How the Ghost Army of World War II Saved Thousands of Lives

Conrad’s unit—the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops—had no weaponry heavier than .50 caliber machine guns. Yet for eight days in September 1944, they held off an armored enemy unit, with its heavy tanks that could easily have smashed through the ranks. At stake was Gen. Patton’s assault on the French town of Metz. If the 23rd broke, the Germans could easily attack Patton in the rear, collapsing his attack and likely causing many casualties. But the 23rd, stationed along the Moselle River, held out long enough, despite their lack of firepower.
How did they do it? Deception.
In fact, deception was the 23rd’s entire “raison d’être.” The top secret unit, informally known as the “Ghost Army,” was designed to seamlessly impersonate much larger units, using an ingenious combination of visual, sonic, and radio deceptions, down to the proper division insignia on uniforms and equipment. Often, all that stood between them and the enemy was an array of rubber dummies, inflatable tanks and vehicles, and some imaginative ideas.
At crucial moments of battle, the Ghost Army could suddenly conjure up an armored division just where it was needed to deter a German advance. They could fool the enemy into thinking an Allied attack came from one place when, in fact, it was being prepared elsewhere. Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, they would melt, dissolve, and waft away again into the forests and fields.
Inspired by this success, Ingersoll formed a unit solely dedicated to this type of tactical illusion and showmanship. He recalled: “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.”
That’s how Ingersoll tells told it, but he had a reputation for a relaxed relationship to the facts and a pronounced tendency to sing his own praises. We know that at least one other man helped generate the idea for what would become the Ghost Army: Col. Billy Harris. Harris contrasted starkly with Ingersoll: He was a straight-laced, West Point military man from a military family. Though differing in character, the two men made a good team. Ingersoll’s bubbling creativity was balanced with Harris’s down-to-earth practicality.
The 23rd carried out 20 missions of illusion in France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and Germany. A sister unit, the 3133rd Signal Company Special, conducted two operations in Italy.
“The actions of the Ghost Army helped change the course of the war for thousands of American and Allied troops and contributed to the liberation of a continent from a terrible evil. … Even though technology has changed quite a bit since 1944, our modern techniques build on a lot of what the Ghost Army did and we are still learning from [their] legacy.”
Bamboozlement and psychological warfare still form a core part of modern military operations. In fact, some argue that war today occurs more in people’s minds than on physical battlefields. Fifth-generation warfare is generally described as warfare that plays out through social engineering, cyberattacks, psyops, and misinformation.
The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops laid the groundwork, and perhaps the Ghost Army lives on in new and more hidden forms.