because I knew they were open,

but you had to write to them
and they had to accept you.

It had nothing to do
with the Army draft at all.

NARRATOR:
In early 1942,

they began exploring the ins
and outs of tricking the eye.

One of their most
ambitious projects

was to camouflage
the plant in Baltimore

where B-26 bombers were made,

to protect against the
possibility of German air raids.

Our outfit was responsible for
disguising that and covering it,

so from the air it looked
like it was the countryside.

NARRATOR:
In stolen moments and off hours,

the artists in the unit painted
and sketched.

The 603rd became an incubator
for young artists.

DOWD:
I did hundreds of drawings.

It isn't as though
we weren't busy.

But you have to realize,

no matter how busy a soldier is,
there's always down time.

Soldiers are playing cards,
they're shooting craps.

And I drew.

I just developed the habit, and
I don't think it's ever left me.

HARRIS:
I learned more about who I was
as an artist

and learning my craft

by being there
rather than even at school.

NARRATOR:
Fewer than half the soldiers
in the 603rd were artists.

The rest came from
all walks of life.

One art student from Brooklyn,
Jack Masey,

was so dazzled by the diversity
of the men in his company,

he set out to caricature
every one of them.

They were either cops,
they were shoe salesmen.

There were bartenders,
there were students.

It was a wild array
of all kinds of people.

I'd only known Brooklynites
or Manhattanites.

Now, suddenly,
I was thrown into another world.

I was intrigued by this world.

And we were looked on
as kind of nutcases

by the hardworking, no-nonsense,
backbone of America,

the people that worked for
a living and didn't sketch.

We were looked upon
as slightly freakish, I think.

And I think we probably were.

NARRATOR:
In early 1944, these camouflage
artists were selected

to be part of the Ghost Army.

Instead of trying to hide
things,

they were now going to be
in the risky business

of drawing attention
to themselves.

GIL SELTZER:
At which point somebody said,

"You mean we're asking
for the enemy to fire on us?"

The answer was yes.

At that point we all came
to the conclusion

that this was a suicide outfit.

NARRATOR:
Their new assignment was to use
decoy tanks and artillery

to conjure up make-believe
battalions.

The concept was so out-of-the-
box that the Army had no "book"

for them to go by, and, at
first, no decoys to work with.

They improvised, fabricating
dummy tanks out of wood

and canvas, and teaching
themselves to be deceivers.

Meantime, in the
California desert,

the Army was testing
different kinds of decoys

for possible Ghost Army use.

One type consisted
of a collapsible metal frame

covered in fabric.

When mounted on a jeep,
it could become a mobile decoy.

Despite this advantage,
the frames proved heavy,

difficult to set up,
and prone to breakage.

The Army decided instead to go
with inflatable dummies

made out of rubber.

MASEY:
It was a little bundle of
stuff-- which a tank was in--

all compressed before you opened
the bundle,

spread the nozzles around,
and inflated it.

HARRIS:
Pulling this amorphic shape
out of it,

and then watching it being
filled with air

and taking form, you know,
like a monster.

MASEY:
If things went very well,
there were air compressors.

If things went not so well,
there were bicycle pumps.

And, if things went terribly
badly, there were our lungs.

JOE SPENCE:
In most cases,
like a Sherman tank,

we could have it inflated and
moved within 15 or 20 minutes.

SPIKE BERRY:
The artillery piece was good,

the jeep was good.

But that M4 tank,
that was a beauty.

That was a piece of work,
really was.

NARRATOR:
Although they didn't
see much use,

there were also
inflatable soldiers.

I didn't care for the personnel.

They had some inflatable
people-- so-so.

MASEY:
I never saw that.

I'm sorry I missed that.

That would have
really made me laugh.

NARRATOR:
As the camoufleurs came to grips
with their strange new job,

another unit picked
for the Ghost Army

was learning about a brand new
kind of warfare: sonic warfare.

JACK McGLYNN:
I was interviewed
for a top-secret organization,

which was involved in
psychological warfare

and something to do with sound.

I thought, sound, we were going
to zap all the Germans.

We'd end the war
and that would be it.

But it was more psychology
than zapping.

NARRATOR:
Using sound to fool the enemy
was a new idea in World War II,

made possible by technology
that didn't exist

a few years earlier.

The Army set up its sonic
warfare program

under another officer who had
been a prominent personality

before the war:
Hilton Howell Railey.

McGLYNN:
He was the father
of the whole sonic project.

He had been a newspaper man,
then he became a military man.

NARRATOR:
Most notably, Railey was the PR
man who recruited Amelia Earhart

to become the first woman
to fly the Atlantic,

launching her
to international fame.

SYRACUSE:
I can remember so well
his greeting to me was,

"Lieutenant, the mission
of your company will be

to draw enemy fire."

I suggested that as a kid
from the Bronx, I said,

"I certainly respect the role
that we have to play,

"but I reserve the right
to kick a little ass myself

if I get the opportunity."

And he roared.

NARRATOR:
In early 1944,
Railey sent a team

with a portable audio studio
down to the Army proving ground

at Fort Knox, Kentucky.

Working with experts
from Bell Labs,

they spent three weeks
recording sounds

onto 16-inch
transcription disks,

the same kind used
to make hit records.

SYRACUSE:
The recordings were brilliant.

I mean, if there was a road
leading up,

the music had to be described--

(making rumbling sounds)

The changing gears,
tanks going up,

tanks going down,
tanks assembling.

McGLYNN:
Then we would go to anther spot
where trucks were just

flying through on the highway.

HAROLD FLINN:
They had recordings of building
a pontoon bridge

or any type of bridge,
and you could hear 'em

hammering away and swearing.

NARRATOR:
Different sounds could then be
cued up on different turntables

and mixed together to create
whatever scenario was required--

one of the earliest known uses
of multitrack recording.

And this is all recorded
on a wire.

Remember, back there,
there was no tape.

NARRATOR:
The wire recorder was advanced
technology in the 1940s.

A single spool contained
two miles of magnetized wire,

enough for 30 minutes of sound.

And unlike a record,
it was never going to skip.

The recordings were played
over 500-pound speakers

with a range of 15 miles.

ALBRECHT:
Back of my half-track,
I tell my children,

was the biggest boom box
you ever saw,

but it played sounds of tanks
and activity.

NARRATOR:
Sonic deception was so new

that Colonel Railey made a
top-secret film to explain

its novel purpose to
high-ranking Army officers.

The film illustrated how a few

carefully positioned
sound trucks

could simulate the movement of
an armored division at night,

in order to draw the enemy's
attention away

from the real division.

(telephone rings)

Siegfried Dohr,
Elbert Prime speaking.

Please, sir... what?

NARRATOR:
In the training film,

the Germans are comically
bewildered

when American tanks show up
where they aren't expected.

Did you say tanks?

What's all this
nonsense about tanks?

Hold them?

With what? Bayonets?

NARRATOR:
But no one knew if sonic warfare
could really work.

Rounding out the corps
of deceivers

were the radio operators
of the Signal Company Special.

Now when you think of the 23rd
Special Troops,

you think of the inflatable
tank, or the sound guys,

and they're great.

But they have to have a stage
on which to perform.

And we provided that stage.

NARRATOR:
By some estimates, German army
units gathered as much as 75%

of their intelligence
from radio intercepts.

Convincing radio transmissions
could attract enemy attention

the way a red flag
attracts a bull.

JON GAWNE:
The British had captured

an entire German radio
interception unit.

And they were able to see

that the Germans could very
precisely pinpoint Allied units

from their radio transmissions.

And they were actually
quite stunned

at how good the Germans
were at this.

NARRATOR:
To fool the Germans, more than
100 skilled radio operators

were plucked from units
around the country.

Stan Nance was on desert
maneuvers with the 11th Armored

when a stranger in a jeep
came looking for him.

He said, "Get your equipment
and come with me."

And I just said,
"Where are you going?"

And he said,
"All I can tell you

"is that I'm not supposed
to tell you anything,

and for you to shut up."

NARRATOR:
Lt. Bob Conrad, a signal officer
for the Dixie Division,

was another who found himself
suddenly transferred

to a mysterious new unit.

CONRAD:
I had no idea

of why I was there,
or what I was to be doing.

After I was there for a few
days, I spoke to this major,

and I said,
"What is this organization?"

And he said, "Let's put it
this way, Lieutenant:

If we are totally successful,
you may not come back."

NARRATOR:
Their mission was to replicate
the radio transmissions

of the units they were
impersonating.

GAWNE:
It's an art of knowing
just how many

and what type of messages
to send.

And this is one of the things
that the 23rd did,

was it studied its own
army's transmissions

so they knew if they were
simulating an infantry regiment

moving across an area

how many times a day would
the regiments send messages

to battalion, would battalion
send messages to regiments.

We painted a picture
in the German intelligence

as to what was going on.

NARRATOR:
These three distinct units--

the 603rd with its dummy tanks,

the sonic company
with its audio equipment,

and the signal company
with its radios--

became the deception core
of the Ghost Army.

In May 1944,
they headed for Europe,

filled with excitement
and uncertainty.

IRVING STEMPEL:
You couldn't really believe
that what we were going to do

would be effective.

How could we come along with
rubber dummies and blow it up

and make it look real?

DOWD:
None of us took it
that seriously.

We did what we were supposed
to do.

We didn't really believe
the big picture.

Until we got fired at and shot--
when reality struck.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:
Allied naval forces began
landing Allied armies

this morning on the northern
coast of France.

DOWD:
A week after the invasion
of D-Day,

I was with this nice girl,
and I remember thinking,

"What in the hell am I doing
in the British countryside

"with a pretty girl when there
are guys my age being shot at

and killed in Normandy?"

And I remember
kissing her goodnight

and riding my bike
back to our tent.

And there was a light on
in our tent, and somebody said,

"Who's there?"

And I said, "Sgt. Dowd."

And a voice said, "You'd better
get in here."

And I said,
"Well, let me park my bike."

And one of the wise guy members
of the platoon said,

"You're not going to need
your bike anymore."

The next day we were
on Omaha Beach in Normandy.

NARRATOR:
Surprise orders had come down
for a 15-man platoon

to head to Normandy
with dummy artillery

ahead of the rest
of the Ghost Army.

The time had come to see

whether they could really fool
the Germans and survive.

BERNIE MASON:
Before we knew it,
we were on this C-47.

Landed on a metal mesh landing
strip on Omaha Beach

on the morning of June 14, which
was eight days after D-Day.

NARRATOR:
The platoon was under the
command of Lt. Bernie Mason.

MASON:
My assignment was to report

to the commander of the 980th
Artillery Battalion,

and our objective was to set up
dummy artillery emplacements

about a mile ahead
of his actual position

to try to draw the enemy's fire
into our position,

and have his not touched.

NARRATOR:
Victor Dowd was a sergeant
in Mason's platoon.

DOWD:
And I can remember

the wild difference
between last night,

when I was in the lovely,
quiet, serene countryside,

and the grim reality of today,

where I could still hear
machine gun fire.

So the fighting was
within earshot, certainly,

and there were dead German
soldiers all over the ground.

I did a sketch
of a German helmet

and a potato masher
hand grenade.

So this, to me, symbolized war.

NARRATOR:
Task Force Mason worked with
the 980th Artillery for 28 days.

Their deception proved
successful.

They tricked the Germans into
shelling their phony guns,

but managed to avoid
suffering any casualties.

Two weeks after D-Day,
the rest of the Ghost Army--

minus the sonic company,
still training in England--

packed its gear and shipped out
for France.

When we got on the boat,
there was nothing to do.

June 23, and the title
was "Waiting."

June 24, the title
was "Waiting."

I have pictures of all
the soldiers aboard-- "Waiting."

And then, all of a sudden,
a picture shows up

that says "On Our Way."

SHILSTONE:
We were anchored off
of Normandy,

and we were going to disembark.

And we were loaded down
with everything--

rifles, ammunition, helmets,
and so forth.

We were waiting
for our names to be called

so we would go over the side
on the cargo nets

into the landing boats
onto the beach.

And I looked out and I saw
this incredible scene,

something that I would...

felt I would never, ever see
again in my life.

This was really history
in the making.

So I did this sketch,
which is very rough,

but it gives you an idea
of what it looked like,

with the barrage balloons and
every imaginable kind of ship

as far as you could see.

NARRATOR:
Once ashore in Normandy,

the men set up their dummies

to make sure everything
was in working order.

SHILSTONE:
I was on guard duty,

and two Frenchmen on bicycles
got through the perimeter.

And I halted them.

And they weren't looking at me,

they were looking at something
over my shoulder.

And what they thought they saw
was four GIs picking up

what was a 40-ton Sherman tank
and turning it around.

They looked at me, and then
they looked at the situation.

They were looking for answers.

And I finally said, "The
Americans are very strong."

NARRATOR:
In July and August,
the Ghost Army conducted

its first large-scale deceptions
using visual and radio only.

With each performance,

they learned how to make
themselves more convincing.

CLARK:
At every level,
the art of war requires

intelligent and creative
thought.

And probably no more so than
in the practice of deception.

Because there you have to see
into the mind of your adversary.

And you have to create for him
a misleading picture

of the operation to come.

And you have to sell it to him
with confidence.

It's the highest kind of
creativity in the art of war.

NARRATOR:
Deception demanded
an artist's eye for detail.

JARVIE:
We could position certain things

so that they would be hidden,

but kind of hidden
in plain sight.

So if reconnaissance planes
came over,

maybe they would just see
the corner

of something sticking out.

And they know if they can see
one or two sticking out,

there must be more
that they can't.

We wanted to create
the natural debris

that goes with faking something.

NARRATOR:
A company of Ghost Army combat
engineers used bulldozers

to create phony tank tracks.

JARVIE:
We did similar things
with artillery--

lay phony artillery
shells around

and make it look as if
they had been firing.

NARRATOR:
Moving through
the French villages

so recently occupied
by the Germans,

they saw an opportunity to
improvise yet another way

to sell their deceptions--

targeting enemy spies
that might have stayed behind.

They called it
"Special Effects."

Why don't we put a stencil
of the name of the unit

that we were simulating
right on the trucks?

And why don't we start

a counterfeit shoulder patch
factory where they would see

we're the 75th Division,
one of the divisions we did.

NARRATOR:
Sometimes they used
actual patches

from the unit they were
impersonating.

Other times, they had to hand-
paint their own knockoffs.

SYRACUSE:
So we began to put on
their patches

and put their
bumper markings on.

And we physically assumed
the role.

Only for every hundred of them,

there might be ten of us.

NANCE:
We had a sewing kit.

That's one of the things
that was required

that we carry with us
all the time.

Give us the patches, and we were
good at sewing them on.

Seamstresses.

My shirts were all wrecked
from having sewn

so many different shoulder
patches on them.

NARRATOR:
They even set up
phony command posts,

and against
all Army regulations,

staffed them
with counterfeit commanders.

If you're going to bring
a division up,

you better have
a headquarters somewhere,

and there better be a major
general walking around.

So we had to have
a fool general do this.

Some sergeant would wear
two stars for an operation.

JARVIE:
Our job was to go in
with our phony markings

and phony stories that we were
pretending to be officers

and soldiers from
another organization.

And we were turned loose
in town--

go to the pub, order some
omelets, and talk loose.

BERRY:
A lot of the guys
went to the bakery,

got rolls and stuff,

and said, "We've got to get
an extra supply

because we're moving out
tonight"-- that kind of thing.

It was almost kind of silly,
really.

But I think what really
confirmed the fact

that there was effectiveness
was sitting in a café

and seeing a door open up
gradually

and somebody was
taking pictures.

We'd find out if, like,
a division or a special unit

had a particular song
that they liked to sing.

We'd get blitzed
and then sing their song.

NARRATOR:
As the Ghost Army made its way
through France,

the artists in the 603rd
broke out their sketchbooks.

To be in the middle
of this incredible adventure

with the world at war
in a foreign country,

I just had to put it down.

JARVIE:
Any given opportunity,
the guys would draw.

Guys would draw
with a fountain pen and spit.

You make the drawing
and then you wet it,

and it makes nice halftones
in there.

NARRATOR:
A few miles from the Ghost
Army's first bivouac

was the Normandy village
of Trévières.

The artists were drawn
to a bombed-out church

off the town square.

These were some of the first
sketches I did--

they were not too long
after the invasion--

in the remains of this church.

We might have had three or four
guys in there sketching.

We were sleeping in hedgerows
and foxholes,

but nothing kept us away
from going someplace

to do a watercolor.

DOWD:
I was not the only soldier
with a sketchbook.

I'd have sketched whether
I was the only soldier or not,

but to be quite honest with you,

I think it helped keep me
in balance.

I think it kept my sanity.

NARRATOR:
In mid-August, Allied armies
broke out of Normandy

and raced across France.

The Ghost Army was on the move
as well.

Their destination was
the port city of Brest,

under siege by the Allies
but still tenaciously held

by the Germans.

JARVIE:
Brest was a hard nut to crack.

It was a seaport that the
Germans wanted to defend,

and we wanted it
because we needed a port.

NARRATOR:
The sonic unit had just arrived
in Europe,

so Operation Brest became
the Ghost Army's first chance

to use all its means of
deception at the same time.

Their mission was to inflate
the apparent size

of the American forces
attacking Brest

by impersonating
the Sixth Armored Division.

They sought to draw German
reserves to the flanks,

clearing the way for an attack
in the center.

Sound trucks pulled
to within a few hundred yards

of German lines.

WALKER:
Crank the speakers up out
of the back of a halftrack

and play a program
to the enemy all night

of us bringing equipment
into the scene.

We could make them believe

that we were coming in
with an armored division.

NARRATOR:
They painted 6th Armored
markings on their trucks

and drove them back and forth
through nearby towns.

We did a lot of ride-through
with two guys in the back

of a truck to make it
look like it was full.

NARRATOR:
Radio operators mimicked a tank
battalion coming into the line.

More than 50 dummy tanks
were set up,

along with dummy artillery.

They were so close to the front

that shells frequently
screamed down around them.

BOB THOMPKINS:
We could see the church tower
where they're observing us.

And, of course, you had to tend
these dummies all the time.

During the night,
the gun turrets would sag,

and that's a bad visual effect
the next morning

if the Germans
are looking down there

and seeing sagging gun barrels.

SHILSTONE:
To see a gun like that
would be quite a giveaway.

We didn't have any guns that
shot into the ground like that.

NARRATOR:
Captured German officers
revealed to interrogators

that they were convinced the
6th Armored was really there.

But in the minds
of many veterans,

that success was overshadowed
by the deadly consequences

of an American attack
mistakenly launched

right where the Ghost Army was
attracting German attention.

We did a very successful
sonic imitation

of the assembling of tanks,
and for some reason or other,

the commanding officer of this
tank battalion sends his tanks

right down the ravine that
we had played for dummies' sake.

NARRATOR:
German anti-tank weapons drawn
by the deception

opened fire
on the American tanks.

JARVIE:
Those guys never reached
the line of departure,

which is the point that they
want to start their attack from.

They never even got that far;
they got decimated.

We had no way of knowing

they were going to kick off
an attack,

and they had no way of knowing

that we weren't going
to help them.

And it makes you feel lousy.

("La Marseillaise" playing)

NARRATOR:
On August 25, 1944,
the city of Paris was liberated

from more than four years
of German occupation.

Parisians were still celebrating
as the Ghost Army pulled into

a nearby town to await
their next operation.

For one wonderful week,
they would savor the pleasures

of a Paris still giddy
with euphoria.

"Paris was put off limits
and on limits so often,"

recalled one Ghost Army officer,

"that everyone, in confusion,
visited it whenever possible.

"It was a great town.

"The girls looked
like delightful dolls,

"especially when they whizzed
past on bicycles

"with billowing skirts.

The Parisians were
very happy to see us."

SHILSTONE:
We got in every night.

And came back pretty drunk,
and then started the next day

and then the next night
in Paris, and so forth.

We went to a café,
which was a brothel.

And the ladies would come...

be downstairs
in their scanty costumes,

and again it was a great
opportunity for me to draw.

I'm not Toulouse-Lautrec,

but here were these women
in their underwear.

A woman named Doris
sat on my table.

She had a glass of wine
in her hand

and a cigarette
in the other hand,

high heels and practically
no clothes on.

And she was trying to entice me
to go upstairs.

And I wouldn't have had
to pay anything

if I gave her the drawing.

But I wasn't
particularly anxious

to go upstairs with Doris,

and I decided to keep
the drawing.

NARRATOR:
All too soon, the pleasant
interlude in Paris

came to an abrupt halt.

The Ghost Army was ordered
to make a mad dash across France

to lend a hand to General
George Patton's Third Army.

In Patton's haste to capture
the fortress city of Metz,

near the German border,

a yawning gap had opened up
to the north.

GAWNE:
If the Germans realized that
there were effectively no troops

in the 70-mile-wide stretch,

they could have
broken through easily.

And if they could have gotten

some of their mechanized
units there,

they could have surrounded
Patton at Metz to the south.

This was a very,
very severe risk.

In other words,

there was nothing between
the German army and Paris

but a bunch of rubber tanks.

NARRATOR:
German troops
were incredibly close,

just across the Moselle River,

making sonic deception
particularly crucial.

Sonic trucks operated
for four straight nights.

DOWD:
Enormous sounds of tracks
racing through the forest,

sounded like a whole division
was amassing.

Sergeants' voices yelling,

"Put out that goddamn
cigarette now!"

It was fakery,
it was all a big act.

SYRACUSE:
After a while, my eyes were
beginning to tell me

what my ears were hearing,
and I began to see tanks.

They weren't there;
they were in my ear.

NARRATOR:
The Ghost Army held the position
day after perilous day,

aware that every passing hour
increased the odds

that the Germans might see
through their deception.

CONRAD:
And there was nothing between us
but our hopes and prayers

that separated us
from the Panzer division.

NARRATOR:
Even Patton himself
was feeling the pressure.

"There is one rather bad spot in
my line," he wrote to his wife,

"but I don't think the Huns
know it.

Holding it now by the grace
of God and a lot of guts."

After seven days of high-stakes
play-acting,

the U.S. 83rd Division arrived
to fill the hole for real.

Patton's line had held,

and the Ghost Army
faded away.

In September, the Ghost Army
relocated to Luxembourg City.

For the next three months,
it served as their base

for deception missions
up and down the front.

HARRIS:
So if we went out on missions,
we came back to Luxembourg.

And we were in an old
seminary building,

and we were living pretty good.

And the town was not destroyed,

and it even had
art supplies stores.

NARRATOR:
Between missions,
some of the artists in the unit

sought to capture the beauty
of Luxembourg's old city.

John Jarvie looked elsewhere
for inspiration.

JARVIE:
These are pictures
of the local whorehouse.

It was a busy place,
I'll tell you.

And we went down there
to sketch.

But we also had a combat
engineer unit in our outfit,

the 23rd,
and they thought we were queer.

They said, "What are you doing
here sketching pictures?"

And they were busy waiting
their turn and fighting,

fighting for turn.

There's one guy was
propositioning the madam

who ran the place,
but he couldn't afford her.

JARVIE:
But the girls were
just making a living.

When they left at night,

their husbands would wait
outside the door for them

and take them home.

NARRATOR:
Another artist
constantly sketching

was a 21-year-old from Indiana
named Bill Blass.

MASEY:
Bill Blass.

Great guy.

Wonderful.

Knew what he wanted,
read Vogue in his foxhole.

The rest of us are
a bunch of slobs, but not Blass.

He was always dressed
to the nines.

We all had the same uniforms,

but leave it to Blass to have
his pressed or something.

NARRATOR:
Blass filled his notebooks
with ideas for women's clothing,

even sketching a logo
he wanted to use

for his fashion designs
after the war.

Those of us from New York,
you know,

thought we were very
sophisticated.

But Bill, of course, came
from Fort Wayne, Indiana,

and was far more sophisticated
than most of us.

BILL SAYLES:
He was charming
and he was genuine

and he was eager
and he was attractive--

he was the whole thing,
he was the package.

NARRATOR:
In December 1944,
the Ghost Army headed out

on what seemed like
just another mission,

their sixth since arriving
in Luxembourg.

Heavy fighting was taking place
near the German city of Cologne.

But further south,

a 90-mile section of the front
along the rugged Ardennes forest

was thinly held by just
four American divisions.

BIOW:
The Army in its wisdom decided
they would send

the wonderful 23rd Headquarters
up there to create the illusion

that there were more troops
than there were.

And we went in representing
the 75th Infantry Division,

which was still in England,
as I recall.

NARRATOR:
But the sector wasn't nearly
as quiet as it seemed,

and the Ghost Army was about
to get caught up

in one of the biggest battles
of the Second World War.

JARVIE:
The Germans were coming in,
getting ready for the Bulge.

They were putting all their
heavy hitters in there,

and we didn't know it.

NARRATOR:
In the early morning hours
of December 16,

Hitler's legions unleashed
a massive surprise attack

in a last-ditch attempt
to win the war.

Dazed American units along the
front barely knew what hit them.

CLARK:
Suddenly, out of the snow and
out of the darkness,

a group of men in white uniforms
are moving toward you,

and you're thinking,
"Well, what is that?"

And they're 300 yards,
they're 200 yards,

and suddenly you realize
that's the enemy.

And it's almost too late.

NARRATOR:
The attack would become famous
as the Battle of the Bulge.

If you look at where
the Germans attacked,

they attacked smack into
the 23rd Special Troops.

The fortunate thing was that
on the evening of December 15,

came midnight, somebody in their
wisdom decided to pull us out.

So we left at midnight,
December 16,

and the Battle of the Bulge
started about 4:00 a.m.,

December 16,
just shortly after we left.

And if we'd have been there,
there'd be no 23rd.

NARRATOR:
Many were not immediately aware
of their close call.

Spike Berry didn't hear
about the attack

until he made a routine run
to a nearby town

to return a movie shown to some
of the men the night before.

BERRY:
And I went into this town
where 8th Corps was.

Film library was closed.

Gone, nobody there.

I went to the middle
of the town, a little square,

and there was an MP there.

And I said,
"What's going on here?"

He said, "What the hell
are you doing here?"

I said, "I'm returning
a movie film."

He said,
"You're returning what?"

I said, "I'm returning
a movie film."

He said, "Listen, sir,"

he said, "you get that
Thompson submachine gun

"that's in your leather holster
along your spare tire

and then you and your driver
get the hell out of town."

And so we left Bastogne.

NARRATOR:
Bastogne was surrounded
shortly afterwards,

earning a place in history
for the stand made there

by the 101st Airborne.

Back in Luxembourg City,

less than 20 miles
from the attacking Germans,

Ghost Army gunners manned
rooftop machine guns

and blazed away at attacking
Luftwaffe planes.

It was the only time
during the war

they actually had a chance
to fire at the enemy.

MASON:
I was given the order to set
charges on all our vehicles

so that in case the enemy
overran Luxembourg,

we would destroy it.

So that was kind of scary

MASEY:
Victory looks like
it's in sight.

The Allies are pushing
like crazy.

Then, whammo, out of nowhere,

"Pack up, we're going,
the Germans are coming."

I said, "What do you mean,
the Germans are coming?

Isn't the war over?"

"No.

"We've got to go;
we're leaving.

"You have an hour to get
all your stuff together.

"We're getting out of here.

"Trucks are waiting
in front of this building.

We're retreating."

"Retreating?

"We're supposed
to have won this war,

or on the verge
of winning it."

I mean, it was
a very depressing moment.

What's happened?

Where did these Germans

get this suddenly
eleventh-hour energy from?

NARRATOR:
The Army didn't want to risk

blowing the cover
of the deceivers,

so they were hustled
to the rear.

When this hit, they certainly
didn't want rubber tanks,

they wanted the real thing,
so we pulled out.

We didn't really stop;
we kept going.

And it was snowing;

you can't believe
how it was snowing.

MASEY:
When we got into Luxembourg,

there were lots
of American flags flying.

As we're leaving Luxembourg,
there are swastikas flying.

This is in no way meant
to indict the Luxembourg people,

but it said something
about Europe.

They were victim to these hordes
coming in all directions

and they had to be prepared
to survive.

At that point,
our lives changed radically,

and the 23rd was pulled back

and sent to Verdun, which still
smelled of World War I.

(thunder rumbling)

NARRATOR:
Verdun was the site

of one of biggest battles
of World War I.

More than half a million
soldiers died there.

It was in the cold and damp
World War I fortifications

that the Ghost Army camped out
at Christmastime.

HARRIS:
So here I am on guard duty

and I had my pen and ink
with me,

drawing in the dark,
practically.

And I just had to record
that site.

NARRATOR:
Another Ghost Army soldier,

Arthur Singer,
captured the same scene.

HARRIS:
It brought up the whole issue

that war is about
life and death,

and we were right
in the middle of it.

BIOW:
So now it's Christmastime.

What do you do next?

Well, one of the guys went out
and cut a Christmas tree

and rigged it
inside the pillbox.

And then the question,
how do you decorate it?

Well, one way was
to inflate condoms

and hang them on there
like balloons.

And the other method was
to take tin cans

and cut stars out
of the tin cans,

which we hung on the trees,
and that was our Christmas tree.

DOWD:
There were Polish refugees

and other Middle European
refugee children.

And being American soldiers,
we tried to enliven their lives

by giving them presents
and so forth.

And I did indeed do a drawing
of a little boy.

I can remember it so vividly.

He had this box,
and it was open,

but he was so forlorn looking,

and nobody could get
this little boy to smile.

God knows
what he'd been through.

BIOW:
And that was Christmas in 1944.

NARRATOR:
By January 1945, the German
attack had been blunted

and the Allies were back
on the offensive.

The Ghost Army was called on to
conduct a series of deceptions

to mask where each new blow
would fall.

Suddenly, they were busier
than ever.

They ranged across
parts of Luxembourg,

Belgium, France and Germany.

ALBRECHT:
Man, we used a lot of fuel.

We traveled more across Europe

than I'm sure
any other Army unit.

SHILSTONE:
There were days it seemed
that we didn't get any sleep.

NARRATOR:
It was all happening
in the harshest of conditions.

On the ground, in snow,
without a tent.

They said it was the coldest
winter in 40 years in France,

and I believe them.

It was misery.

SHILSTONE:
After sleeping on the ground
for many months,

I would just have loved to have
gotten up in one of those tanks,

those soft tanks,
and gone to sleep.

Of course, that would be
a court martial offense.

NARRATOR:
For months, the men of the Ghost
Army had led a charmed life,

often drawing fire but taking
virtually no casualties.

On March 12, 1945, the odds
finally caught up with them.

They were impersonating
the 80th Infantry Division,

and sobering proof that
their deception worked

came in the form of deadly
German artillery fire.

(explosions)

And there were people
probably no more than

20, 30 feet away from me
that lost limbs

because of shrapnel
just falling all over.

DOWD:
And I can remember sitting
in the truck

with my truck driver

and a bunch of guys in the back
of the truck,

and a shell landed
in front of us,

and then a shell flew
over our heads

and hit the truck behind us.

And I was thinking,

"Do I tell them to get
the hell out of here now?"

And with that,
the signal came and we moved.

And it was just a case of luck.

"Luck" is the paramount word.

If you're in the wrong place,
you can be dead.

If you're in the right place,

you can live to be
as old as I am.

NARRATOR:
Two men were killed, 15 wounded,

in the Ghost Army's
deadliest day.

Just two weeks later,
the men of the Ghost Army

set out on what was to be

their last and most critical
mission of the war.

CLARK:
The Rhine River is
the western boundary

of the most important industrial
heartland of Germany.

It's the most direct route
to Berlin.

So the heat was on.

And the idea was how to get
across the Rhine River.

NARRATOR:
The 21st Army Group

under British General
Bernard Law Montgomery

was picked to make the major
thrust across the Rhine.

Two divisions of the American
9th Army, the 30th and the 79th,

would lead one wing
of the attack.

The job of the Ghost Army was
to fool the Germans

into thinking that
those two divisions

were actually going to attack
ten miles to the south.

To pull it off,
they would have to operate

on a bigger scale
than ever before,

with thousands of lives at risk.

Operation Viersen would require
1,100 men

to convince the Germans
that they were 30,000.

We moved on up to this
last grand deception.

NARRATOR:
Hundreds of decoys were set up

around the towns
of Anrath and Dulken.

Real armored vehicles
and infantry were used

to enhance the illusion.

Enclosed farmyards were turned
into phony repair depots.

A forest was converted
into a decoy motor pool.

BIOW:
We even had dummy L-5s,

small observation planes
that were inflatable.

We created an airstrip
so from the air

it would look like
an active unit

complete with its air
observation components.

NARRATOR:
So convincing were
the phony airfields

that a real observation plane
mistakenly landed at one

and was promptly told
to get lost.

As the real divisions
were moving in,

their radio operators
went off the air

at a pre-assigned moment.

Ghost Army radio operators
began imitating them,

creating the illusion
that the troops were traveling

to the fake point of the attack.

German intelligence
radio monitoring and traffic,

which thought
they could identify

the signal of an individual
telegrapher, missed it.

These guys were that good.

NARRATOR:
At night, the sonic trucks
played the sounds of soldiers

assembling the pontoon bridges
needed to span the Rhine.

Created this effect
of all this preparation

for crossing the river
at that point.

NARRATOR:
On the eve
of the Rhine crossing,

Allied Commander
Dwight Eisenhower

and British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill

joined General Montgomery to
witness the momentous occasion.

Tremendous efforts had gone
into the deception,

but no one knew whether
they would really work.

In the early morning hours
of March 24,

Navy landing craft
began crossing the Rhine.

Infantrymen on board steeled
themselves for fierce fighting.

What they found, however,

was weak and disorganized
resistance,

as if the Germans were expecting
the attack someplace else.

EICHHORN:
The 9th U.S. Army gets across

with so few casualties,

they would almost have
that many casualties

if they were running
a big training exercise.

NARRATOR:
U.S. Army intelligence officers
were convinced

that the deception was
a rousing success.

Captured German maps showed
the 79th Division

right where the Ghost Army
portrayed it.

"There is no doubt,"
said one report,

"that Operation Viersen
materially assisted

"in deceiving the enemy

"with regard to the real
dispositions

and intentions of this Army."

You go up against the best army
there is,

the best group of soldiers,

and you can dupe them
successfully,

you pat yourself on the back.

EICHHORN:
In some people's minds,

it probably justifies
the existence of the whole unit.

And it's pretty impressive.

NARRATOR:
Once of those impressed was the
Commander of the U.S. 9th Army,

General William Simpson.

He wrote a letter
of commendation,

calling the deception

"an important part
of the operation,"

adding that it reflected
"great credit on this unit"--

a glowing review for the final
performance of the Ghost Army.

SHILSTONE:
The day I got out of the Army

I think was the happiest day
of my life.

It wasn't day I got married
or when our son was born

or anything else,
but when I got out of the Army.

NARRATOR:
After the war, Arthur Shilstone
became an illustrator,

working for dozens of magazines.

He was one of many
Ghost Army artists

who went on to successful
art careers.

Jack Masey was another.

MASEY:
I learned a lot,

fooling people
and deceiving people,

and it stood me in very good
stead for the rest of my life.

NARRATOR:
Masey designed exhibits
for the U.S. government,

including the 1959
Moscow Exhibition

that that was the site
of the famous kitchen debate

between Khrushchev and Nixon.

A surprising number
of Ghost Army soldiers won fame

as artists and designers.

Bill Blass became
a fashion superstar;

Ellsworth Kelly, a celebrated
minimalist painter.

Arthur Singer's
bird illustrations

earned him world renown.

Art Kane's photograph of 57
musicians on a stoop in Harlem

remains a jazz icon.

Many others made their mark
as designers, illustrators,

painters, sculptors,
and architects.

The official Army history
of the unit

and the details
of its wartime operations

were kept under wraps
for more than 40 years.

We were told we couldn't
tell our wives or anybody

about what we did.

It was totally secret.

Americans were pretty convinced

the next war was going to be
against the Russians.

And so when you have operations

that work well
against the Germans,

you don't want to tell
the Russians what you did

because then they'll be
prepared for them

and it will be useless
against them.

And that's one of the reasons

why it stayed secret
for so long,

because during the Cold War

it was something that we didn't
want the Russians to know.

NARRATOR:
The Ghost Army never launched an
attack, never took a position.

Their victories were
of a different sort.

EICHHORN:
Did it absolutely baffle
the Germans every time?

Probably not.

Did it cause the Germans
to react

in ways that we wanted them
to react?

Definitely.

There are German records
that show that

some of the deceptions were
taken hook, line and sinker.

The 23rd did not win the war
singlehandedly,

but I think it would have cost
a lot more American casualties

had they not been there.

JARVIE:
You know you saved lives.

You don't know how many
you saved,

but you know you saved them.

They estimated that we saved
between 15,000 and 30,000 lives

with our maneuvers.

But even if we only saved
15 or 30, it was worth it.

One mother, or one new bride,
was spared the agony

of putting a gold star
in their front window.

That's what the 23rd
Headquarters was all about.

NARRATOR:
The story of the Ghost Army
is one of creativity flourishing

under the most extreme
circumstances.

Their best art was not

the paintings and drawings
they left behind,

but the ephemeral masterpieces
they created on the battlefield.

ALBRECHT:
Can you picture
the German commander,

after he was preparing
to defend himself

and perhaps attack
over in our direction,

going over there
and finding nothing

but maybe a lot of tank tracks.

Because we were gone.

That's the Ghost Army.