![Ghosts of the ETO: American Tactical Deception Units in the European Theater, 1944–1945 by [Gawne, Jonathan]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/510yjJ0WBHL._SY346_.jpg)
The book provides insights into WWII military deception strategies/tactics that I think few people know much about. Most folks know that the U.S. and British armies used inflatable tanks and trucks as decoys. But the number of these decoys, and all the different types! Also radio deception, where units were seemingly "moved" by deceptive radio transmissions that the enemy would be known to evesdrop on, and sonic deception where the sounds of tanks and trucks were played at varying volumes from loudspeakers at night, to make the enemy think a lot of firepower was moving into (or out of) the area. And all of this was kept as much under wraps as possible, for obvious reasons. There's much more... but you'll have to read the book.
I will say that it was a bit of a slow read for me, only because the number of different units involved (all identified by their military unit names and numbers), the various officers in charge, and the directional tracking of their movements (real or "notational") in the various operations was at times bit tough to keep straight in my head. But that's just the nature of the subject matter (or maybe it's just me.)
The author did a lot of research to come up with all this information, which for the most part was a closely guarded secret for many years after the war ended. Most of the deception techniques used back then wouldn't work very well today, given satellite tracking, infra-red and night vision equipment, and other high-tech systems used to identify and track military preparations and troop/equipment movements. But if you can put yourself back into a time when those systems didn't exist, and even radar was a relative novelty, you can appreciate the efforts these special units put forth to try and deceive the enemy and help win battles. How successful they were was sometimes (often?) a question mark. But there seems to be evidence that the tricks did work at least some of the time, and as a result, lives were saved.
- File Size: 15014 KB
- Print Length: 352 pages
- Publisher: Casemate Publishers (August 20, 2007)
- Publication Date: January 10, 2020
- Sold by: Amazon.com Services LLC
- Language: English
- ASIN: B004E9TOE6
- Text-to-Speech:
Enabled
- Word Wise: Enabled
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #489,526 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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