GHOSTS OF THE ETO: American Tactical Deception Units in the European Theater, 1944 - 1945 Hardcover – August 28, 2002

This is an amazing book.
I bought two others on this subject that came out recently and was very disapointed that they were essentially tales told by old soldiers. This one doesn't just talk about the operations, it shows where, when and what each secret operation was.
Period photos and paperwork are also pictured to back up the claims about what this unit did. Also are organizational charts, roster of officers, and my favorite, an essay about possible connections between Patton and decption. Now there's a book I want someone to write!
Everyone always advertises their books as 'never before seen' and "unknown stories" and all that hooey. This book delivers. Possibly the most important new book on WW2 I have read in the past few years.

Just when you think everything has been written on the US Army in WW2, Jon Gawne does it again by not only writing on a previously unreported subject, but doing so in a very interesting way!

"Ghosts of the ETO" outlines a unique unit dedicated to fooling the Germans on the battlefield. Now a recognized part of Army Psychological warfare (PSYOP) tactics, the idea was unheard of with the Army in the 1940s. These PSYOP pioneers had among their numbers the most creative and intelligent people the Army could find. For once, "Military Intelligence" was NOT a contradiction in terms. In true Army fashion, these troops were used for duties that were a waste of their talents, such as broadcasting propaganda. But in the end, the Army realized the usefulness that deception troops could play on a mechanized battlefield. Their ability to mislead the enemy into thinking certain units were either there or not there (the opposite of wherever they really were) cannot be underestimated today. The truly sad thing is that until recently, few had ever heard of these pioneers in strategic deception.

Oddly, several books have come out at the same time on this subject. I have read them all, and "Ghosts of the ETO" is far and clear the best of these. Gawne's writing style is unique among many of his peers; he's actually interesting to read. He doesn't get bogged down into what color the loudspeakers were or other trivial facts that most readers couldn't care less about. He has the ability to know when to delve into details of equipment and such, and more importantly, when NOT to. My only complaint is that Gawne couldn't locate more information in the archives when he researched this book, but due to the secrative nature of the unit's operations, this comes as no surprise.Read more ›

This book requires that you are really interested in the subject. I found that I had to make an effort to read it to the end. It could have been my mood at the time. I found the subject fascinating so I stayed with it.

Ghosts Of The Eto: American Tactical Deception Units In The European Theater 1944-1945 by military historian and expert Jonathan Gawne, provides the reader with an informed and informative look at the 23rd Special Troops, who fought the German army at the end of World War II using deception as an effective military tactic. Telling the compelling story of courageous and cunning soldiers through declassified memos and the testimony of survivors, Ghosts Of The Eto is highly recommended reading as being a simply fascinating military history of a hidden aspect of World War II that would have a profound and lasting influence on military strategy and tactics.

Ghosts is one of interesting books that reveal a lesser know side of World War 2, in this case tactical deception. Tactical deception is the art of deceiving the enemy as to the strength, location, or intent of a combat unit, as opposed to strategic deception which can be considered to be misleading the enemy as to actions that might affect an entire theater of war, for instance fooling the enemy into thinking that you are going to land at the Pas de Calais rather than Normandy.

Ghosts primarily deals with a single unit, the US 23rd Special Troops. This unit, or parts of it, was assigned to various commands of the US Army in Europe in 1944-45. It's role was to deceive the enemy into thinking that a real combat unit was someplace it wasn't, or to mask the movement of a combat unit by misleading the enemy into thinking it had gone to somewhere else. There were also other tasks undertaken by the unit. These deceptions were accomplished by using explosives and speakers to mimic artillery fire, phantom radios to simulate the normal wireless traffic of a real combat unit, trucks or half-tracks mounting large speakers to replicate the sound of a large unit moving, and many others.

The book contains a wealth of information concerning these deception techniques and their employment, but sadly the author spends many chapters covering operations that are repetitious to ones previously described. He does carefully include maps to cover the operations, but they aren't all that useful to illuminate the hows and whys of the operations, just where and whens. As I read the book I found myself skimming over chapters once I had determined that it contained nothing new of interest to me. As a unit history this book has much to commend it, but as a study of tactical deception it does tend to get boring after a while.