The Ghost Army: How Deception Saved Thousands in WWII

Historically, war has always meant brute force, massive amounts of heavy equipment and countless casualties. However, during World War II, the Allied forces had an additional weapon that used nothing but psychological illusion instead of actual lethal force. That weapon was called the Ghost Army.

This army consisted of 1,100 people including artists, sound technicians, actors and architects to name a few and their job was not to destroy but to deceive. By creating faked tactical illusions, this small unit was able to simulate the presence of a large Allied division and divert the enemy's attention away from real and exposed troop movements.

These artists did this with creativity while executing these plans with extreme precision:

Inflatable Armies - Deploying rubber tanks, trucks and planes, they were able to cause the enemy's aerial intelligence to be completely fooled.

Sound Warfare - They were able to create the vibrations of heavy equipment moving across the ground at night with speakers that could be heard up to fifteen miles away.

Radio Spoofing - They used fake Morse code and radio communications to mislead enemy intelligence.

The Ghost Army was successful in over twenty missions, saving at least 30,000 lives. The Ghost Army serves as a brilliant historical reminder that imagination, respected at all times, can at times be a much better solution to a crisis than brute, destructive force.