GHOST ARMY

A tribute to the little-known unit of creative combatants assembled by the U.S. Army to mislead German forces during the invasion of Europe.

Marsh explains in her afterword that the work of the 1,000 or so soldiers officially designated the “23rd Headquarters Special Troops” was a well-kept secret until 2022—even though it included the likes of fashion designer Bill Blass and artist Ellsworth Kelly. Here, putting a fictive young artist named Charlie at the head of a group of enlisted “painters and creators and music-makers,” she describes how they used rubber tanks, uniforms with fake insignia, huge noise machines, and other ploys to deceive the Germans about American troop placement and movements from D-Day to the war’s end. Though the author vividly suggests how scary it must have been to outface an armed enemy with no real defenses, except for “Operation Bettembourg” (when the so-called “Ghost Army” held a 20-mile gap in the Allied front for eight days until relief troops could arrive), she glances over specific exploits. Steer tantalized older readers to Rebecca Siegel’s How the Ghost Army Hoodwinked Hitler (2025) for more detail—and also a better set of illustrations than Stadtlander’s staid views of generic war-torn countryside and distant figures in uniforms lounging at ease or posing alongside inflatable rubber tanks.

A mostly true tale of mind over muscle, inspiring but flawed.