World War Two veterans who tricked the Nazis with a ‘Ghost Army’ of inflatable tanks and Hollywood-style special effects have been given a major award.
It was a rare moment of pride for Seymour Nussenbaum, 100, John Christman, 99, and Bernard Bluestein, 100, who’ve rarely spoken about their heroic acts.
As part of secretive US units, they saved tens of thousands of lives with ruses, dubbed a ‘travelling road show’, at a pivotal point of the war in 1944 and 1945.
Their Europe-wide campaign of deception deployed actors to mislead Nazi Germany’s army into sending forces to the wrong parts of the frontline.
By clearing the way for an Allied victory, they helped bring Adolf Hitler’s reign of terror to an end.
‘Our mission was to fool the enemy’, Nussenbaum told AP News. ‘To put on a big act.’
He told the BBC: ‘Our job was to make whatever was necessary to deceive the enemy.’
Today the three veterans attended a ceremony on Capitol Hill, Washington DC, where they were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the US Congress’ highest honour.
It was held on the 80th anniversary of D-Day when Allied forces – including the UK, USA and Canada – stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate France.
Similar strategies were used in the south of England as Allied forces prepared to cross the Channel for beach landings of D-Day.
Four other members are still alive but were unable to attend the event, which comes after President Joe Biden signed a bill for the award in 2022.
Speaking from a wheelchair, Bluestein told members of Congress: ‘I am very proud and happy to be here.’
Recruited from art schools and advertising and public relations firms, the roughly 1,300 soldiers used costumes, props and fake weaponry to confuse the German forces.
Most were part of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops unit, which operated in Western Europe, while 200 were from the 3133rd Signal Company Special in Italy.
A huge fleet of inflatable tanks, trucks and aircraft, along with costumes and props, were used to confuse the German army in 20 deception campaigns.
Nussenbaum’s role included placing fake numbers on jeeps and dressing people as US generals for German spies to see as they walked around.
The aim was to give the Nazis a false perception of the size and location of Allied forces, so they would divert forces away from areas the Allies planned to attack.
One of these missions dazzled the Germans into believing that some 40,000 Allied troops – two whole divisions – would cross the River Rhine about 10 miles from the real crossing point.
Members of the Ghost Army did this using hundreds of inflatable trucks and tanks, blasting the sound of troop movements from loudspeakers and simulating military radio traffic.
Phoney military commanders were also unleashed as diversions for German spies they knew were watching.
Bluestein told the Washington Post: ‘I guess we were successful because the Germans fired upon us. We convinced them we were the real thing.’
This March 1945 deception campaign, dubbed Operation Viersen, helped ensure the actual Rhine crossing near the German border later met minimal resistance.
Nazi Germany surrendered just six weeks later.
The Ghost Army’s operations were kept secret until they were declassified in 1996.
It has been credited with saving the lives of between 15,000 and 30,000 soldiers in the final year of the war, according to the US Army.
Allied forces used similar inflatable decoys to distract and divert Nazi forces before the landings in North Africa in 1941 and 1942, Italy in 1943, and in Normandy in 1944.
The veterans who were honoured today have rarely spoken about their role in the life-saving missions.
Bluestein, who often told his family he did ‘camouflage work’, said: ‘The dangerous part I didn’t tell them about. They wouldn’t have liked it.’
Nussenbaum said: ‘I don’t like to beat my own drum.’
This is common for WWII veterans, including Congresswoman Ann McLane Kuster’s father, who was a pilot shot down during the war.
Often they would speak of it in euphemisms and half-truths.
Kuster, who played a leading role in honouring the unit, said: ‘One of my favourite lines was one gentleman who would only tell his family, ‘I blew up tanks,’ without saying they were inflatable.’
But the campaign to honour the Ghost Army has ensured this veil of silence will not see it be forgotten.
President Biden’s decision to award them the Congressional Gold Medal came after a lobbying effort spearheaded by Rick Beyer, a writer and film producer.
Author of the popular Greatest Stories Never Told series, and a book on the Ghost Army, Beyer said: ‘I just wanted to make sure it’s not forgotten.
‘I think it’s a great use of ingenuity, creativity on the battlefield.’
credit METRO NEWS
