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The artists who outwitted the Nazis

Discussion in 'WWII General' started by Kai-Petri, Mar 21, 2021.

  1. Kai-Petri

    Kai-Petri Kenraali

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    The artists who outwitted the Nazis

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    In 1942, in the dusty furnace of the North African desert, Allied forces were fighting a losing battle against the Axis. On 16 September, two British officers were summoned to a high-level meeting at Borg-el-Arab in Egypt. Geoffrey Barkas and Tony Ayrton were leaders of the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate, a unit dedicated to deception operations and the concealment of men and military hardware. The Directorate was a very unusual collective: most of the men under Barkas and Ayrton's command were not hardened soldiers, but ex-artists, stage designers and cartoonists who had been recruited for their skills in visual trickery.

    Previously, the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate was concerned solely with camouflage tactics. On airfields, the ground had been painted with blacks and greys to simulate shadows cast by gun emplacements to trick Axis reconnaissance planes. The roofs of aircraft hangars were painted with illusionistic perspectives to make it look like civilian housing.

    But by September 1942, a decoy army of 600 completely fake military vehicles had to be created that would make the Axis forces fearful of an equally formidable attack from the south. In an ultimate feat of set design, Barkas, Ayrton and the Camouflage Directorate were given just 28 days to conjure up one fictional army and disguise a real one from view.
    The fictional army of the southern area was created with phoney tanks and bogus food stores, ammunition silos and oil containers, all made from boxes and palm fronds covered with tarpaulins. A huge fake water pipe was also constructed, all made to look like the real thing to the German reconnaissance planes making notes of the development from high above.

    In the northern section, real tanks had specially fitted wooden compartments nicknamed "sunshields" bolted to their upper half to make them look like regular trucks. Artillery pieces were covered in a similar way. Once in position and immediately before the fight began, the coverings were removed and – so it seemed to the unprepared Axis forces – an entire army had appeared on their doorstep from thin air.

    These ingenious ruses were inspiration to a US military regiment formed later in World War Two. The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, better known as the "Ghost Army", was comprised of more than 1,000 men, and used in Europe in the aftermath of D Day. Its objective was to fool the Germans into believing that superior forces of up to 30,000 extra troops were threatening their lines, thus leading them to redeploy troops to locations favourable to the Allies. Like the Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate, the Ghost Army had recruited many architects, designers, advertising creatives and artists alongside regular soldiers and engineers. Famous members of the Ghost Army included photographer Art Kane, fashion designer Bill Blass and the painter Ellsworth Kelly. During its lifespan between 1944 and 1945, it created 22 deception operations to mislead the Germans – and it proved crucial in the Allies' ultimate triumph over Adolf Hitler.
     

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