Ghosts of the ETO: American Tactical Deception Units in the European Theater, 1944-1945 (review)

The ghosts of the European theater in World War II were members of the 23d Headquarters Special Troops who worked to deceive the Germans on the battlefield. Numbering about 75 officers and 950 enlisted men, mainly Engineer and Signal Corps soldiers, attached to the 12th Army Group, the 23d, starting early in July 1944, carried out twenty-two operations during the course of the campaigns. Each assignment receives a chapter in Jonathan Gawne's account.

In every case, the troops acted in diverse ways to simulate the location of combat organizations that were elsewhere. They set up inflated rubber decoys of trucks, tanks, and artillery pieces for enemy observation. They transmitted the flashes of guns and mortars firing. They carried out radio communications between fake headquarters. They played records of sounds denoting vehicular traffic, troop movements, bridge building, howitzer and mortar shelling, and other like activities. They wore the shoulder patches, showed the bumper markings, erected the command posts and the road signs, and set up the military police posts of absent divisions. They made conspicuous tracks on the ground and in the snow to show the presence of combat units. They mingled and talked with civilians to convey the appearance of combat strength in certain desired localities. A second unit, a Signal Service Company sent to Italy late in the war, completed two missions before the conflict ended, and this merits a chapter in the book.

The major problem underlying the entire program was the lack of knowledge of whether a deception succeeded or failed. Were the Germans fooled? No one could be sure.

Yet the largest operation climaxing the overall effort was deemed the most successful. Attached to the Ninth Army, the Special Troops set out to deceive the enemy on the exact time and place of the Rhine River crossings. Specifically, the men concealed the real concentration in the XVI Corps area and built up a simulated attack force in the XIII Corps zone. The results led Lt. Gen. William H. Simpson, the Ninth Army commander, to commend the organization for its endeavors.

Jonathan Gawne, so far as I know, is the first to describe in detail the work of this tactical deception unit. He also narrates its origin, training, and postwar history.