Speaker 1: Welcome to Steph you missed in History class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Colly Frying and I'm trace Abe Wilson. And today
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk a little bit about military history, and
Speaker 1: it's World War two specifically. And even though this particular piece,
Speaker 1: uh that we're discussing is in fact military history, if
Speaker 1: there were a history of ingenuity or sleight of hand,
Speaker 1: I think this would probably be one of the big
Speaker 1: events on that timeline. Uh So we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about the US Ghost Army, which was a top secret
Speaker 1: group that was assembled to create confusion and mislead access forces.
Speaker 1: And it's a really amazing story that stars ingenuity and
Speaker 1: bravado as sort of the the main elements of the piece.
Speaker 1: And the idea of military deception was of course not
Speaker 1: new to World War Two. Everyone has heard of like
Speaker 1: the Trojan Horse for example, and deceit is a tactic
Speaker 1: as part of Sun SU's art of war. Almost any
Speaker 1: culture in history that found itself at war with another
Speaker 1: culture use some type of trickery to try to outsmart
Speaker 1: the enemy, because that's sort of a vital part of
Speaker 1: getting the upper hand in a conflict is misleading so
Speaker 1: that you can kind of swoop in with your forces.
Speaker 1: But this group really went to some pretty extraordinary measures
Speaker 1: to achieve their goals, and they did some really fascinating
Speaker 1: and cool things, uh and so, and it was classified
Speaker 1: for a long time and then kind of came to light.
Speaker 1: So we are going to talk about it today because
Speaker 1: it is really cool. So to start out at the
Speaker 1: beginning like we normally do that. Twenty third Headquarters Special
Speaker 1: Troops was the one and only deception outfit that the
Speaker 1: US Army had ever authorized. The goal was to corral
Speaker 1: a group of creative thinkers to approach warfare in new ways.
Speaker 1: And this sort of trickery focused effort was inspired by
Speaker 1: the success of Operation Bertram, in which Allied forces used
Speaker 1: dummy tanks and camouflage to trick Romwel's for which is
Speaker 1: into an incorrect assessment of the Allies position and strength
Speaker 1: during the Second Battle of l A l Amain in
Speaker 1: North Africa. And also bolstering this case for a deception
Speaker 1: unit was the U S success in misleading German intelligence
Speaker 1: leading up to the Battle of Tunisia. They realized deception
Speaker 1: was working and they thought, let's just have a unit
Speaker 1: that's focused on this. The idea of forming a unit
Speaker 1: dedicated just to this is attributed to Captain Ralph Ingersoll.
Speaker 1: Before the war, he had been a celebrity journalist and
Speaker 1: he had been working with Great Britain on deception techniques
Speaker 1: to mislead the Germans in the time leading up the
Speaker 1: D Day. On Christmas Eve of ninety three, a memo
Speaker 1: to the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations War Department
Speaker 1: at Washington, d C officially requested the creation of a
Speaker 1: unit with a mission quote to simulate a core of
Speaker 1: two infantry divisions and one armored divisions and core installations
Speaker 1: railhead dumps, etcetera. So, beginning in nineteen forty or more
Speaker 1: than one thousand young men were recruited and they were
Speaker 1: often recent art school graduates or ad agency creatives and
Speaker 1: they were handpicked for this assignment. Recruits were sent to
Speaker 1: Camp Forest and Tellahoma, Tennessee to train. Within the three
Speaker 1: were several companies. The two four Signal Company worked on
Speaker 1: radio counter intelligence. Second Signal Service Company, which was actually
Speaker 1: trained at Pine Camp, New York, worked to develop sonic
Speaker 1: deception techniques. The four of six Engineer Combat Company worked
Speaker 1: on the big construction projects and was in charge of security.
Speaker 1: And often you'll hear this effort mentioned, like when people say, oh,
Speaker 1: the Ghost Army they used inflatable tanks to deceive the Germans,
Speaker 1: and that is partially true, but as we mentioned in
Speaker 1: breaking down these different companies within the twenty three, it
Speaker 1: was a whole lot more than that. Yeah, I feel
Speaker 1: like the tanks get the big like kind of bud
Speaker 1: speedy headlines all time, which is understand Well, there's really
Speaker 1: cool video that exists, like where you can see them
Speaker 1: rolling over these inflated tanks and there. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I have ever heard any of the audio recordings,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I've ever seen anyone reference them online.
Speaker 1: So you can see where the tanks get all the attention.
Speaker 1: But I was not all there was. For instance, audio work,
Speaker 1: sometimes referred to as sonic deception, was a huge piece
Speaker 1: of the Ghost Army puzzle. Yeah, they would mount these
Speaker 1: huge speakers to project elaborate soundscapes and radio plays that
Speaker 1: were created by the Second Signal Service Company. And these
Speaker 1: men had recorded tanks and trucks and artillery units and
Speaker 1: they sound engineered them into a number of different soundtracks
Speaker 1: and these recordings would include sounds of tanks on the
Speaker 1: move or military construction, and they would even have things
Speaker 1: like vehicle sputtering. And they basically amassed this really amazing
Speaker 1: sound catalog basically every military vehicle that they had access to,
Speaker 1: doing everything those miss jeans could do, so they could
Speaker 1: kind of piece them together and create unique and specific
Speaker 1: radio dramas. Basically, so if you wanted to broadcast a
Speaker 1: battalion of vehicles starting up in the distance and moving closer,
Speaker 1: they could create that with their vast library of recordings,
Speaker 1: complete with idiosyncratic engine noises for specific vehicles and kind
Speaker 1: of mimic that distance too slowly moving forward nearness that
Speaker 1: you would hear if you were in one position with
Speaker 1: an actual troop going by. I like to imagine this
Speaker 1: as an extremely high tech version of following King Arthur
Speaker 1: around banging coconuts together. But it was very high tech
Speaker 1: even for the time. I mean, they were really kind
Speaker 1: of on the advanced edge of technology and how they
Speaker 1: were using sound. Yeah. Well, and it's like these that
Speaker 1: kind of sound work happens in movies and TV and
Speaker 1: things like that all the time. Now, Like that's yeah,
Speaker 1: that's just sort of how it works, so this is
Speaker 1: a different use for that. In addition to the three
Speaker 1: companies created with new recruits, another company was looped into
Speaker 1: the twenty third Headquarters Special Troops, and that was the
Speaker 1: sixth h third Engineer Camouflage Battalion. The men of the
Speaker 1: six h third had been working on camouflage for a
Speaker 1: couple of years already, so they brought their expertise to
Speaker 1: a group already in a fairly polished state. They had
Speaker 1: already managed an impressive accomplishment that by disguising the plant
Speaker 1: in Baltimore where B twenty six bombers were assembled, and
Speaker 1: the event that access forces wished to look for the plant,
Speaker 1: what they would see when they flew over was just
Speaker 1: a regular rural area. And before we get to how
Speaker 1: the twenty third trained and then made their way to Europe. Uh,
Speaker 1: do you want to pause for a moment for a
Speaker 1: word from a sponsor, Yes, I do so. During the
Speaker 1: spring of n the men of the twenty third were training,
Speaker 1: but they were training in skills that seemed in many
Speaker 1: ways more appropriate for a touring theater company than for
Speaker 1: a group of soldiers. So they built prototype prop vehicles,
Speaker 1: first out of wood and burlap and then out of rubber.
Speaker 1: The rubber versions looked incredibly realistic, but they weighed less
Speaker 1: than a hundred pounds apiece. The men would also train
Speaker 1: with dummy artillery and other prop equipment. They practiced sending
Speaker 1: each other fake radio messages, and they learned just enough
Speaker 1: about other different outfits that they could impersonate them, either
Speaker 1: as individuals or as a group, and men who couldn't
Speaker 1: so had to learn because they were going to have
Speaker 1: to quickly alter their uniforms and switch out patches as
Speaker 1: they sort of performed these presto changeo masquerades. In May,
Speaker 1: the majority of the twenty three boarded the U S. S.
Speaker 1: Henry Gibbons in New York, bound for Great Britain. They
Speaker 1: spent about a month near Stratford on Avon while they trained,
Speaker 1: although by all accounts there was also quite a bit
Speaker 1: of partying. Yeah, this sounds like really a lovely time
Speaker 1: that they had while they were in Britain. Uh. But
Speaker 1: the first wave of men from the twenty third shipped
Speaker 1: out to France just following DD and this was a
Speaker 1: small platoon. It was just fifteen men, and they landed
Speaker 1: at oma Omaha Beach on June fourteenth, so just out
Speaker 1: a week a little more uh, and nurses actually flew
Speaker 1: with them so that they could tend to the wounded
Speaker 1: that we're waiting there on the beach. Going from a
Speaker 1: month in the idyllic British countryside having what was kind
Speaker 1: of a party esque atmosphere into the reality of war
Speaker 1: in France was of course something of a shock. Knowing
Speaker 1: that they were there to draw fire. Some of the
Speaker 1: men thought that the twenty three was really a suicide outfit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They they had been trained in different sort of arts
Speaker 1: and uh deceptions, but not so much in actual combat,
Speaker 1: so they really did. Some of them really did think
Speaker 1: at that point like, oh, they're just sending us there
Speaker 1: to die and take the heat off the real soldiers.
Speaker 1: But over the course of the next two months, the
Speaker 1: rest of the twenty three joined their fellows in France,
Speaker 1: leading up to their first big mission, which was Operation Elephant.
Speaker 1: About half of the men in the unit were involved
Speaker 1: in Operation Elephant, during which they pretended to be the
Speaker 1: Army's Second Armored Division. The real Second Armored Division was
Speaker 1: on the move while the twenty three kept up the appearances. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of a theme of their their missions
Speaker 1: throughout and while this sham did indeed work, nearby German
Speaker 1: troops held their position rather than following the real second
Speaker 1: Armored Division because they did believe they were still there.
Speaker 1: This was also a pretty big learning experience. During this
Speaker 1: particular operation, it was revealed that if the inflatable tanks
Speaker 1: that they three used lost even a small amount of air,
Speaker 1: the cannons would droop and give it the whole thing away.
Speaker 1: They really there are some paintings that you can find
Speaker 1: online and in documentaries where you see sort of this
Speaker 1: droopy cannon barrel, and it really does look comical. It's
Speaker 1: an inherently comical image. Yeah, their tanks are not made
Speaker 1: to fire into the ground, so it looked very, very silly.
Speaker 1: And while they were not discovering their theatrics during Operation Elephant,
Speaker 1: it also became apparent that setting up an entire false
Speaker 1: division was going to be better executed in the dark
Speaker 1: of night. They had not waited until really late. They
Speaker 1: used some daylight hours to do it, and they also
Speaker 1: realized that they really needed to like tighten up their
Speaker 1: disguise and camouflage game if they wanted to ensure future success.
Speaker 1: The entire twenty three was then tasked with Operation Breast,
Speaker 1: which was named for the nearby French ports city that
Speaker 1: was in August. The Sonic unit was the last to
Speaker 1: arrive in France, so Breast was the first time that
Speaker 1: the twenty three had their full arsenal of tricks at
Speaker 1: their disposal, and the goal was to create the impression
Speaker 1: of an existing tank unit having far greater power than
Speaker 1: it actually did, with the hopes that they would trick
Speaker 1: the Germans into a surrender. And so the twenty three
Speaker 1: used a mix of actual tanks and dummies, flash canisters
Speaker 1: to sort of fake tanks firing, and sound mixing to
Speaker 1: create this really convincing illusion of a huge tank division.
Speaker 1: And the main bravado move of this mission came in
Speaker 1: the delivery of some of these soundscapes that they had mixed.
Speaker 1: So late at night, members of the twenty three would
Speaker 1: actually sort of creep forward with their sound equipment. They
Speaker 1: would get within about five yards in the enemy line,
Speaker 1: and they would play sounds of what sounded like officers
Speaker 1: issuing orders and people yelling counter orders, and even like
Speaker 1: fake situations of arguments where there would be accidents that
Speaker 1: were staged and that there would be cursing at these
Speaker 1: imaginary errors. They were all doing this really pretty close
Speaker 1: to enemy lines. Uh. It was pretty to think about
Speaker 1: what that must have been like, sitting there in the
Speaker 1: dark with your speaker playing these things, knowing how very
Speaker 1: close you were. It's so bring to think about. It
Speaker 1: was effective, so effective that it confused friend the units
Speaker 1: positioned about a mile away. And while it didn't get
Speaker 1: the Germans under General Herman B. Von Ramkat to turn tail,
Speaker 1: it did keep them from going anywhere. This was a
Speaker 1: good thing, since that was an estimated thirty eight thousand troops,
Speaker 1: and that was almost double what the Allies had initially estimated.
Speaker 1: If they had not been tricked into holding their line
Speaker 1: against this perceived threat from this puffed up, half fake
Speaker 1: tank battalion, they might have gone on the offensive and
Speaker 1: then really damaged the Allied forces. And throughout the rest
Speaker 1: of four and on into the twenty three, continued to
Speaker 1: run these military masquerade games, and with every mission they
Speaker 1: would kind of regroup and refine their playbook and see
Speaker 1: what had worked and what hand and they just got
Speaker 1: better and better and better. They learned how to stage
Speaker 1: and set dress their fake camps. More and more authentically.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, I feel like I said that weird.
Speaker 1: They learned how to stage and set dress their fake
Speaker 1: camps more and more authentically, and they started hand painting
Speaker 1: patches to mimic those of existing units, so they if
Speaker 1: they can get a hold of real ones, then they
Speaker 1: would stage fake headquarters to give out fake promotions so
Speaker 1: low ranking men would look like generals and other officers,
Speaker 1: creating the full illusion of real operations. And then late
Speaker 1: at night they would you know, go where they were
Speaker 1: called and inflate their fox vehicles and artillery undercover of darkness,
Speaker 1: so that when dawn came, it would appear as though
Speaker 1: a huge surge of troops had arrived in the area.
Speaker 1: And in addition to providing this false image of battle
Speaker 1: ready army troops where there was really only a line
Speaker 1: of fake vehicles and prerecorded noise, the twenty Third's ability
Speaker 1: to seem to appear out of thin air and vanish
Speaker 1: just as quickly actually had a really unnerving effect on
Speaker 1: the enemy, so the German Army started calling them the
Speaker 1: phantom Army. Other tricks included the ongoing burning of fires
Speaker 1: at camps that were deserted in different ways to create
Speaker 1: fake tank tracks. In addition to the inflatable tanks and trucks,
Speaker 1: they also used dummy planes and buildings. They could mix
Speaker 1: fake radio transmissions within with the real ones to confuse
Speaker 1: the enemy, and they mounted fake parachute drops and put
Speaker 1: up signs directing Allied vehicles that were never actually coming.
Speaker 1: But this elaborate spectacle also included a whole lot of
Speaker 1: acting on the part of the troops. So knowing that
Speaker 1: any US troops were always being watched by German soldiers
Speaker 1: or spies, or sometimes there were French people working for
Speaker 1: the Germans as informants, the boys of the twenty three
Speaker 1: would really employ all manner of ruses. They would change
Speaker 1: out their unit insignias as we mentioned, on uniforms as
Speaker 1: well as on vehicles. They would do quick stencil work
Speaker 1: to change everything up, and they would make sure that
Speaker 1: they were seen about town wherever they were kind of
Speaker 1: drinking and hanging out. And if they were asked what
Speaker 1: unit they were a part of, they would just make
Speaker 1: up names or reference the unit that they were covering for.
Speaker 1: And some of them even would uh sort of mount
Speaker 1: these these fake little tableau where they would feign drunkenness
Speaker 1: and blab false information in public places. So this sort
Speaker 1: of became this ongoing game of misinformation and subterfuge where
Speaker 1: they were just sort of always acting. This wasn't completely flawless,
Speaker 1: though sometimes there were mistakes and problems. On occasion, a
Speaker 1: dummy tank would be inflated facing the wrong direction. Because
Speaker 1: all of these set up parts are being done at night,
Speaker 1: it was easy enough to lift one and turn it around,
Speaker 1: but if it was already daylight when they realized the problem,
Speaker 1: they were going to have to do it with really
Speaker 1: careful timings so as not to be noticed. At one point,
Speaker 1: several vehicles that had been inflated in the night were
Speaker 1: warmed so much the sun came up that the air
Speaker 1: expanding inside them caused them to pop loudly as they
Speaker 1: sprang leaks. And while while this sort of sounds hilarious,
Speaker 1: it was happening during a war. So all of these
Speaker 1: accidents put the men involved at serious risk. And all
Speaker 1: in all, there were twenty one missions mounted by the
Speaker 1: twenty three and before we get to sort of the
Speaker 1: biggest one that they undertook, uh, if you want to
Speaker 1: do a quick word from a sponsor, let's do so.
Speaker 1: The biggest in what is arguably the most successful of
Speaker 1: the twenty third missions was Operation Vierson, and this took
Speaker 1: place near the war's end, relatively speaking, it wasn't right
Speaker 1: at the end, but it was in March, and this
Speaker 1: basically launched a big visible decoy mission to once again
Speaker 1: cover the movements of other troops. While parts of the
Speaker 1: Ninth Army were moving north to quietly cross the Rhine,
Speaker 1: the twenty three was making a big show of pretending
Speaker 1: to be those troops farther south. They masqueraded as the
Speaker 1: ninth and ran practice and training maneuvers for a crossing
Speaker 1: at Beierson and just publicly enough to draw lots of attention.
Speaker 1: And this was really a massive effort. So they set
Speaker 1: up fake medical and engineering facilities. They had trucks and
Speaker 1: sonic crews creating the illusion of convoys moving supplies. At
Speaker 1: one point they were just having trucks loaded up where
Speaker 1: they would be driving them back and forth, and they
Speaker 1: would put two guys at the very back, so it
Speaker 1: looked like it was full of troops, but in fact
Speaker 1: there are only two guys at the back. They arranged
Speaker 1: everything perfectly so that an aerial reconnaissance taking pictures would
Speaker 1: have no idea that the entire thing was a hoax.
Speaker 1: They one of the reasons that they used artists was
Speaker 1: so they could conceptually visualize, like how things would look
Speaker 1: from multiple angles, even when they didn't have those angles
Speaker 1: available to them, So they really made this whole thing
Speaker 1: beautifully realistic, even though it wasn't back to all a hoax.
Speaker 1: When the real Ninth crossed the rhyme, the Germans were
Speaker 1: taken totally by surprise. Those German troops that could resist
Speaker 1: them were disorganized and unprepared, so US casualties were very few.
Speaker 1: The twenty three received a commendation from the Ninth Army
Speaker 1: Commander William Simpson for their effort. A later estimate by
Speaker 1: Simpson placed the number of troops that were saved by
Speaker 1: this deception at ten thousands UH and it ended up
Speaker 1: being the twenty last mission of the war, and in
Speaker 1: September the three was completely shut down. So one of
Speaker 1: the inherent dangers of being in a ghost army designed
Speaker 1: to draw attention is that it also draws fire. So
Speaker 1: it's easy to think of all this pageantry and strategic
Speaker 1: slide of hand is really fun and fascinating, but it
Speaker 1: really put the men involved at great risk. At one
Speaker 1: point they were actually set up in Bastone, and they
Speaker 1: actually missed the start of the Battle of the Bulge
Speaker 1: by about four hours. They had been pulled out around
Speaker 1: midnight of December six, and this is at point and
Speaker 1: the fighting started around four am. So had those men
Speaker 1: been trapped there with their phony equipment, they would have
Speaker 1: been in incredibly dire straits and unable to defend themselves.
Speaker 1: During the Battle of the Bulge. The three returned to
Speaker 1: Luxembourg's any where they had already spent a lot of time,
Speaker 1: and fired from the rooftops at the incoming Liftwaffe aircraft.
Speaker 1: This is the only time they ever really for real
Speaker 1: fired at the enemy. Yeah, it was there one there,
Speaker 1: one time that they actually got to perform actual combat activities. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the twenty three after that was very quickly moved
Speaker 1: to Verdunn. So, in part, the Allies wanted to maintain
Speaker 1: the secrecy of the Ghost Army, and in another part
Speaker 1: they realized that this blow up dummy artillery was not
Speaker 1: going to be any good in a fight, so they
Speaker 1: just wanted to clear them out. And the men ended
Speaker 1: up spending Christmas in Verdune. While the group had been
Speaker 1: extraordinarily lucky throughout their time, their luck finally ran out
Speaker 1: in the spring of n On March twelfth, while impersonating
Speaker 1: the eightieth Infantry, the twenty three drew German artillery fire.
Speaker 1: Two of their men were killed in fifteen others were wounded.
Speaker 1: This was really their worst day. In spite of having
Speaker 1: been an incredibly dangerous areas any times, they kept up
Speaker 1: false appearances all through the war. And one of the
Speaker 1: problems that comes up when UH discussing the twenty three
Speaker 1: and their effectiveness and sort of assessing what they were
Speaker 1: able to achieve lies in the fact that so much
Speaker 1: of their work was secret, and often it fooled Allied
Speaker 1: forces as well as the enemy. Like the Allied forces
Speaker 1: didn't even really know what was going on with them
Speaker 1: a lot of the time, they thought they were just
Speaker 1: another unit. After the war, most of the men stayed
Speaker 1: quiet about the amazing works of deceptive aren't that they
Speaker 1: had been part of. The work was classified, so in
Speaker 1: the event that the US found itself at war again,
Speaker 1: having a ghost army would be a really valuable asset.
Speaker 1: So the military didn't want to tip its hand and
Speaker 1: reveal this resource. But finally in NINETI so almost nineteen
Speaker 1: years ago from when we're recording this, the work of
Speaker 1: the twenty three was declassified and the men who had
Speaker 1: only been able to give KG answers to their families
Speaker 1: about what they had done in the war were now
Speaker 1: free speak of their incredible efforts. One of the truly
Speaker 1: significant aspects of the twenty three and the work that
Speaker 1: they did is the fact that an entire division of
Speaker 1: creative people was successfully managed within the structure of the military. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is one of those things that people often go like, look,
Speaker 1: these were all artists and they totally were able to
Speaker 1: work together in this this effort. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if that speaks to like their level of commitment or independence.
Speaker 1: You know, It's one of those things that often likes
Speaker 1: to get bandied about, particularly when you're talking about modern business, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's hard to manage creative people. It's like these guys
Speaker 1: managed and they were doing some scary stuff. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think it also speaks to the like perpetual mythologizing of
Speaker 1: creative work as some kind of extraordinary thing, when in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases it is work. Yeah, which isn't
Speaker 1: to say that like creative inspiration isn't really fabulous and
Speaker 1: cool and unique in many ways. But I just I
Speaker 1: find that to be a really interesting one that we
Speaker 1: do mythologize working with creative types. And I say of
Speaker 1: this as a creative person married to an artist as well, Like,
Speaker 1: but they can it can be anybody can be managed,
Speaker 1: any sort of effort that can be put together. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's all about, you know, using people's assets. And
Speaker 1: another really incredible legacy is the artwork that a lot
Speaker 1: of these men were doing while they were deployed. I'll
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really no surprise that a lot of the men
Speaker 1: who were involved in effectively doing art for the army
Speaker 1: went on to careers in the arts. So for example,
Speaker 1: Bill Blast of course went on spuilt a fashion empire.
Speaker 1: He had actually been sketching women's clothing during the war. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was one interview that I saw with one of
Speaker 1: the other members of the twenty three and he was saying,
Speaker 1: and I don't know if he was serious or not,
Speaker 1: that Bill Blast would read Vote magazine in foxholes, But
Speaker 1: I have no idea, but I loved it. Art Kane,
Speaker 1: of course, became a very well known photographer. His photo
Speaker 1: entitled A Great Day in a Loan, which was taken
Speaker 1: in nine, featured fifty seven prominent jazz musicians and it's
Speaker 1: still considered one of the most important images of jazz history.
Speaker 1: And he also took a lot of incredible celebrity portraits,
Speaker 1: and he was the photographer for the one and only
Speaker 1: DeLorean magazine ad to ever run. Ellsworth Kelly made a
Speaker 1: career as a painter and a sculptor and became known
Speaker 1: for use of really bright color and very hard edges.
Speaker 1: Arthur Singer became an illustrator and he really became known
Speaker 1: for his incredibly detailed bird illustrations. So if you have
Speaker 1: ever looked at an illustrated birding field guide, odds are
Speaker 1: really good that you've seen as work because it's been
Speaker 1: in everything. Jack Macy went on to design backdrops for
Speaker 1: the State Department. Eventually he designed the kitchen set that
Speaker 1: was used for the Nixon Cruis Chef debate of nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine. And there's a really wonderful documentary called The
Speaker 1: Ghost Army that I highly recommend for people that UH
Speaker 1: want to hear accounts from some of the surviving members
Speaker 1: of the twenty third And one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: really loved it too, is that, uh, it being a
Speaker 1: visual medium, they're able to show a lot of the
Speaker 1: artwork that these men were doing while they were in
Speaker 1: France and in performing all these amazing maneuvers. And one
Speaker 1: of the men said something like, you know, we were
Speaker 1: in all these crazy circumstances, but we could always find
Speaker 1: time or a place to duck away and do a
Speaker 1: quick watercolor. But I think it's just super terming, like
Speaker 1: they just were all artists at heart, even though they
Speaker 1: were part of this amazing war effort. And that documentary
Speaker 1: is as of this recording in early fifteen, is available
Speaker 1: on Netflix, and it's a little longer than an hour, uh,
Speaker 1: and you get to see a lot of this really
Speaker 1: amazing art and just interviews with these guys, and it
Speaker 1: deals a little bit more with with them as individuals
Speaker 1: rather than like what we've covered is so much of
Speaker 1: sort of the bigger, kind of broad strokes of the
Speaker 1: whole unit, but this really focuses on some of the
Speaker 1: different men and has interviews with them that are really
Speaker 1: quite charming and touching and really really entertaining. Uh. So
Speaker 1: I highly recommend that. And that is the Ghost Army,
Speaker 1: which is just such a The whole thing is so cool,
Speaker 1: and I'm surprised even though it does pop up sometimes
Speaker 1: in like uh, you know list goals online, Uh, people
Speaker 1: don't really know about it. Like it's another one of
Speaker 1: those things where I thought, oh, everyone's heard about this,
Speaker 1: We've had a few requests for it. But then when
Speaker 1: I mentioned it to people, they look at me like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. And then when
Speaker 1: I say a few things, they get sort of this,
Speaker 1: like agog really what. So clearly this is there's there's
Speaker 1: some gap in in their uh, in the knowledge about
Speaker 1: these guys, and it's they did such amazing things that
Speaker 1: I think everybody should know what their work was. Like.
Speaker 1: Do you also have some listener mail for us? I do.
Speaker 1: I have two pieces, and they're both super fun and
Speaker 1: one is really more of a thank you, but so
Speaker 1: the first one is from a very young listener and
Speaker 1: it is so charming that, uh it made me crazy. Yes,
Speaker 1: so this is from our listener Penny, and she says,
Speaker 1: dear stuff you missed in history class people. I extremely
Speaker 1: love the podcast on the Curse and Mary Celeste. I
Speaker 1: think that the crew breathing the whiskey fumes was bad
Speaker 1: for them. What do you think. I run to one
Speaker 1: or two of your podcasts every day, but dad makes
Speaker 1: me run. I would rather just listen to your podcast alone.
Speaker 1: We went on vacation to Colorado and listen to your
Speaker 1: podcast in the car, but we did not have to run.
Speaker 1: I have a podcast request about the Emperor Penguins of
Speaker 1: and Antarctica, as I am a great fan of penguins
Speaker 1: and my room is stuffed with them, and this is
Speaker 1: from our listener, Penny. She says, ps, I love your
Speaker 1: podcast pps. I'm seven years old and homeschooled, and your
Speaker 1: podcasts are a lot of help to me. And then
Speaker 1: she drew this amazing picture of penguins and they're holding
Speaker 1: little flags, and one of them says Tracy and Holly,
Speaker 1: and I have a kinship with her because I too
Speaker 1: love penguins. So I'm gonna figure out a way to
Speaker 1: do something on emperor penguins in Antarctica. Thank you, Penny.
Speaker 1: That was awesome. I've actually been hanging onto this one
Speaker 1: for a few months. I just love it so much.
Speaker 1: I kind of keep it out at my desk because
Speaker 1: I find it terribly charming. I remember when that one
Speaker 1: came in and we were both delighted. Oh that's so cute.
Speaker 1: And the other one is from and I hope I
Speaker 1: am pronouncing the name right our listener, Nicole, and she
Speaker 1: sent us this amazing parcel and she wrote his postcard,
Speaker 1: this is ladies, I thought you might enjoy these planners.
Speaker 1: I make a small run of them each year and
Speaker 1: chose these covers just for you. And this is from
Speaker 1: Nicole at Year of the Calendar dot com. And she
Speaker 1: sent it on the postcard of one of her sheep
Speaker 1: named Uncle honey Bunch, who is a Shetland weather and
Speaker 1: he's adorable. And I love that his name is Uncle
Speaker 1: honey Bunch. And also, oh, my goodness, you don't even
Speaker 1: know how you hit the sweet spot with planners for me.
Speaker 1: I was so excited when they came that I started.
Speaker 1: I am in tracy about all the lists I was
Speaker 1: making in them, Uh, because they're awesome. They're really cool planners.
Speaker 1: They're a little bit sassy. There's a little bit of
Speaker 1: adult language in them, which I love. It just has
Speaker 1: a fun way to lay out the year. It's really
Speaker 1: organized in a really smart and fun way that. Uh,
Speaker 1: I just I adored it. There's so many little extras
Speaker 1: and little how to draw things within it, and oh
Speaker 1: it's magical. I have such a calendar addiction and such
Speaker 1: planner addiction specifically that that was a good one, cy Nicole.
Speaker 1: I cannot thank you enough for that. That was an
Speaker 1: absolute delight to open. And she's she's really not exaggerating, Nicole,
Speaker 1: Like I was not physically present in the office when
Speaker 1: these arrived. She texted me a video of paging through it.
Speaker 1: So that is how excited Hollywood is about the planners.
Speaker 1: I love them, like all caps love. I love them.
Speaker 1: They're awesome. I also love them. But I am the
Speaker 1: person that has good intentions about planners every year, and
Speaker 1: I will keep up with the planner for about three days.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, mine is already gonna starting to look
Speaker 1: dog eared because I drag it everywhere with me. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: And it's good because it's a good size where I
Speaker 1: can tuck in little notes and stuff, and like if
Speaker 1: I do a little sketch of like a costumer or
Speaker 1: something that I want a stitch, I can shove it
Speaker 1: in there. There's some good spaces. It's really cool planner.
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it again, all caps love UH.
Speaker 1: You would like to write us an email, you can
Speaker 1: do that at History Podcast at house stubworks dot com.
Speaker 1: You can also connect with us on Twitter at mist
Speaker 1: in History or at Facebook dot com slash missed in History.
Speaker 1: Can also find us on Tumblr at mist in History
Speaker 1: dot tumbler dot com, at pinterest dot com slash mist
Speaker 1: in history. And I'm hoping we can find some good
Speaker 1: examples of some of the artwork that we talked about today,
Speaker 1: and I know there are photos of some of these
Speaker 1: fake tanks and artillery pieces and stuff that hopefully we'll
Speaker 1: find and put on Pinterest. And you can also visit
Speaker 1: the mist in History spreadshirt store, which is missed in
Speaker 1: History dot spreadshirt dot com, so you can buy missed
Speaker 1: in History goodies to where or towed around. You can
Speaker 1: put your planner in one of those, or you can
Speaker 1: get a phonecase you're covered. You would like to learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what we talked about today,
Speaker 1: you can go to our parents sitehouse stuff works type
Speaker 1: of the word camouflage and you'll get how military camouflage works. Well,
Speaker 1: it's some other camouflage articles about how it works in nature.
Speaker 1: You can also visit us at Miston history dot com
Speaker 1: for show notes and archive of all of our episodes
Speaker 1: all kinds of little goodies uh, and if you would
Speaker 1: like to do that, we highly encourage you to visit
Speaker 1: at again, house to works dot com or Mr Hisstory
Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Because it has stuff works dot com. M