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For most of his life, Bernie Bluestein was not allowed to say anything about what he did in Western Europe during World War II.
Mr. Bluestein was a sophomore at the Cleveland School of Art in 1943 when he left to join the U.S. Army. He then received training with a secret force that landed in Normandy, France, shortly after his day in June 1944.
“What we did was attract the attention of the German military and allow the actual troops to do whatever they needed to do elsewhere,” Mr. Bluestein, 100, said in an interview.
As a Private First Class with the 603rd Camouflage Engineer Battalion, he created fake shoulder patches that his fellow soldiers wore on their uniforms to mimic various elements of the infantry division. He also painted the bumper of his truck to falsely display the markings of an Army unit that was actually located elsewhere.
On his last mission, Bluestein said a ruse devised by about 360 soldiers in his battalion forced German commanders to thinly spread their defenses in eastern France. That allowed the U.S. Army’s 90th Division, which was actually 16 miles north of the 603rd, to cross the Rhine with less resistance, he said.
“We saved the lives of about 30,000 soldiers.”,” Bluestein said:
The 603rd and similar units became known as the “Ghost Army” and numbered approximately 1,100 men. Together, they inflated rubber tanks, built fake airfields, played troop marching sounds from speakers mounted on trucks, and devised other diversions to fool German soldiers.
The mission of these lightly armed soldiers, who were the forerunners of today’s Army psychological warfare units, was not officially declassified until 1996.
On Thursday, Bluestein and two other members of the Ghost Army — Seymour Nussenbaum, 100, and John Christman, 99 — were at the Capitol in front of more than 600 people, including family and friends. received the Congressional Gold Medal in front of a crowd of
Many in attendance wore lapel pins depicting a shield with a cartoon ghost with an orange lightning bolt coming out of its left hand, the unofficial insignia of the unit, which has been out of commission for more than 50 years. be.
President Biden signed legislation authorizing the awarding of medals in 2022.
It is believed that only seven of the Ghost Army’s original 1,100 soldiers remain alive.
Mike Bagbee is in Birmingham, Alabama, to attend a ceremony in memory of his father, Wilbur Wright Bagbee, who served as an officer in the Ghost Army but died in 1992 before the unit’s activities were declassified. flew from
“He took it to his grave,” his son said. “He just didn’t want to talk about it.”
“The way I found out about it was that I hired a guy to research his history during the war, just to get the chronology. And the researcher said, ‘Wow, that’s amazing.’ Your father was in the ghost army, right? ” “Really?” I said. I did not understand. “
Bagby said his father retired shortly after the war and worked primarily in the coal industry as a structural and mechanical engineer.
“He had the temperament of a No. 1 match seller, but he also had an amazing vocabulary and could solve the Sunday New York Times crossword in 15 minutes,” Bagbee said. “But his conversational language was all surrounded by his four letters.”
“This was a squad full of liars,” he joked. “You know, they presented themselves as different armies.”
During the war, he said, his father wrote in a letter to his mother, “I have worn more insignia than most men in the entire army.”
It took years to award the Congressional Gold Medal to soldiers, and much of it was started by film producer Rick Beyer. He learned about the unit 19 years ago when a colleague of his friend told him that someone should make a documentary about them.
“It took four Congresses and a whole team to make this happen,” Beyer said in an interview. “We had 40 or 50 volunteer lobbyists. They were emailing. They were making phone calls. They were visiting offices in person. In the middle of that, COVID-19 happened. It hit us, but we readjusted our ways and kept going. And by God, we made it happen.”
As military and Congressional leaders greeted veterans before the ceremony in a small theater near Emancipation Hall, Byer reflected on the hard work that paid off.
“These people, these three and four people who are watching at home, and the thousand or so people who are no longer with us, should be honored in the way they should be for what they did in World War II. Now I’m finally being respected.”
Mr Byer, who co-wrote a book and produced a documentary about the Ghost Army, said it was painful to see so many survivors die.
“I always say the Ghost Army is turning into an army of ghosts, and at least we are,” he said. “We stuck this flag on the hill while some of them were still alive. And I think that’s important.”
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