Ghost Army of World War II

Rating:
Summary: The ghosts of editors past...
Review: ...are probably turning over in their graves about this one.

While the book promises some fascinating reading, it quickly becomes tedious and a chore to read. There seems to be almost no structure to it, as if a collection of repetitive anecdotes were simply slapped between two covers. There is also no mention made of who edited this work, and I'm not surprised, since errors abound within its pages. Not simply typos, but entire paragraphs repeated, misspellings, missing and incorrect punctuation, the list is seemingly endless. If you're looking for a historical reference to the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, this isn't it.

Rating:
Summary: Ghost Army WW2 reads like Ernie Pyle revisited 55 yrs later
Review: Author and journalist Jack Kneece tells the story of the heretofore secret exploits of the 23rd HQ (Special Troops}under Bradley's 15th Corps to deceive German Army deployment by deception, stealth, and phoney troop movements. Landing shortly after DDay at Normandy this 1100 man unit could and did imitate an Armored Division...Via personal interviews with surviving members (from PFCs, corporals, and junior officers)ala Pyle.. the writer depicts numerous events both humorous and serious. Their presence on the flanks of friendly US Army units is believed to have saved untold thousands of lives, both Allied & German. According to Kneece The Ghost Army survivors are still striving to gain recognition of their Unit, let alone appropriate awards.

Rating:
Summary: Repetition is Rampant!
Review: I have been researching this Army unit for a couple of years, since my father (Harold J. Dahl) served in the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, which was one of four units that made up the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops - also known as the Ghost or Phantom Army. I was very excited to find this book, purchased it immediately, and began reading the day it arrived. Within minutes doubts were growing in my mind, and by the end of the second chapter I could see it was going nowhere fast.

This book obviously had no editor. There is repetition of facts and names at a rate that no editor could stand. I found one sentence repeated almost verbatim three times in four pages!

It seems the author talked with a handful of surviving members of the 23rd (there are many more he never tracked down) and wrote down their ramblings verbatim. It looks to me like he found out that Bill Blass was in the 23rd, talked to him, then contacted the people he still kept in touch with and left it at that. There are many more (my father not among them, alas) still living who could have contributed material to help beef up the content of this book.

There is just about no effort made to pull together facts from disparate sources, to bring in information from Army files, or do any real analysis or interpretation of the formation, training, mission, or experience of the unit. I also found passages that are nearly identical to articles written 20 years ago - most readers will not detect this, of course, but it jumped out at me because I have read so much on this group.

The only (and I mean only) piece of new factual information I got from this book was that the 23rd had a role in the Battle of the Bulge. They were impersonating an entire division when the Nazis began that attack. Since their artillery and tanks were rubber decoys (all they had were rifles and sidearms), they had to break camp and leave immediately. And so the Nazis got far less resistance in the early days of the attack than they expected. The 23rd's deception was so good that the divisions on either side thought the real soldiers were there and had turned and run. Typically, there is little in the way of analysis or interpretation on why this happened, how it effected the battle, or any of a dozen interesting and illuminating questions that could have been explored. It is just stated in a page or so, and then the author returns to the pandering and fluff that fills the remainder of the book.

You should only purchase this book if you are a collector of information on the Ghost Army, or know someone personally who is mentioned in the book (and there are not that many). Another author is working on a book about this unit, and it has to be better than this work.

Rating:
Summary: An embarrassment
Review: I have never written an Amazon review before, but this book is so terrible that I am compelled to post something.

I simply want to add my voice to the other negative reviews of this book because the positive reviews are bogus. As the others have said, this is a rambling collection of half thought through points with much repetition and out of context quotes.

I write this as I'm half way through the book (will I even finish?!) and Kneece has yet to clearly document an entire action the 23rd served in. Instead, the reader is left to piece together the larger picture from almost no hard facts except supposedly entertaining anecdotes from the very few participants Kneece interviewed. Someone has mentioned that there is no index... there is also no bibliography.

Save your money - a search on the WWW would probably yield better fruit.

Rating:
Summary: Good story, not so good writing
Review: I wanted to read this book. I really did. It sounds fascinating.

I got about one-quarter of the way thru before I gave up. The writing style is difficult to read. The author jumps from incident to incident with no discernable pattern. It feels like a bunch of collected stories lumped together. It was hard to maintain a sense of progress.

Reading the first chapter felt like an intro to the rest of the book. I expected some more detail, chronology, etc. While the author did present those, he presents the material in a way that made chapter two feel like an intro; chapter three felt like an intro... when is the story going to begin!?

I wouldn't quite term this 'military history', but more in line of 'military non-fiction'. I'd also skip this particular version.

Rating:
Summary: A great original story told well
Review: I'm already on my third copy -- it's impossible to get away from house guests after they've begun reading it. A dear friend and veteran of WWII came to visit and was captivated by it. It left on the plane with him.

I dearly love the retelling of stories of WWII, as has been done so well recently by Brokaw in The Greatest Generation, but there is something special about an important, completely original story. Discovering formerly classified documents, the author has told a previously little known story. The anecdotes are fascinating, and the historical context is interesting without being intruding.

The story is almost too unlikely to be believed, something like a "Kelly's Heroes" or "Dirty Dozen" war movie. Future fashion icon Bill Blass joins with other highly talented people to trick the enemy repeatedly into misplacing resources to counter a ghost army. (The scene in Kelly's Heroes where Donald Sutherland uses loudspeakers to blast music at the Germans and adds a steel tube to the tank to make them think he has a bigger cannon is eerily reminiscent of what really happened in the "Ghost Army".)

The book is a good read and a welcome addition to the library of any WWII buff.

Rating:
Summary: A great original story told well
Review: I'm already on my third copy -- it's impossible to get away from house guests after they've begun reading it. A dear friend and veteran of WWII came to visit and was captivated by it. It left on the plane with him.

I dearly love the retelling of stories of WWII, as has been done so well recently by Brokaw in The Greatest Generation, but there is something special about an important, completely original story. Discovering formerly classified documents, the author has told a previously little known story. The anecdotes are fascinating, and the historical context is interesting without being intruding.

The story is almost too unlikely to be believed, something like a "Kelly's Heroes" or "Dirty Dozen" war movie. Future fashion icon Bill Blass joins with other highly talented people to trick the enemy repeatedly into misplacing resources to counter a ghost army. (The scene in Kelly's Heroes where Donald Sutherland uses loudspeakers to blast music at the Germans and adds a steel tube to the tank to make them think he has a bigger cannon is eerily reminiscent of what really happened in the "Ghost Army".)

The book is a good read and a welcome addition to the library of any WWII buff.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Kept Secret
Review: Meticulously researched and written as only a veteran journalist could write it, this book reveals the creative deception that saved thousands in the European theatre. Who could have imagined that artists, set designers, sound professionals, and special effects and prop builders could have so adeptly fooled the German high command---not to mention---the Nazis on the ground into believing what was truly a movie set was an awesome ground force?
The men of the Ghost Army were a diverse group of unsung and unlikely heroes that gave their creativity and expertise to the cause---who could have guessed that couturier Bill Blass was a warrior?
It's an inspiring book. Every member of the Ghost Army deserves honor and recognition that has been so long in coming, and that they---the ones still alive---are still waiting for. Jack Kneece is to be thanked for bringing their stories alive.

Rating:
Summary: Great story. Too bad about the book...
Review: The story of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops could be one of the most fascinating tales to come out of the European Theater. Unfortunately, anyone wishing a well-written, coherent history of this unit's exploits will have to wait until someone else writes one.

Aside from the author's apparent lack of familiarity with World War II unit organizations and military terminilogy, especially German ("Battlegroupen"?), there are whole sections of this book that seem to be just collections of random paragraphs. There is little overall structure and a great deal of redundant text. In fact, were this not a published work, I would have assumed that what I was reading was a first draft.

I find it hard to believe that a journalist of Mr. Kneece's experience could not do better than this and even harder to believe that Pelican Press was unable to provide an editor capable of working with him to produce the book that this should have been.

Rating:
Summary: Dreadful and poorly written history
Review: This book is truly dreadful. I was really looking forward to it, but it is just not worth buying, let alone reading. A decent history book is more than a series of seemingly unconnected ramblings taped from veterans, tied together with what appears to be sheer conjecture on the author's part.

From the very first line historical errors are blatant and rampant. I'd hold this book up as a good example of why someone with no knowledge of the military should not write on the subject. You'd think the author could at least get his military terms correct. There is not one thing in this book that makes me think any of it is real. Supposed meetings between Marshall and Roosevelt what everyone else seems to have missed? You'd better document that or else it's pure made up junk. "Reads like a novel"? Possibly because that's what it looks like to me. And oh yes, Bill Blass is mentioned on just about every other page. I'm still not sure why.