me: i feel awful in so many different ways. I have no idea how I’m supposed to cope and process everything that’s happening. me: turns to my ocs my ocs: sweats me: jaws theme
Okay friends today we are gonna learn
about the GHOST ARMY, which, disappointingly, was not actually an
army made of ghosts
pictured: the unit patch for the
Ghost Army, which is DOPE AS FUCK
see one of the things that made WWII so
fucking nuts was the totally bizarre level of technology. Like wow we
invented the first real computer and radar but also if you wanted to
see how many troops were hanging out somewhere you had to send a dude
to fly over and take pictures manually??? this left A LOT of room for
shenanigans
so the normal method of dealing with
aerial surveillance was to cover shit with camouflage netting. Say
you’ve got an nice air base that you really don’t want any bombs
dropped on- you literally just cover that with a ludicrous amount of
netting and some fake trees and BAM now it looks like just an empty
field from the air
there’s a building under that weird
lump
that’s cool! That’s
really cool! But not cool enough
At some point
somebody sat down and went “hey wait. What if…what if instead of
disguising buildings and units as fields, we disguise fields as
units”
holy fucking
shit!!!
the British had
used a bunch of fake tanks and like, boxes of provisions stacked up
in tank shape and then covered with a tarp in 1942 during Operation
Bertram and it worked really well, but they didn’t have a special
unit devoted to just clowning on the Germans like that.
so the US military
decides they do want a designated clowning unit and goes out and
recruits a bunch of fucking nerds from all the art schools and makes
them into the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops aka THE
GHOST ARMY, WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU USE ANY OTHER NAME LIKE SERIOUSLY
the ghost army’s
job was basically to go in, sidle up to a real unit, and then
basically set up a fake version of that unit while the actual unit
sneaked away to go dunk on Nazis where the Nazis weren’t expecting
them
okay time to get
into the really cool part of this story, which is HOW the ghost army
faked being a real unit:
step 1: INFLATABLE
TANKS AND AIRCRAFT OH MY GOD
that’s a big ol balloon!!!
the ghost army had
a stockpile of inflatable tanks, aircraft, artillery, cars, whatever,
that they would set up and then poorly cover with camouflage
netting so from the air it looked like someone had just done a
real shit job of hiding actual materiel. They even had dummy soldiers
that they would set up to make the scene look populated, since the
ghost army itself was about 1,000 dudes regularly imitating units of 30,000 men
what’s really cool
is that visual deception was more than just the inflatable stuff
itself. If the ghost army plopped down a balloon tank, they then also
had to go out with shovels and rakes and shit to make a fake track
that a real tank would have left, because it turns out tanks are
really hard on your landscaping
step 2: “spoof
radio”
the last couple of
days before the real unit moved out, the radio operators of the ghost
army would move in. see, radio transmissions were done in Morse code,
and it turns out every radio operator has a slightly different “fist”
when typing Morse. A “fist” is basically typing style- some
people would take longer to type out certain letters or would have
pauses between groups or anything like. Anybody listening to the
radio transmissions who was skilled enough could tell different radio
operators apart from just their fist
anyway the ghost
army operators would move in and basically listen to all the real
unit’s radio transmissions until they had learned the real operators’
fists. Then they would take over radio traffic, imitating that fist
so it seemed like the real operator had never left. I forgot to make
this section funny because I was too caught up in how rad it is SORRY
step 3: making a
lot of noise
the ghost army had
special trucks fitted with huge fuck off speakers and a whole library
of stock sound effects. Once the real unit left and the fake unit
inflated, the sound trucks would come in, select a combination of
sound effects that matched the unit they were impersonating, and then
played everyone in the 15 mile radius of the speakers their fire mix
tape
step 4: fuckin
partying!!!
see the thing about
impersonating your own units is that other allied units would know
about it and might talk about it where enemy collaborators could
hear. So the ghost army had to fool the Germans but they also had to
fool their own army. Every time they impersonated a new unit,
the ghost soldiers would paint that unit’s insignia on all the fake
materiel, make fake signs with the unit’s name and colors, and sew
the unit’s patches on their own uniforms
once they were
dressed up as soldiers from the impersonated unit, the ghost army
dudes would go into town and mingle with other soldiers from actual
fighting units nearby and hang out in bars while loudly saying things
like “YES HELLO I AM DEFINITELY A REAL SOLDIER FROM THE WHATEVER
DIVISION, ABSOLUTELY FOR REAL STATIONED ON THAT HILL OVER THERE”
so anyway this
bunch of weedy American art nerds staged 20+ battlefield deceptions
between 1944 and the end of the war, sometimes fooling that Germans
so successfully that they actually got shelled
I’mma leave you
with this quote from the book “The Ghost Army of World War II” by
Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles, because it’s a quote from an actual
member of the Ghost Army and that alone makes it funnier than
anything I could ever write:
On another
occasion, two Frenchmen on bicycles somehow got through the security
perimeter. Shilstone managed to halt them, but not before they had
seen more than they should. “What they thought they saw was four
GIs picking up a forty-ton Sherman tank and turning it around. They
looked at me, and they were looking for answers, and I finally said
‘The Americans are very strong.‘”
The Ghost Army of WWII is a great book. There is also a documentary called The Ghost Army that may still be on Netflix. These guys were awesome.
Someone else on tumblr pointed out that PASSENGERS might have been a more
meaningful movie if it was about just THE ONE person dealing with being
alone on the ship for the rest of their life. And if, to cope, they go
through and make it a point to learn everything they can about all of the other
people on the ship.
And I just keep thinking about this idea.
There are
4999 other people on that ship and what if the protagonist spent the
remainder of their life (and they do live their full life) learning about each of them.
They took an
interest in their hobbies so that they could have some sort of
connection to them.
As their sanity flexed in an effort to cope, they could have had these really involved
imaginary conversations with the crew about their interests. And by the end
of their natural life they will have known everything they could have ever known
about these other 4999 people.
…
AND THEN THE REST OF THEM WAKE UP. And they have some
90 odd years of security footage of this one crew member talking to each of them in turn. And it goes far beyond ‘I have figured out how to cook that one dish you were struggling with’ or ‘I have readTHE SILMARILLION at your suggestion and Jesus Christ I have thoughts about it.’
They actually start making connections between all of the crew.
Like ‘You like bugs! You should totally talk to Cindy! She’s an entomologist!’
Or ‘Did you know that you and Said’s grandfathers were both in the same infantry?’
Or ‘You and Jamie are both avid bee keepers and I think you need to meet.’
Or ‘I know you’re really struggling with this, but Aneesha said she went the exact same thing and I think talking to her can help.’
And because all of these crew members are watching the videos that have been individually addressed to them (Because why not? They’re colonizing. There’s not a lot yet available by way of entertainment) they sort of start talking to each other at the Protagonist’s suggestion. And within a year they are THE MOST unified interconnected colony of any of the colonies because this one crew member broke the ice for them a lifetime ago.
Several of them are engaged.
Two are about to have children named after the Protagonist.
…
AND BECAUSE EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE NOW they notice when one week a crew member isn’t out and about and no one can get in touch with them. So finally somebody goes to check and they find them huddled in a ball and mourning.
Because Protagonist is dead.
And the other people are like: ‘Yes. We know. This is literally the first thing we knew about them.’
But Mourner is like: ‘You don’t understand. I got to the end.’
And then everyone realizes that the mourner has basically been BURNING through all of the videos Protagonist has addressed to them and got to the last one they made to them before they died. And Protagonist left a final message for each of them.
Suddenly everyone’s having a real frank conversation with themselves about how fast they’re going through their videos and if they’re prepared to keep going at that rate and get to the end, or if they should put it off indefinitely.
And one by one, in time, each of them realizes they can’t put it off. Not only are they invested in the end, but they care enough about Protagonist to really acknowledge their death.
Each crew member does this at their own pace. It becomes a rite of passage of sorts. And Protagonist is given some sort of proper memorial so the colonists all have a place to go when their time comes to grieve.
…
BUT BEFORE EVERYONE GETS TO THE END, someone has started noticing how Protagonist treated the robots on the ship over the years. And surprise, surprise, Protagonist named all the robots too and treated them like individuals depending on their quirks. So now someone has finally solved the mystery of why droid 808 insists on being called ‘Bob,’ and why 239 knows ASL, and why the auxiliary robots are so salty about nobody ever being able to tell them apart.
Not only that, but security logs shows that the robots were about 19% more efficient when Protagonist was alive than they are now. And THE VERY SECOND the rest of the crew starts observing the same habits Protagonist used in treating these robots ALL OF THAT EFFICIENCY COMES RIGHT BACK.
Because they missed Protagonist too.
…
And things settle. Everyone thinks they’ve reached the end of Protagonist’s surprises.
…
THEN THEY ARE FINALLY ABLE TO START TRANSPORTATION BETWEEN THEMSELVES AND THE OTHER COLONIES.
And a visiting party shows up.
The visitors are surprised to see HOW WELL everyone on this colony is getting along, because, wow, people are civil where they come from but GODDAMN.
And one of these visiting members is really excited to see their sibling.
And ‘Oh, that’s so nice! Who is it?’
And then the visiting member says a name every single person on this colony knows.
The colonists have to tell them what happened to their sibling, Protagonist.
But they also HAVE to tell the sibling what knowing Protagonist MEANT to them. And what Protagonist knowing THEM, meant to them.
And it’s sad.
The colony pretty much wholesale adopts Protagonist’s sibling as a part of their family because they don’t know what else they can do to fill that void. But just in case, they give the Protagonist’s sibling THE ENTIRETY of Protagonist’s security footage. Because there is 90 years of it and that way they can carry their sibling with them for the rest of their life even if only in video.
And then the colonists think:
‘This. This was the end of Protagonist’s story. And this was a good a proper way to observe it.’
…
AND THEN ONE DAY A SHIP SHOWS UP THAT IS NOT LIKE ANY SHIP THE COLONISTS HAVE EVER SEEN.
And the people driving it aren’t human.
They speak English and passable French. They can chicken scratch Urdu, Mandarin, and Swahili.
Everyone is stunned and wants to know ‘why…?’ and ‘how…?’
And the aliens are just, like, ‘Oh. Protagonist. We ran into them while you were in space. They told us you’d be settling here and asked that we check up on you whenever we were rolling by this quadrant next.’
‘They were really nice. Taught us English. Gave us the files on a couple of your other popular languages as well just to be safe. How’s the colonizing going anyway?’
And everyone thinks back to THAT ONE MONTH of security footage where Protagonist was NIGH IMPOSSIBLE to find. And when they finally did come back to their normal routine they were really quiet and thoughtful for about a week before really getting back to themselves.
The linguists all suddenly remember that IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING THAT REALLY WEIRD MONTH, Protagonist had a new coded language saved to their personal affects and was very insistent that they LEARN IT. ‘FOR REASONS.’
And very quietly, the entire colony makes peace with the fact that Protagonist established a very successful first contact while they were all asleep.
vikings made their woman handle the finances because they thought math is witchcraft
During a military campaign, Vlad the Impaler, the basis for Dracula, once pulled his troops out of a major engagement in a valley at dusk so that the sun was in their enemies’ eyes. Once they were over the hill, they set loose a bunch of rabid bats who flew away from the sun (towards the enemy) and attacked them, leading to significant infection in their ranks, and Vlad’s eventual victory. Because of how the bats appeared from where Vlad’s soldiers appeared to be at dusk, myth stated that the soldiers turned into bats at night, which is where the “Dracula can change into a bat” thing came from.
raphael, the renaissance painter, literally fucked himself to death
during the Ottoman Empire, the Sultan Ibrahim I had 280 of his concubines drowned in the ocean after ONE of them slept with another man.
The earths carbon levels fell by 700 million tons because Genghis Khan killed so many people
King James (the one known for revising the Bible) liked to watch women give birth. That’s where the “tradition” of women laying on their backs to give birth comes from.
Previous to that it was common for women to have chairs with holes in them and straw underneath, so they could sit on this special chair and let gravity help with the birthing process.
Spicy foods were thought to increase libido and cause children to masturbate. To prevent kids from touching themselves at night, a man named Kellogg invented the blandest combination of cereals, marketed it at kids, and called it Corn Flakes
At the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War, a small group of Union soldiers had run out of ammo against a large group of the Confederate Army. In a panic, the Union soldiers sprinted at them, screaming, with only bayonets drawn. The entire Confederate Army that was present turned and ran away in fear, not knowing that they had literally no ammunition.
When the Roman Emperor Caligula went to invade Britain he stood on the coast of Gaul with his army and suddenly declared war on Neptune, God of the Sea. He had his men collect sea shells from the shore as “spoils from the Ocean”.
Oh and he appointed his horse to the senate.
During the Austro-Prussian war of 1868, Liechtenstein sent over an army of 80 people, but ended up coming back with 81 people because they befriended a guy on the other side.
