Ghost Army Legacy group funds camouflage research

More than a dozen years ago, Rick Beyer came out with a documentary film, titled The Ghost Army, which premiered on PBS. It provided a vivid account of a once top secret World War II American Army unit (known as The Ghost Army), the mission of which was battlefield deception, using sonic and radio confusion, visual camouflage, inflatable decoys, and all sorts of persuasive deceptive events. 

Two years later, Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles (whose father belonged to the unit), produced an equally wonderful book titled The Ghost Army of World War II (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015).

Beyer's Ghost Army efforts have enjoyed enormous success. It has enabled him to establish a Ghost Army Legacy Project, and to unearth further details about two WWII tactical units, the US Army's 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Service Company.

Now, it has just been announced that the Ghost Army organization has established a Research and Creative Grant Program, open to those who might have an interest in "supporting and expanding the public's understanding of the unique contributions and legacy" of the two Ghost Army units.

Proposals are due May 15, 2026, with an awards notification date of August 15, 2026. Complete information can be found online at this link.

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Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / 

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Ghost Army Now in Book Form

Two years ago, Rick Beyer came out with a documentary film, titled The Ghost Army, which premiered on PBS. It provided a vivid account of a once top secret World War II American Army unit (the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, aka The Ghost Army), the mission of which was battlefield deception, using sonic and radio confusion, visual camouflage, inflatable decoys, and all sorts of persuasive phony events. The film has been a great success, and it is now being followed by the release of a richly illustrated book about the same unit. Co-authored by Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles (whose father  belonged to the unit), the book is titled The Ghost Army of World War II (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015).

Below is one of the images from the book. It's a Christmas card that was made by one of the artists (unidentified). It makes inventive use of a cut-out silhouette technique that was first introduced by American artist Abbott H. Thayer, in advance of and during World War I. In this case, a silhouette of a soldier has been cut out of the cover, so that the background changes as the card is opened, as underscored by the punchline: "I can't conceal my wish for a Merry Christmas."

In Thayer's case, he recommended (in a 1918 article) that anyone, even a novice, could produce a functional camouflage pattern, for whatever setting, simply by superimposing a cut-out stencil silhouette on a photograph of the customary background of the subject to be camouflaged. One of his own demonstrations of that is shown below.

History of Camouflage Comic Book

Camouflage comic © John Kramer

Thanks to Claudia Covert, Special Collections Librarian at the Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design, for alerting us to the recent posting of an online comic book version of the history of modern camouflage. Produced by Washington DC comic book artist John Kramer and published by The Wilson Quarterly, the 10-page cartoon story, titled HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT: WWI, WWII, and [the] Surprising History of Camouflage, is well-worth an online visit, albeit Abbott Thayer becomes "Abott Thayer," and it's regrettably skimpy on sources.

Ghost Army Camouflage DVD

Good news! Rick Beyer's excellent documentary on the Ghost Army, the World War II deception unit, which premiered only last week, is already available for online purchase for only $19.95 at the PBS website here.

Ghost Army Camouflage Film on PBS

Premiering late May 2013 on PBS television

At last, coming soon to public television (Tuesday, May 21 on most PBS channels) is Rick Beyer's long-awaited documentary on the World War II American Army camouflage and deception unit, The Ghost Army. Below is a background starter, but the website has much more—

In June 1944, a secret US Army unit went into action in Normandy. The weapons they deployed were decidedly unusual: hundreds of inflatable tanks and a one-of-a-kind collection of sound effects records. Their mission was to use bluff, deception, and trickery to save lives. Many were artists, some of who would become famous, including a budding fashion designer named Bill Blass. They painted and sketched their way across Europe, creating a unique visual record of their journey. The story of what these men accomplished was hushed up by the Pentagon for more than forty years. more>>>

Book Review | The British Phantom Army

Rick Stround, The Phantom Army of Alamein (2012)

The Phantom Army of Alamein: 
How the Camouflage Unit and
Operation Bertram 
Hoodwinked Rommel
by Rick Stroud
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 2012
288 pp., illus. b&w. Trade, $25.95
ISBN: 978-1-4088-2910-3.

Some time in 2013, a new documentary film titled The Ghost Army will premiere on American public television. It will spell out the little-known story of a World War II U.S. Army unit that operated secretly in Europe from 1944 until the war’s end. That unit was made up of more than a thousand soldiers who in civilian life were so-called “creative types,” among them such now prominent names as the painter Ellsworth Kelly, fashion designer Bill Blass, wildlife artist Arthur Singer, and photographer Art Kane. Working as a team, they impersonated other army units and created persuasive illusions (both physical and auditory) of misleading, unreal battle events.

This book is not about that American unit, as tempting as it is to think that “ghost army” is synonymous with “phantom army.” Rather, this book tells the story of a comparable but earlier British outfit—consisting largely of artists as well—that was formed in 1942 for the massive, focused task of fooling German forces (headed by General Erwin Rommel, aka the “Desert Fox”) in the sands of North Africa in the Second Battle of El Alamein. The resulting Allied victory was in part attributed to (by none other than Winston Churchill) the ingenious clandestine trickery of the British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate in a famous large-scale project called “Operation Bertram.”

Unlike the American Ghost Army (kept secret until 1996), details of this British ruse have been known since at least 1949, when one of its self-touting members, British stage magician Jasper Maskelyne, wrote what is widely considered to be an embellished and largely self-serving account, titled Magic—Top Secret. Three years later, the film director who headed the unit, Major Geoffrey Barkas, published his own eyewitness report of the operation, titled The Camouflage Story (from Aintree to Alamein). Over the years, those two books have been supplemented by ten or more others about the unit’s achievements. According to its publisher, this one, which has just come out, “tells for the first time the full story.”

So what did these soldier-artist-camoufleurs do? How did they hoodwink the Desert Fox? The answer(s) to that constitutes the best moments in the book. In general, I think it would be fair to say that they used two approaches: First, they made key weaponry disappear—not by vanishing, but by disguising it as something else, as a less threatening, innocuous thing. Tanks were made to look like trucks. Field artillery was concealed in other phony forms. And food, fuel and other supplies were covered up and stacked to look like harmless transport vehicles. Second, at other times, for other purposes, they did the opposite—making clever use of the simplest materials, they constructed trompe l’oeil dummies (tanks, artillery, support vehicles) to create an illusory build-up, to “reveal” things that were never there. As a result, they made the enemy think that Allied forces were being amassed at times and places that differed critically from the real situation. This Second Battle of El Alamein, in which these methods were employed, was the war’s first victory for the Allies.

If illusions, unfounded resemblance and various other visual subterfuges are bewildering to experience, they are at least equally hard to describe. One thing that sets this book apart is the richness of… more>>>

Camouflage Artist | Arthur Singer

Birds of the Fifty States

There's a wonderful website called Singer Arts. It's all about the life and work of one of the best known American bird artists, a man named Arthur Singer (1917-1990). Even if people may not recognize his name, nearly everyone knows his work. He illustrated more than twenty books and bird identification guides, notably Birds of North America, and in 1982, he and his son Alan were commissioned by the US Postal Service to produce a two-set series of stamps, called Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States (shown here is the state bird series).

At the Singer Arts website, there is a 9-minute video interview of him with Charles Kuralt, numerous examples of his work, and a fairly detailed biographical page.

Oddly, it doesn't mention what may be Singer's greatest accomplishment: During World War II, he was recruited by the US Army to serve (with 1100 other men) in a top secret unit called the Ghost Army, aka 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. After arriving in Europe, they devised effective ways to deceive the German Army, using sonic and radio deception, visual camouflage, inflatable decoys and a mix of persuasive phony events. A major documentary film about this fascinating unit, titled The Ghost Army (produced by Rick Beyer), is nearing completion.

Camouflage Artist | Stanley Martineau

Stanley Martineau (detail) in his studio, n.d.

Recently we ran across an Associated Press Wirephoto, dated January 19, 1943, which includes the following caption: NEW YORK, Jan. 18, SOLDIER'S BUST OF FDR UNVEILED. Pvt. Stanley Martineau (left) of the 603rd Engineers, Camouflage Division, is congratulated today on his sculpture of President Roosevelt. The three-ton, 13-foot bust was unveiled at the General Post Office here. Left to right: Pvt. Martineau, Mayor F.H. LaGuardia of New York City, Postmaster Albert Goldman and Basil O'Connor, President of the National Foundation of Infantile Paralysis.

Stanley Martineau (pictured above working on a portrait of financier J.P. Morgan), from Washington Depot CT, was born in 1915 and died in 1977. Throughout his life, he worked as a commissioned sculptor, completing portrait busts and/or medallions of US Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, the inventor Alexander Graham Bell, financier W.K. Vanderbilt, and various sports heroes, including tennis player Pierre Etchebaster and basketball player Bob Cousy.

Less widely known is his service during World War II as a member of the top secret Ghost Army, a part of the 603rd Engineers, Camouflage Division, officially referred to as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. Other well-known artists-designers in the same unit included Bill Blass, Ellsworth Kelly, Arthur Singer (wildlife illustrator) and Art Kane. The existence and operations of this 1100-person unit remained classified until 1996. Details of its mission (including interviews with some of its participants) will be featured later this year (2012), with the release of a new documentary film called The Ghost Army.

Ghost Army Film Screenings

Click here to see film trailer

For more than six years, documentary filmmaker Rick Beyer has been working on a film about a World War II secret US Army unit that specialized in deceiving the enemy on the battlefield, using inflatable decoys (tanks, trucks, jeeps and so on—including the phony tank shown here), sound effects,  misinformation, and other tricks. Officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, they referred to themselves as the Ghost Army. Among its members were a number of people who later became well-known designers and artists, including Ellsworth Kelly, Bill Blass and Art Kane.

The film is nearly finished now. It's being screened at various locations around the country, and a trailer has been posted online. Click above to access that, and to learn about the screenings.

Ghost Army Exhibit and Screening

Fake inflatable tanks and stage production equipment have not been known as popular methods of defense within World War II history, but the University of Michigan will showcase an exhibit that shows these devices as a little-known-but-effective part of the US Armed Forces.

The University of Michigan's Hatcher Undergraduate Library will show a documentary at 7:00 pm March 17, 2010, on the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops [aka the Ghost Army], deployed in Normandy in June 1944. It will be shown along with an exhibit of textual materials and pictures of war experiences. More…

Ghost Army Camouflage

Some years ago, artist Dennis Bayuzick, a friend who teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, sent me the complete set of fifty US postage stamps, called Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States (issued 1982). I've held on to them all these years, never suspecting that they were co-designed by illustrator and World War II camoufleur Arthur Singer and his son Alan. (There is an online interview with Arthur and Alan Singer about the stamps at this YouTube link.) It was the elder Singer who also illustrated a well known bird identification book (of which I have long owned a copy), titled Birds of North America, as well as twenty other books. During the war, he was a member of the Ghost Army (603rd Engineers Battalion), a top-secret deception unit. Author and filmmaker Rick Beyer is currently working on a film that will document the achievements of that military unit, including such famous participants as fashion designer Bill Blass, artist Ellsworth Kelly, illustrator Arthur Shilstone, and photographer Art Kane.