Imagine an army goes to some coordinates believing they will find a battalion of tanks, only to discover upon arrival that those tanks are fake. Especially inflatable tanks, as if they were beach toys. This also happened to the Nazis in World War II. Creating these models was the mission of the ‘Ghost Army’, which managed to control the German troops without firing a single bullet.

And the interesting thing is that they were not soldiers, they were artists.

A Team. One of the strategies in war is deception. Trying to convince the enemy of something false is something that has been done for thousands of years; Some of the strategies that Hannibal employed against Rome is one of the most famous, by making the enemy believe that his troops were camped in a place where they actually were. It wasn’t. Similar maneuvers II. It was also fought in World War II and British A Force played a key role.

In 1940, Italy declared war on the Allies and the British began to take action. After months of defending themselves against the Italians, the Cairo-based British established Force A. This was a group specializing in espionage and deception techniques to fight the enemy in a different way than usual: rumors about airborne units turned out to be fake. leaks, misleading radio broadcasts and even soldiers in British uniforms wandering around cities like Alexandria or Port Said. The aim was to confuse the Italians and not really know what the British were up to.

Operation Protection. One of the members of this Force A was Victor Jones, an engineer who participated in operations to deploy dummy tanks, and when the conflict escalated, it was he who inspired one of the actions taken in Operation Protect. In July 1943, the Allies began to prepare a plan to liberate Europe from the Nazis, and the deployment of large numbers of British and North American troops from England was essential to doing so. This is what would lead to Allied airborne units and the famous Normandy landings, but Nazi troops had to be dispersed.

Inspired by the actions of Force A and seeing Hitler defending the entire western part of Europe with two army groups in France in case troops were dropped by parachute, the allies decided that they would have to resort to deception other than a frontal attack. The attention of German troops had to be diverted from the points where real operations would take place. Come on, the Allies were clear that Normandy would be the site of invasion, and they had to convince the Germans that it was just a trap and that the invasion would begin at another point. There were other projects within Operation Protect, the key to extraction of which was Operation Fortress.

Artists to war. As we said, the aim was to deceive the German intelligence apparatus by creating as many distractions and traps as necessary. If a tank, an airplane, or a dummy ship needed to be built, it was built, but a different type of soldier was needed. That’s why Allies recruit actors, engineers, architects and painters in art schools and even advertising agencies. There were 1,100 soldiers in total; Although this was not a large number in such a conflict, it was enough for ‘fraud’. And they were called the 23rd Special Troops Headquarters, known as the ‘Ghost Army’.

The aim was to fool the Nazi forces into believing that there were two divisions of 30,000 men, and this was actually no different from techniques used in ancient times or what the US military wanted to create: a drone that could fool people. Enemy radars masquerading as fleets of ships or ground units.

inflatable tanks. Various confusion practices were used within the scope of the operation, but perhaps the one that made history is the inflatable tanks. When you see the photos of the tanks being lifted by a few soldiers, you become curious, and when you look closely at the vehicles, it is clear that they are not misleading anyone. The point is that they were made well enough to confuse the enemy from afar. For example, sea transports placed at certain points in England looked quite fake, but Nazi planes could not get low enough to see them in detail.

Some had more detail than others.

More of the same with tanks and ground transport. So the 603rd unit of the Ghost Army created tanks, artillery, jeeps, small planes and trucks that were inflated with air compressors. When they boarded they camouflaged them, but not in an optimal way because what the Germans wanted was to think there was something brewing there. They also created imaginary airfields, infantry units (these were clothes hung on clotheslines like scarecrows) and artillery batteries. Of course, from time to time they would sneak into a real union to make the ruse more believable. And yes, some of the members of this unit were later well-known painters or fashion designers.

Total audiovisual war. Another part of the unit was 3132 Signal Service Company, which was responsible for completing the deception. If the 603 image had done its homework, now was the time to turn up the volume. To do this, they recorded the sounds of real troops (infantry and armor) with the help of Bell Labs engineers. Once they had the recordings, they mounted powerful speakers on the semi-tracks to radiate the sounds.

They had a range of about 24 kilometers, so the Germans did not need to be anywhere near the trap to think there were many enemy units nearby. These recordings were supplemented by a fake radio on which operators transmitted fake messages to the Nazis. They had studied Morse code messages to mimic the keystrokes of German operators so that those responsible for receiving the message would not notice anything strange.

They’re not real, but from this distance…

A Spaniard, a Pole and a Serb are leaving… The work of double agents outside Unit 23 was vital. Juan Pujon García was a Spaniard who volunteered as a double agent, which was crucial in convincing the enemy that he was running a network of agents in Great Britain. Dusko Popov was a Serb who passed false information to Germany while delivering real messages to London. And Roman Czerniawski was a Polish Air Force captain who was captured by the Germans but rescued in exchange for giving them Allied information. What he actually did was give them more misinformation.

Together, the disinformation activities enabled Hitler to send more troops to the Pas de Calais, where the bulk of the Allied invasion was supposedly concentrated. All these maneuvers allowed the Allies to capture Normandy in a bloody battle, yes, but they delayed Nazi reinforcements from reaching the coast because they were dispersed across the country in pursuit of false leads.

The entire Operation Protectorate was a massive plan put into action by the Allies, involving the creation of fictitious troops, strategies to confuse enemy radars (throwing aluminum strips to provide false readings), fictitious operations in Finland, and even a soldier with a certain resemblance. To General Montgomery, who was wandering around areas where the real general wasn’t about making sure the Nazis knew something important was going on there.

Without all these tactics, who knows how the famous D-Day, which in itself was a real burden until the beachhead in Normandy was established, would have ended?

Pictures | History with History: The Ghost Army of World War II, the Ghost Army

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