New Books Cast Light On Shadowy World Of Warfare

USA Today BOOK REVIEW | June 27, 2002 | David Mastio

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Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception by Philip Gerard, Dutton, $25.95

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, United States Army, Vietnam by Col. David H. Hackworth, (U.S. Army, retired) and Eilhys England, Rugged Land, $27.95

Chariots of the Damned: Helicopter Special Operations From Vietnam to Kosovo by Maj. Mike McKinney (USAF) and Mike Ryan,. St. Martin's, July, $24.95

Fighting Dirty: The Inside Story of Covert Operations, From Ho Chi Minh to Osama bin Laden by Peter Harclerode, Cassell & Co., July, $29.95

By David Mastio, USA Today

U.S. armed forces, including CIA paramilitary units, are engaged in an unconventional war against a shadowy enemy around the globe: in the Philippines, Yemen, Pakistan and an unknown number of other countries. Much of the fighting will take place without media coverage. The outcome of battles may not become public for years, even whole campaigns against al-Qaeda.

The history of unconventional war is replete with lessons and reasons for hope. For those wanting more on covert operations, there are some new books to explore.

Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception by Philip Gerard. (Dutton, $25.95)

Soldiers is a well-told tale of an American band of deceivers in World War II. Assembled from Hollywood, acting and art schools with a sprinkling of engineers, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops reinvented the Trojan Horse for the industrial-age military.

The Special Troops used speakers mounted on halftracks (a tank/ truck hybrid) to mimic the sounds of dozens of tanks moving along a road or setting up for an attack. Networks of radio operators with bogus scripts written by skilled screenwriters put a barrage of authentic chatter onto the airwaves. Grunts set up inflatable tanks and artillery camouflaged just poorly enough to be seen by Nazi surveillance planes. Special-effects wizards created flashes that looked like nighttime artillery fire.

Over and over, barely more than 1,000 U.S. troops tricked German commanders into believing they were a division of 15,000 soldiers. Sometimes they aped twice that number.

As a result, the Wehrmacht prepared for attacks that never came, mobilized reserves that weren't needed or suffered surprise attacks from American tanks that Nazi intelligence reported were still hundreds of miles away. The author makes the sometimes oddball heroics come alive with a wealth of inside sources.

Steel My Soldiers' Hearts: The Hopeless to Hardcore Transformation of 4th Battalion, 39th Infantry, United States Army, Vietnam by Col. David H. Hackworth (U.S. Army, retired) and Eilhys England. (Rugged Land, $27.95)

This reads more like a novel than the on-the-scene account of an infantry commander. Hackworth's book often is so glib and the characters so one-dimensional that it's hard to believe. But as an officer, Hackworth was awarded dozens of medals for valor and published the Pentagon's book on how to fight a guerrilla war, The Vietnam Primer .

At the heart of the story is Hackworth teaching a demoralized unit how to give up fighting like World War II soldiers and instead use the guerrillas' tactics against them.

Chariots of the Damned: Helicopter Special Operations From Vietnam to Kosovo by Maj. Mike McKinney (USAF) and Mike Ryan. (St. Martin's, July, $24.95)

Chariots is a cautionary tale. From the fall of Vietnam to the Clinton administration's air campaign in Kosovo, two aviation experts tell the blow-by-blow stories of unconventional war launched from helicopters.

If there are two chapters that war enthusiasts should read in all their heartbreaking detail, they are the ones covering the Reagan administration's invasion of Grenada (lesson: Even the most minuscule enemy can produce troubling levels of casualties) and the Carter administration's attempt to rescue U.S. hostages held by Iran (lesson: High-tech equipment, bold planning and stunning bravery can crumble in the face of the unexpected).

Fighting Dirty: The Inside Story of Covert Operations, From Ho Chi Minh to Osama bin Laden by Peter Harclerode. (Cassell & Co., July, $29.95)

More an encyclopedia to be dipped into than a coherent story, Harclerode's book is marred by an inability to separate the pointless detail from the important fact. But for those who want to know how secret wars have been fought all over the world, from the opening days of the Cold War to Afghanistan's 20-year civil war that ended a half-century later, Fighting Dirty leaves nothing out.

[walden]

I just finished "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism" by Robert Baer. Highly recommended. This guy tells only what he knows, what he did and saw-- it's a micro, not a macro look at it. He was in the CIA from '77 through early '98, and saw a lot. I must warn anyone reading it, though-- the systematic destruction of our intelligence capabilities over the years will really make you angry.

[madfly]

ping

[archy]

Secret Soldiers: The Story of World War II's Heroic Army of Deception by Philip Gerard. (Dutton, $25.95)

Soldiers is a well-told tale of an American band of deceivers in World War II. Assembled from Hollywood, acting and art schools with a sprinkling of engineers, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops reinvented the Trojan Horse for the industrial-age military.

The Special Troops used speakers mounted on halftracks (a tank/ truck hybrid) to mimic the sounds of dozens of tanks moving along a road or setting up for an attack. Networks of radio operators with bogus scripts written by skilled screenwriters put a barrage of authentic chatter onto the airwaves. Grunts set up inflatable tanks and artillery camouflaged just poorly enough to be seen by Nazi surveillance planes. Special-effects wizards created flashes that looked like nighttime artillery fire.

Over and over, barely more than 1,000 U.S. troops tricked German commanders into believing they were a division of 15,000 soldiers. Sometimes they aped twice that number.

As a result, the Wehrmacht prepared for attacks that never came, mobilized reserves that weren't needed or suffered surprise attacks from American tanks that Nazi intelligence reported were still hundreds of miles away. The author makes the sometimes oddball heroics come alive with a wealth of inside sources.

The 14th "Phantom" Army

During World War Two, the US Army, along with several Allied nations, created an entire Phantom Army to deceive the Germans into believing that the Allied forces were as much as 70% stronger than they actually were.

Prior to Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of France, the First United States Army Group (FUSAG) was created and placed under the command of General George Patton in southeast England. The mission of FUSAG was to deceive the Germans into believing that the real invasion of France ouwld be at Pas de Calais, not Normandy. On paper, FUSAG was comprised of the 14th Army, 2 Corps, 1 Armored Division, 5 Airborne Divisions, and 14 Infantry Divisions. added to this force was 1 Airborne and 9 Infantry Divisions that had been activated but not actually raised bringing the FUSAG's total force to 30 non-existent divisions. This deception was named "Operation Quicksilver."

A variety of techniques were employed to get the Germans to believe that this force was in preparing for the invasion. These techniques ranged from double agents, false radio traffic, "lost" documents, fals marriage and death notices in local papers where the unit was noted prominently. One elaborate deception included the use of the magazine National Geographic. The Army provided assiatnce to the magazine in preparing a full color layout showing a wide variety of unit insignias including shoulder patches. The Army inserted the insignia and patches of the bogus units. When the magazine first hit the stands, the Army allowed some issues to be distributed. The after a few days, they halted the printing, removed the bogus units, and re-released the magazine in a revised version.

The Army got a surprising boost in this deception from New York's "Fashion Avenue." After the Army's heraldric designers unknowingly created the insignia of false units, an enterprising person quickly produced samples of the patches according to the design specifications in the hopes of winning the contract. The Army quickly bought thousands of them and even issued them to troops at their points of embarkation so that the patches could be seen by German troops in the Europeand Theater of Operations

Some of the units of the Phantom 14th Army later did become actual manned units. The 108th Infantry Division was later re-designated as Airborne and served occupation duty in Germany after the war. The 9th Armored Division became one of the most famous armored divisions of the war when they captured the Remagen Bridge. The 17th Airborne Division was manned and saw action in France and Germany in the last months of the war. A few other Divisions were later manned and, like the 108th Division, served occupation duty briefly until permanent units arrived to relieve them.

Operation Quicksilver was an overwhelming success. The German high command was so convinced that Patton's 14th Army would invade at Pas de Calais, they kept the bulk of their reserve forces there for almost 2 months after the Normandy invasion and refused to relase troops from defensive duty their to prevent the Allies from establishing their beachheads. Patton would ater be transferred to command the 3rd US Army and would be instrumental in the Allied push through France and later in stopping the German's Argonne Offensive in late 1944.

Here is a partial list of the units assigned to the 14th Phantom Army.

Airborne Divisions

6th Airborne Division

17th Airborne Division (Later served in the ETO during Operation VARSITY)

18th Airborne Division

21st Airborne Division

135th Airborne Division

9th Airborne Division
(No insignia available)

Infantry Divisions

11th Infantry Division

14th Infantry Division

22nd Infantry Division

46th Infantry Division

48th Infantry Division

50th Infantry Division

55th Infantry Division

59th Infantry Division

108th Infantry Division

119th Infantry Division

130th Infantry Division

141st Infantry Division

157th Infantry Division
(No image available)

Armored Divisions

9th Armored Division (Later served with distinction in the ETO, most notably with the capture of the Remagen Bridge.

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Thanks for all the additional data...appreciate it.