How a Ghost Army Helped The Allies Reach Germany in World War 2
- Dana Rovang
- 4 days ago
- 10 min read
One of the more famous lines from Sun Tzu’s Art of War says, “All warfare is based on deception.” There can be little doubt deception became an important part of Allied military strategy during World War 2 from 1942 onward. The British had implemented effective deception operations to fool the Germans about intended attack points for the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942 and Operation Husky in July 1943. Fortitude was a larger deception operation that convinced the Nazis the Allies would primarily attack Pas-de-Calais rather than Normandy for D-Day in June 1944.
The effectiveness of Britain’s wartime trickery inspired the Americans to implement their own deceptions. In June 1944, many thousands of U.S., British, and Canadian troops poured ashore on the beaches of Normandy in France to establish a new front in Western Europe. To assist with the liberation of France and drive toward Germany, the Americans established a unique tactical deception unit for regular deployment that became known as the “Ghost Army.”
The Ghost Army is Formed
Ralph Ingersoll and William Harris are the men primarily credited with the ideas and proposals for forming the American Ghost Army in 1943. Ingersoll entered wartime service as a private in 1942, first stationed in North Africa. He later moved to London to join the Special Plans Branch, where he was assigned to assist with the Operation Fortitude D-Day deception.
Ingersoll gained much insight into British wartime deception methods from his experiences in North Africa and London. His inclusion in the British deception operations gave Ingersoll an idea for a special unit that could deceive the enemy. He dubbed this special unit “my con artists.” A widely quoted line from an unpublished Ingersoll account says, “My prescription was for a battalion that could imitate a whole corps of either armor or infantry… a super secret battalion of specialists in the art of manipulating our antagonists’ decisions.”
Ingersoll wanted to create a flexible mobile unit that could effectively impersonate a full corps (formation of divisions) on a battlefield whenever required. This deception could assist American combat divisions in a few ways; firstly, a simulated unit could draw fire away from combat soldiers. Secondly, an illusionary unit could hold off the enemy by faking filled gaps in lines until real divisions reached them. Thirdly, the Ghost Army could assist the movement of Allied divisions and potential attack points by deceiving the Germans with fake military build-ups elsewhere.
William Harris was a U.S. lieutenant colonel and Ingersoll’s boss at the Special Plans Branch. Harris and Ingersoll sold the idea of a special deception unit for American forces to the top dogs of the U.S. Army in Europe. Jake Devers, the United States Army commander for the European Theater of Operations in 1943, supported the formation of a proposed deception unit. Devers’ replacement, Dwight Eisenhower, was also enthusiastic about establishing a unit for deception operations at the beginning of 1944.
The U.S. Army activated the Ghost Army unit on January 20, 1944, at a Camp Forrest training ground in Tennessee. Ghost Army was officially called the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The Americans merged three existing units and a new one to form the Ghost Army under the command of Colonel Harry Reeder. It was a first of its kind, for although the British had performed deceptive operations from 1942 to 1944, the UK army never established a dedicated mobile deception unit for that purpose.
Ghost Army’s Order of Battle
This Ghost Army was not full of battle-hardened front-line troops. The U.S. Army recruited many young artists, designers, and engineers to fill the ranks of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops from high schools across America. These were barely adult men recruited by the U.S. Army to generate illusions of real Allied divisions with combined visual, sound (sonic), and radio deceptions that would deceive the Wehrmacht (German army) throughout Western Europe. The Ghost Army amounted to approximately 1,100 personnel in total.
The 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion was the biggest component of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. This unit was mainly filled with artists and designers who created fake tanks, planes, artillery, and military vehicles primarily for the visual deception of German reconnaissance and scouts. The Ghost Army used inflatable rubber dummy tanks, artillery, planes, jeeps, and trucks to generate the visual illusion of a real army corps. Members of this unit also designed decoy army patches to make their military clothing more convincing for when they play-acted front-line American soldiers in nearby French towns.
The 3132 Signal Service Company was Ghost Army’s sonic deception unit responsible for generating fake military audio effects that sounded like a real army corps. These audio effects were typically pre-recorded sounds of infantry and tank movements. The 3132 deployed M3A1 half-track vehicles mounted with powerful speaker systems that could blast out sound effects audible within about 15 miles.
The Ghost Army relied on the 244th Signal Company for its radio deception. This unit included radio operators who generated fake radio transmissions for the Germans to listen in on. Extreme attention to detail was all the more important for this group as its operators needed to mimic exact Morse code keystrokes for impersonated military units.
Even though the Ghost Army was trying to draw attention to itself on battlefields by simulating a fake division, it needed real protection from enemy troops. The 406th Combat Company was the fighting force of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops that provided a perimeter defense. However, this was only a fighting force of 168 combat soldiers for perimeter guarding. This group also assisted with the visual deception by using its bulldozers to generate artificial tank tracks for the inflatable decoys.
Arrival in France and Operation Brest
The Ghost Army arrived in England in May 1944 to be stationed at Walton Hall near Stratford Upon Avon for further training before D-Day. There, the Ghost Army practiced assembling and disabling decoy tanks and artillery. Some signal officers of the 23rd visited American field units to gain more insight on field radio hook ups and combat operations. A portion of the deception unit organized formal training exercises throughout the months of May and June 1944. Thereafter, the Americans decided to deploy a portion of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops as an advanced task force in France.
It took about two months for the entire Ghost Army to touch down in France after the Allied invasion of Normandy. However, the first remnants of this deception unit arrived to assist the beach landings with relatively small phony diversions. ELEPHANT was the first official Ghost Army operation carried out from July 1 to 4, albeit with only about 37 percent of the deception unit available. For that operation, the Americans deployed the Ghost Army to cover the movement of the 2nd Armored Division from Cerisy Forest.
The Battle of Brest, in August 1944, was the first operation for which the U.S. Army deployed the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops to provide fully combined visual, sonic, and radio deception support. Brest was a port city on the far west point of France held by the Germans and a target of considerable significance. Given its proximity to the south coast of England, it was critical the Allies retake it. When they attacked, the Allies encountered stronger than anticipated resistance, with a force of about 30,000 German troops (more than expected) tenaciously defending the city under the leadership of Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke.
The U.S. Army deployed the Ghost Army in the Battle of Brest to impersonate the withdrawn 6th Armored Division. The Operation Brest objective was to inflate the apparent size of Allied forces surrounding the city by making it seem like the 6th Armored Division was still there. The Americans hoped that the illusion of more sizable Allied forces would convince the Germans to surrender more easily or at least draw enemy attention to the flanks of the battle.
The Ghost Army created fake tank battalions at the Battle of Brest that attracted German attention. Some members of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops recall large shells landing 400 yards away during the battle. Thus, the Germans fired artillery shells that might have killed actual American combat troops in the direction of the Ghost Army’s position.
A post-battle report from Colonel Searcy lauded the thoroughness and attention to detail of the deception support provided during the battle. However, Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke’s German troops did not surrender easily and held out for weeks longer. The Ghost Army also had some coordination issues with the combat leaders that resulted in the loss of five nearby Allied tanks hit by German artillery fire directed at the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops.
Operation Bettembourg
In September, with the Allied armies advancing beyond Normandy, the Ghost Army was called upon to assist with augmenting the number of troops on the ground in France. George Patton found himself in a spot of bother during September 1944 when he commanded Allied divisions attempting to take the heavily fortified city of Metz along the Franco-German border. During this assault, he realized a dangerously wide 70-mile gap had emerged in his line with nothing more than a lightweight cavalry squadron defending it. In a letter to his wife, Patton wrote, “There is one rather bad spot in my line, but I don’t think the Huns know it… Hiding it now by the grace of God and a lot of guts.”
Patton needed the 6th Armored Division to fill that gap in his line. However, it would take some time for the 6th Armored Division to reach that gap because it was a long way away on the Atlantic coastline of France. The Germans would have likely exploited this vulnerability had they known about it. The solution for this strategic dilemma was to call in the Ghost Army to conceal this vulnerability until a genuine armored division arrived to fill the hole that had emerged in Patton’s line.
The Ghost Army arrived at this gap in Patton’s line expecting to be there for only two to three days. This was the 60-hour limit considered safe for its deception operations. Beyond that time, the deception unit was at serious risk of exposure and annihilation. However, a delayed arrival of the 6th Armored Division left the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops stationed there for almost 10 days. This was an extremely nervous extended stay for the Ghost Army, during which it drew upon its full array of dummy, radio, sonic, and special effect deception methods to generate the illusion of a much larger military force in that gap of Patton’s line.
Fortunately for the Ghost Army (and Patton), this Operation Bettembourg deception worked long enough for the much-needed reinforcements to arrive. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops pulled out immediately when the required division filled Patton’s line. Patton’s U.S. forces eventually captured Metz in November 1944 as the Allies closed in on Germany.
Operation Viersen
Operation Viersen was the last, perhaps most significant, mission the Ghost Army completed. Allied armies approached the River Rhine in March 1945 to mount an invasion of Germany along the western border of the Third Reich. The River Rhine was the last natural barrier the Allies needed to cross for the invasion of Germany. To assist General Simpson’s U.S. Ninth Army with crossing the Rhine, the Americans deployed the Ghost Army in an area around Viersen to impersonate two divisions, amounting to about 40,000 troops, of that force.
The objective of this Ghost Army operation was to simulate the 79th and 30th divisions in a designated XIII area near the River Rhine with all their deception techniques. This deception prepared evidence that made it look like a river crossing would happen on April 1, which was later than the Ninth Army planned to cross the Rhine on March 24. The U.S. Army hoped an effective deception in the XIII area would draw the Germans away from the real planned river crossing spot near a designated XVI location where the real Ninth Army was amassing under considerable concealment.
The Ghost Army’s Operation Viersen deception worked to the extent that its fake inflatable decoys attracted a barrage of German artillery fire on March 18. Members of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops also noticed considerable Luftwaffe air activity over the XIII area where the Ghost Army was operating. Simpson’s Ninth Army crossed the River Rhine on March 24 with only 31-36 casualties (cited figures vary slightly), encountering minimal resistance from bewildered German troops.
General Simpson expressed his gratitude for the Ghost Army’s remarkable deception effort at the Rhine in a now-declassified letter. A passage from that letter reads, “I desire to commend the officers and men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, Twelfth Army Group, for their fine work and to express my appreciation for a job well done.”
Ghost Army Receives Congressional Gold Medals
The Ghost Army undertook 21 deception operations from the D-Day landings up to the Rhine River crossing in March 1945. Although these operations were much safer than those for combat divisions, the men of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops still risked their lives to deceive the Germans. Three members of the Ghost Army were killed during operations.
Members of the Ghost Army were sworn to secrecy about that group’s operations after World War 2. The U.S. Army wanted to keep its deception methods a secret for potential Cold War conflicts. Consequently, little was known about the exploits of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops for four full decades after World War 2.
However, the veil of secrecy was lifted on the Ghost Army in 1996. Thereafter, Rick Beyer’s Ghost Army Legacy Project actively campaigned for greater 23rd Headquarters Special Troops recognition, preferably in the form of medals. Former members of the Ghost Army received the Congressional Gold Medal in 2022 for their daring and efficient deception exploits during World War 2.
This was fitting recognition for a deception unit estimated to have saved thousands of American troops in Western Europe. The phantom Ghost Army tricked and deceived the Wehrmacht from Brest to the River Rhine throughout the Allied thrust toward Germany. A concluding passage from the Ghost Army Congressional Gold Medal Act document says this, “The United States is eternally grateful to the soldiers of the 23d Headquarters, Special Troops and the 3133d Signal Service Company for their proficient use of innovative tactics throughout World War II, which saved lives and made significant contributions to the defeat of the Axis powers.”
Matthew Adams is a freelancer who has produced a variety of articles for various publications and websites, such as Swing Golf Magazine, Windows Report, Naval History, Military History Matters, Artilleryman, dotTech, Naval History, Against the Odds, Argunners, History Lists, and Bright Hub. Matthew is also the author of Battles of the Pacific War 1941-1945. Check out the book’s blog at Battles of the Pacific War 1941-1945.
Primary Sources