by Rick Beyer
After the war Barnett Greenberg worked for the United States Postal Service, where he designed posters, signs, and stamps. He continued to paint throughout his life, donating much of his artwork to support community and religious organizations. He died in 2007 at age ninety-two.
John Hapgood’s work included illustrations for the New Yorker and America, as well as ads for Bloomingdale’s. He spent summers painting on Block Island, Rhode Island. He died in 1995 at age ninety.
After spending several more years on military deception, Billy Harris commanded the Seventh Cavalry during the Korean War and retired a major general. He died in 1986 at age seventy-five.
Ned Harris became a photographer and designer and is the author of the book Form and Texture: A Photographic Portfolio (1974). He is still active in the art community of Rockland County, New York.
As an art director at a Minneapolis agency, Cleo Hovel dreamed up the Hamm’s Beer bear, a mascot familiar to beer aficionados across the Midwest. He later worked with the legendary adman Leo Burnett. He died in 1970 at age forty-eight.
Ralph Ingersoll closed down his beloved PM in 1948 due to declining ad sales and political controversy. He wrote several books and became the owner of a small chain of newspapers. He died in 1985 at age eighty-four.
John Jarvie spent thirty years as an art director for Fairchild Publications, owner of Women’s Wear Daily, supervising a staff of artists and writers. He is retired and lives in Kearny, New Jersey.
A visionary fashion and music photographer, Art Kane took the famous portrait of fifty- seven jazz musicians on a stoop in Harlem titled Harlem 1958. It remains a jazz icon. During the 1960s he took many arresting portraits of recording artists, including The Rolling Stones, The Doors, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin. His photographs of musicians, politicians, and glamorous women appeared in Life, Look, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and numerous other magazines. The American Society of Magazine Photographers gave Kane a lifetime achievement award in 1985. He died in 1995 at age sixty-nine.
Art Kane
Self Portrait, Normandy by Ellsworth Kelly, 1944
© ELLSWORTH KELLY, COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
Ellsworth Kelly
PHOTO COURTESY OF ELLSWORTH KELLY.
Ellsworth Kelly became one of the foremost American artists of the twentieth century. In 1948 he traveled again to France, where his work evolved from figurative to abstract, inspired by shapes and pure colors. Kelly returned to New York in 1954 and soon earned an international reputation. His shaped canvases, paintings, sculptures, and prints have been exhibited in major museums around the world.
In 1973 the Museum of Modern Art in New York City mounted Kelly’s first retrospective. Many more followed, including a retrospective of his sculptures at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1982 and a 1996 career retrospective at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, also in New York. His public commissions include a memorial for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC.
In 2013 President Barack Obama awarded Kelly the National Medal of Arts. “A careful observer of form, color, and the natural world,” read the citation, “Mr. Kelly has shaped more than half a century of abstraction and remains a vital influence in American art.”
Ellsworth Kelly lives and works in Spencertown, New York.
Harold Laynor became an art professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. His work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums. He died in 1992 at age seventy.
Joe Mack eventually started his own sales promotion business in New York City. In 1970 he retired and with his wife, Jean, founded what is now the Huntington School of Fine Arts in Greenlawn, New York. He died in 2007 at age eighty-six.
George Martin returned to his prewar employer, Schirmer Music, where he illustrated book covers, record jackets, children’s books, and sheet-music covers. He is retired and lives outside of Washington, DC.
United States Pavilion, Expo 67, Montreal
The team that created the groundbreaking United States Pavilion at Expo 67. From left, Buckminster Fuller, Ghost Army veteran Jack Masey, Terry Rankine, and Peter Floyd
Jack Masey designed exhibitions around the world for the United States Information Agency. He was the director of design for the famous 1959 American National Exhibition in Moscow. The exhibit included a model American house, where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and United States Vice President Richard Nixon engaged in the so-called Kitchen Debate.
As chief of design for the American Pavilion at Expo 67 in Montreal, Masey involved many of his fellow Ghost Army artists. He enlisted Bill Blass to design the guides’ uniforms, included art from Ellsworth Kelly, and commissioned a film by photographer Art Kane.
In 1979 he formed his own company, Metaform. His works include the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York (winner of a Presidential Design Award) and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, among many others.
He lives and works in New York City.
Bernie Mason spent twenty-seven years as a creative director for an ad agency and then started his own art business. He went back to school and at age seventy-five received a college degree from Villanova University. He lives outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Irving Mayer helped design the Davy Crockett tactical nuclear weapons system. Designed for use on the battlefield, it was one of the smallest nuclear weapons systems ever built. Mayer was posthumously honored by President John F. Kennedy for his “contribution to the defense of the United States.” He died in 1959 at age thirty-five.
Jack McGlynn and his wife, Helen, with Edward Kennedy, circa 1962
Jack McGlynn had a long public-service career in Massachusetts, including sixteen years as a state representative and ten years as the mayor of Medford, where he still resides. His son Michael McGlynn is the current mayor.
Stanley Nance worked in insurance, real estate, and securities before starting his own oil-drilling company. After retiring, he led a church mission to Tahiti. Nance lives today outside Salt Lake City, Utah.
Hilton Howell Railey was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1945. He retired after the war, moving to Maine, and died in 1975 at age seventy-nine.
As a Rhodes Scholar, George Rebh helped establish the Oxford University Basketball Club. A career army officer, he retired a major general and lives outside of Washington, DC.
Harry L Reeder was apparently removed from command of the Twenty-Third Headquarters Special Troops shortly before the end of the war. He died in 1947 at age fifty-six.
All The Creatures by William Sayles, 1955
William Sayles shared a design studio with Arthur Shilstone for several years. He illustrated many books and produced the best-selling Step-by-Step line of craft books with his wife, Shirley. He lives in Rockland County, New York.
With his brother Neal, Oscar Seale formed a manufacturers’ representative firm that served the hardware industry in the Southwest for forty years. He died in 2001 at age eighty-four.
Paul Seckel was a painter and an art teacher. He married noted composer and pianist Ruth Schönthal. Their son, Al Seckel, is an internationally known authority on visual illusions. Paul Seckel died in 2013 at age ninety-five.
Gil Seltzer’s career as an architect has spanned more than seventy-five years. He designed many buildings at colleges and universities, including the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is still a working architect in West Orange, New Jersey.
Gil Seltzer during the war
Alvin Shaw returned to his hometown of Annapolis, Maryland, and his prewar career as a sign painter. He died in 2005 at age ninety-six.
Arthur Shilstone’s illustrations have appeared in more than thirty magazines and graced the covers of dozens of books. He was also an official NASA artist. He continues to paint in his studio in West Redding, Connecticut.
Clifford Simenson, who had hoped for an infantry command in World War II, commanded the Fourteenth Infantry Regiment in the Korean War. He later served as a military attaché
in Germany. He died in 2004 at age ninety-four.
Arthur Singer
Common Loons in the Mist by Arthur Singer, 1980
Arthur Singer became one of America’s best-known wildlife artists. He first made a name for himself doing illustrations for American Home, wildlife features for Sports Illustrated, and bird illustrations for World Book Encyclopedia. He went on to illustrate more than twenty books, including the enormously popular Birds of the World and Birds of North America. He traveled across the United States and to Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and South America to glimpse new species in their natural habits.
In 1982 he and his son Alan Singer created the “Birds and Flowers of the Fifty States” series of postage stamps. It was one of the largest- selling special issues in the history of the United States Postal Service.
Arthur Singer died in 1990 at age seventy-two.
Joe Spence had a distinguished career in arts education, finally retiring as chair of the Department of Creative Arts at the University of North Carolina. He died in 2011 at age eighty-seven.
An art professor at Tulane University’s Newcomb College, James Steg was a noted printmaker and sculptor. His work is included in the permanent collections of more than sixty museums. He died in 2001 at age seventy-eight.
Irving Stempel worked in advertising in New York City, retired to Florida, and died in Boca Raton in 2010 at age ninety.
Dick Syracuse became a builder and a developer. The company he started with his brothers built hundreds of homes and high-rise apartments in New York and New Jersey. He died in 2013 at age ninety-one.
George Vander Sluis
Bob Tompkins became an ad agency art director and design consultant. He remained lifelong friends with Bill Blass. He died in 2011 at age eighty-eight.
George Vander Sluis spent thirty-five years as an art professor at Syracuse University. In the 1960s he began painting designs on barns in upstate New York to encourage preservation efforts. He died in 1984 at age sixty-nine.
John Walker spent thirty years in the United States Army. A highly decorated officer, he saw action in Korea and Vietnam before retiring as full colonel. He died in 2010 at age ninety.
Keith Williams’s promising career as an artist was cut short when he died in 1951 at age forty-six. His etchings and paintings are represented in the collections of the Library of Congress and the New-York Historical Society among others.
Stanley M. Wright had, in his own words, “a wonderful adventure” as northern Vermont’s foremost impressionist painter and founder of the Wright School of Art in Stowe. He died in 1996 at age eighty-four.
Tony Young worked at Peoples Gas in Chicago, retiring as advertising manager after forty-four years. He continued to study art on his own, working in a variety of media. He died in 2009 at age eighty-seven.
A number of other Ghost Army artists who do not appear in this book also had notable careers. George Dietsel and Otis Riggs designed sets for Broadway and Hollywood. Eddie Haas was the cocreator of the 1960s TV show The Munsters. George Nardiello was a fashion designer who created dresses for Marilyn Monroe. Bud Bier designed packaging for Dentyne and Chiclets chewing gum. Architect James Jackson was part of the team that worked on the Space Needle, in Seattle. And there were many more.
Five Ghost Army veterans. From left, Jack Masey, Ned Harris, Tom Roche, William Sayles, and John Jarvie
Three Ghost Army soldiers never came home. Captain Thomas Wells, Sergeant George Peddle, and Corporal Chester Pelliccioni all made the ultimate sacrifice to help win the war.
Sources and Notes
Ghost Army Veteran Interviews
By far the most important source for both The Ghost Army documentary and this book were the men of Twenty-Third Headquarters Special Troops. Between 2005 and 2012, Rick Beyer conducted interviews with twenty-two of them: Al Albrecht, Spike Berry, Ed Biow, Bob Conrad, Victor Dowd, Harold Flinn, Ned Harris, John Jarvie, Jack Masey, Bernie Mason, Jack McGlynn, Stanley Nance, George Rebh, William Sayles, Gil Seltzer, Arthur Shilstone, Adolphus “Ace” Simpson, Joe Spence, Irving Stempel, Dick Syracuse, Bob Tompkins, and John Walker.
Additional Author Interviews
Ray Bacon, codirector, Museum of Work and Culture, Woonsocket, RI; Dr. Leo Beranek, former director, Electro-Acoustic Lab at Harvard University (one of many credits in a distinguished scientific career); General Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO; Roy Eichhorn, director of research at the United States Army Combined Arms Center; Jonathan Gawne, author, Ghosts of the ETO (2002); and Theresa Ricard, former employee, U.S. Rubber. Additional Ricard interview material was graciously provided by documentary filmmaker Tim Grey.
Unpublished Letters and Manuscripts
The most important document for anyone chronicling the Ghost Army is “The Official History of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops,” by Frederic Fox, which can be found at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. It was classified for nearly forty years after the war. It may be the most entertaining official unit history ever written by an officer of the United States Army.
Another important source is “The History of Company A, 293rd Engineer Battalion, 406th Engineer Combat Company Special,” written by Corporal Rolff Campbell, with the help of other soldiers in the unit. The manuscript of this very unofficial unit history was made available by General George Rebh, commander of the 406th Combat Engineers.
The handwritten diary of Bob Tompkins, typed up by Bill Blass’s mother, is unique among Ghost Army primary source materials in that it offers an unofficial, uncensored glimpse of what soldiers were thinking and feeling while they were conducting operations. Tompkins generously made the diary available.
Ralph Ingersoll wrote extensively about his involvement with the Ghost Army in “Time Out for War,” an unpublished manuscript that is now part of the Ralph Ingersoll Collection at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University. Most of his quotes come from this document.
Three prolific Ghost Army letter writers were Harold Dahl, Fred Fox, and Harold Laynor. Dahl’s letters to his mother and sister were painstakingly transcribed by his daughter, Janet Carolyn Freeman, and run to nearly five hundred pages. Fox compiled his letters, with some interstitial comment, into a manuscript titled “Instant Army”; his son, Reverend Donald Fox, generously shared it with the authors. Laynor’s letters were made available by his wife, Gloria Laynor.
Additional Letters and Manuscripts
Anderson, William. “Code Name: Blarney, The Story About the 23d Hdqtrs. Spl. Troops.” Unpublished manuscript courtesy of its author.
Dondelinger, Anny. Letter to Stanley Wright’s father. May 20, 1945. Courtesy of James Saslow.
Eldredge, H. Wentworth. Partial autobiography. Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire Library, Durham, NH.
Geisel, Theodore. Wartime diary. November–December 1945. The Dr. Seuss Collection, Mandeville Special Collections, Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego.
Harris, Colonel William, Major Ralph Ingersoll, and Captain Wentworth Eldredge. “Informal Report by Special Plans Branch to Joint Security Control, 25 May, 1945.” College Park, MD: National Archives.
The Laynor Foundation Museum. An Artist Goes to War. Documentary film about Harold Laynor. Gigantic Productions: 1992. Courtesy of Gloria Laynor.
Patten, Robert. “Fred Patten, His Family Biography and Life Story.” Unpublished manuscript courtesy of its author.
Simenson, Colonel Clifford. “World War II: My Story after Fifty Years.” 1995. Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History.
Wright, Stanley. Letter to his mother. May 8, 1945. Courtesy of James Saslow.
Plus articles from US (U.S. Rubber’s in-house magazine), courtesy of Bob Tompkins and of the Museum of Work and Culture, Woonsocket, RI; various United States Army memos and reports from the National Archives, College Park, MD; and various United States Army memos and reports collected by and courtesy of Roy Eichhorn.
Ad
ditional documents are gathered in the Ghost Army Digital Archive.
Articles
Arnett, John W. “The Ghost Army Days of Walter Arnett.” Website of the Crescent Hill Baptist Church, Louisville, KY. Accessed January 16, 2013. http://www.chbc-lky.org/arnettforest/wendell-ghostarmydays.htm.
Boyanowski, Henry. “Ghost Army Fools Foe in Neatest Trick of War.” Worcester Daily Telegram. August 29, 1945.
Dudley, Fred W. “Lowell Factory Made One of War’s Most Fantastic Weapons.” Lowell Sun. February 13, 1946.
Gyongy, Adrienne. “Faking Out the Enemy.” Prattfolio (Fall 2008): 12–17.
Kronman, Mark. “The Deceptive Practices of the 23rd Special Headquarters, Special Troop during World War II.” Aberdeen, MD: Aberdeen Proving Ground Tactical Operations Office (January 1978). Accessed through the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
New York Times. “Army Reveals use of ‘Ghost Army’ in War; Pneumatic Decoys Misled Foe, Won Battles.” December 5, 1945.
Park, Edwards. “A Phantom Division Played a Role in Germany’s Defeat.” Smithsonian 16, no. 1 (April 1985): 138–47.
Books
Blass, Bill, and Cathy Horyn. Bare Blass. New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Blumenson, Martin. The Patton Papers, 1940–1945. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974.
Delmer, Sefton. The Counterfeit Spy. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.
Deutsch, Harold C., and John Mendelsohn. Basic Deception and the Normandy Invasion. New York: Garland Publishing, 1989.
