On February 19, Lasell College had a special showing of a documentary called “The Ghost Army”. The documentary was created by award-winning documentary filmmaker, Rick Beyer. It tells of a secret military unit during World War II that was ordered to deceive the Germans by posing as soldiers and lure the enemies to them while the real soldiers attacked. By using the unit’s skills of art and illusion, this secret unit was one of the small parts that helped lead the downfall of Adolf Hitler and his armies.
The documentary tells of how the military came up with an idea of creating a unit to distract the German armies while they attacked. This unit became the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, aka the Ghost Army. The ranks of the Ghost Army were filled with artists, engineers, painters, sculptors, and much more. The Ghost Army used visual, sonic, and radio deception to help distract the Germans.
Their job as soldiers, were to pose as soldiers and set up fake tanks, fake trucks, fake artilleries, and fake soldiers made out of rubber to make them look like they were the real deal. They recorded real truck sounds and real soldiers working noises to make the Germans think they were real. The radio unit of the Ghost Army replicated the radio contacts from other units they were impersonating; this made the Germans think they were an actually planning to attack.
All of this effort led the Germans to believe they were under attack. This was done so the real soldiers could attack enemy lines while the Germans were distracted with the fake soldiers. The Ghost Army had saved the lives of between 15,000 and 30,000 lives.
Thanks to Beyer, that this movie came together. He started a campaign to help raise money to start this movie and asked help from donors. It took Beyer over eight years. It took a long time to gather all the videos for this movies (it was hard to capture videos of a unit that was supposed be a secret). He interviewed around twenty-one soldiers altogether.
When Beyer was asked what he liked best about all of this; he said it was “the richness of the story”. Because of the Ghost Army, it explored whole new ideas of art, camouflage, deception and so much more. This army changed so much even though they were an army that was kept secret from society for 40 years.