Their successful missions included D-Day and Operation Viersen, a March 1945 hoax that convinced the Germans their enemies were planning to cross the Rhine River far north of where they actually attacked. In total, the 23rd saved the lives of an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 American servicemen. Their goal: to confuse and intimidate the Germans by offering a false sense of the Americans’ numbers and troop movements. Drawing on members’ artistic talent and technological savvy, the Ghost Army created elaborate illusions featuring inflatable tanks, jeeps and artillery speakers that blasted prerecorded tracks of troops in action and falsified radio dispatches. Known formally as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, the unit carried out more than 20 deception campaigns during the final year of the war. A resident of Schaumburg, Illinois, he remains an avid artist, making everything from paintings to ceramics. “If I had known that before I got into the service, I probably would have made a different decision,” says Bluestein, now 98. He didn’t know it at the time, but the assignment would prove riskier than most non-combat roles: If the Nazis found out that members of the so-called “ Ghost Army” were playing them for fools, they were likely to retaliate brutally. It was the middle of World War II, and the United States Army was seeking recruits for a new, non-combat camouflage unit that would draw on the art of deception to misdirect the enemy.Īll for serving his country but not exactly the “fighter-type person,” Bluestein enlisted in the enigmatic unit. Bernie Bluestein was 19 years old when he spotted a vaguely worded notice on the bulletin board at his Cleveland art college in March 1943.
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