'Ghost Army' vet George Dramis (Full Interview) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00a fake army that's exactly what it was
2. 0:04designed to be
3. 0:05was designed to fool the germans
4. 0:18my name is george r dramas
5. 0:21i was born november 23 1924
6. 0:25in ashe to beulah ohio
7. 0:29up in the northeast corner of ohio state
8. 0:33about 60 on lake erie about 60 miles
9. 0:36east of cleveland ohio
10. 0:38i don't believe there was any military
11. 0:40service in my family
12. 0:42aside from i heard rumors about a great
13. 0:46grandfather who might have been
14. 0:48in the italian army but i'm not sure
15. 0:50about that
16. 0:51i became part of the 23rd sometime
17. 0:56again in about january or february
18. 1:01of 1944
19. 1:06when that unit was being organized part
20. 1:09of it was being organized
21. 1:11in camp forest tennessee and another
22. 1:14part of it was
23. 1:15being organized in pine camp new york
24. 1:20way up in new york and then we never saw
25. 1:24each other until we were all together
26. 1:26uh overseas actually but i could tell
27. 1:29you this much that the units were kept
28. 1:31pretty much
29. 1:32separate i mean we didn't see too much
30. 1:35of the other people
31. 1:36i mean unless we pulled off a big job
32. 1:40we know that they were there but i i
33. 1:42don't even remember making any friends
34. 1:44in the other units
35. 1:46the ghost army i think that term came up
36. 1:51in in later years
37. 1:56i don't remember that term being used
38. 1:58then
39. 1:59at all i think somebody some writer of a
40. 2:03book
41. 2:03made that up later on
42. 2:06my outfit didn't come over
43. 2:10until 40-some days after d-day
44. 2:14i never saw anybody i was separated from
45. 2:18the guys that i
46. 2:20came ashore with i was met by
47. 2:23two officers
48. 2:26and asked if i could drive it know how
49. 2:29to drive a jeep i said
50. 2:30yes sir i do come with me
51. 2:34and for about four weeks or so
52. 2:38i drove around a a major
53. 2:41ralph ingersoll owner of the new york
54. 2:44newspaper
55. 2:45pm and a lieutenant colonel
56. 2:50jeff hansen who i used to see
57. 2:54on the television doing
58. 2:57some shows about the service stuff
59. 3:01of course i didn't know who they were
60. 3:03they were officers
61. 3:05and i drove them around
62. 3:08i often wondered who the
63. 3:12heck they were well they were
64. 3:15they were intelligence officers attached
65. 3:18to shafe headquarters
66. 3:19eisenhower's headquarters and they
67. 3:22worked directly under general
68. 3:24bradley but i didn't know this i
69. 3:27at the time i had no idea they would say
70. 3:31go here go there
71. 3:32i knew every inch of normandy like i
72. 3:35know
73. 3:35every inch of my hometown i mean i drove
74. 3:39everywhere saw everything did
75. 3:42everything and i never got wise to them
76. 3:46until one day we drive up the top of
77. 3:49normandy at the top of normandy beach
78. 3:56there's a plane setting out there a lot
79. 3:58of the play you get here
80. 4:01and there is general eisenhower
81. 4:06general patton general bradley
82. 4:11general montgomery from the british army
83. 4:15all these other generals admirals from
84. 4:18the navy
85. 4:20air force from england all this
86. 4:23brass in one place and here's this
87. 4:2718 19 year old kid and i'm standing
88. 4:32right back a patent with them revolvers
89. 4:34on his hips
90. 4:36and the cameras are grinding away the
91. 4:39signal core the united press
92. 4:42guys and i'm thinking oh boy i'm going
93. 4:46to have my picture in the news
94. 4:48i mean this was a and i thought if the
95. 4:50germans ever come over here with a plane
96. 4:52let's stop the war right now all the
97. 4:55brass is here
98. 4:56and that was quite an event for me
99. 5:00that was quite an event then
100. 5:04i figured these guys must must be top
101. 5:08people so the plane starts to pull away
102. 5:11and the two officers are in the jeep
103. 5:13with me we pulled up in a different
104. 5:15location
105. 5:16all of a sudden they said stay here
106. 5:20report to colonel so-and-so the beach
107. 5:24omaha beach and we'll be back
108. 5:27tomorrow or in a couple days they left
109. 5:30their binoculars they left their guns
110. 5:32they left everything
111. 5:33and they ran to the plane beat on the
112. 5:36plane
113. 5:36plane stopped door opened steps come
114. 5:39down
115. 5:40they went in the plane i thought my god
116. 5:43these guys must
117. 5:44be they must be pretty good
118. 5:49i mean eisenhower's on that plane all
119. 5:52his breasts
120. 5:53that's when i figured they were
121. 5:56important
122. 5:58but of course years later i learned more
123. 6:00and more about
124. 6:01what's going on but that was that was a
125. 6:04thrill
126. 6:05so i went down to the beach i reported
127. 6:07to this colonel and i drove him around
128. 6:10he was another intelligence guy i drove
129. 6:12him around for a couple days
130. 6:14i slept on omaha beach at night and uh
131. 6:22i mean i had an experience in my outfit
132. 6:24that nobody
133. 6:26else had what were the keys to making
134. 6:29the ghost army
135. 6:30look and seem real well
136. 6:35it was painting all the vehicles that
137. 6:38were going to be used
138. 6:39on a job i'll call it a job a mission
139. 6:43with the uh we were going to fake
140. 6:47an entire division which we usually did
141. 6:50we're going to fake let's say the ninth
142. 6:53infantry division
143. 6:55all the vehicles would be marked with
144. 6:57ninth entry division
145. 6:59insignias marks what have you
146. 7:02we've sewed the patches on our shoulders
147. 7:05ninth infantry division
148. 7:09everything making it look like we are
149. 7:12the ninth infantry division
150. 7:14and then when we took over
151. 7:19their position because they were going
152. 7:21to move out
153. 7:23and go someplace else we would sneak in
154. 7:26and take their position on the line
155. 7:30and we could make it look like we were a
156. 7:33division
157. 7:34while the real division pulled out
158. 7:36quietly
159. 7:38we had half tracks with
160. 7:42huge amp of speakers on them
161. 7:45huge speakers and they had wire
162. 7:48recorders
163. 7:49and they had recorded various
164. 7:53tanks and what have you driving around
165. 7:56and you could hear
166. 7:57men yelling and swearing get back crack
167. 8:00over here
168. 8:01cut out that cigarette got that light
169. 8:03and you'd hear the
170. 8:05stuff going on sounded like there were
171. 8:09a whole lot that was coming in but it
172. 8:11was just a few of us
173. 8:14over the next couple of months you made
174. 8:16your way across
175. 8:17france in your operations even included
176. 8:20going going to cafes and diluting
177. 8:23false war plans in case any german spies
178. 8:26were around
179. 8:27how did you do that so well well
180. 8:31that was something we actually talked
181. 8:33about
182. 8:34everybody talked about that but we spent
183. 8:37a lot of time in luxembourg city
184. 8:41that was our headquarters whenever we
185. 8:43were through with a mission
186. 8:45we always came back to luxembourg city
187. 8:50we were holed up in an old monastery
188. 8:52there but anyway
189. 8:54we'd go into town at night and there was
190. 8:56a cafe called the pole
191. 8:58nord cafe north pole cafe
192. 9:01and we knew there were a lot of german
193. 9:07activity german spies
194. 9:12the people could not really be trusted
195. 9:14they were
196. 9:16some were french-speaking
197. 9:19some were german speaking and some had
198. 9:23their own language
199. 9:25which is a slightly different german
200. 9:27like for example
201. 9:28if you say good morning in german it's
202. 9:30good morrigan
203. 9:32they would say good moyan
204. 9:35different words were different in their
205. 9:38language
206. 9:39but we'd go to that cafe
207. 9:44and i told you this one time i sat next
208. 9:47to a soldier at the bar
209. 9:49i didn't like his demeanor
210. 9:53and i still think he was a spy whether
211. 9:56he was a
212. 9:58german spy or whether he was a
213. 10:01luxembourg spy i'm not sure
214. 10:05but he had a german accent i could
215. 10:08detect
216. 10:09the accent he probably thought he was
217. 10:12getting away with it but i
218. 10:14i could detect it i have a good ear for
219. 10:17foreign languages
220. 10:21so we talked about this and then the
221. 10:22other and i gave him a lot of fake
222. 10:24information
223. 10:25and uh i'm pretty sure he was a he was a
224. 10:29spy looking for information
225. 10:31you had to be very careful in that time
226. 10:33what type of equipment did they have you
227. 10:35work with
228. 10:37in our cases radios various kinds of
229. 10:40radios
230. 10:41high-tech radios at the time the
231. 10:46ones that used to fake artillery they
232. 10:48had these canisters
233. 10:50that they put gun powder in and they
234. 10:53were able to electro
235. 10:54electrically flash them at various
236. 10:57places
237. 10:58amongst real artillery and it made it
238. 11:01look like there was
239. 11:02twice or three times the artillery going
240. 11:06off
241. 11:06than it really was in the case of breast
242. 11:09the battle at breast
243. 11:11that was used considerably and they got
244. 11:13a lot of return
245. 11:15fire from the germans germans thought
246. 11:17there was a lot of
247. 11:19guns back there by september you were on
248. 11:23the other side of france helping general
249. 11:25patton near metz explain what you did
250. 11:28there to help the third army oh boy that
251. 11:31was a big
252. 11:32deal
253. 11:38a lot of radio operations
254. 11:42some of the guys some of the units
255. 11:47were in i'll call them
256. 11:51not call them caves but places where
257. 11:53they
258. 11:54were uh bottling wine
259. 11:58and these guys had a good time they were
260. 12:00in there with the radios they were
261. 12:02bottling up wine out of into bottles i
262. 12:05remember telling me about it
263. 12:06that's not where i was i was just out in
264. 12:09the field
265. 12:10somewhere but a lot of radio
266. 12:12communications
267. 12:13a lot of fake radio communications
268. 12:17a lot of fake stuff we would get uh
269. 12:21a printed form headquarters
270. 12:26about what to say what to do
271. 12:29what message to send they would be all
272. 12:32they would all be faults
273. 12:34making it look like we were much larger
274. 12:37than we actually were
275. 12:39so a lot of that went on meths was a
276. 12:42terrible place
277. 12:43for the americans
278. 12:46patton got a bad name there because he
279. 12:48killed a lot of american soldiers
280. 12:50just bullheaded but
281. 12:54succeeded
282. 12:57at the battle of the bulge you conducted
283. 13:00a radio deception
284. 13:01that helped divert some of the german
285. 13:03attention to bastogne
286. 13:06what what included in that deception
287. 13:09and in that deal
288. 13:12we were my unit was in
289. 13:16alsace lorraine that's south of
290. 13:18luxembourg
291. 13:20and
292. 13:23i remember there was a call to
293. 13:27join the fourth armored division
294. 13:30so they gave us the patches they painted
295. 13:33our
296. 13:34jeep our weapons carrier with the radio
297. 13:37company they painted it with a
298. 13:39fourth armored division insignias and
299. 13:41everything we had the fourth armored
300. 13:42patches
301. 13:43and we moved if i remember correctly
302. 13:47as a matter of fact that was i saw my
303. 13:49first
304. 13:50battlefield commission i saw sergeant
305. 13:52get
306. 13:53promoted to an office or a lieutenant
307. 13:56it happened right there at the spot but
308. 13:59i remember moving out
309. 14:00with them and i think it took several
310. 14:03driving at night in the snow cold
311. 14:07window down you know on those things
312. 14:13that was a lot of hard drive we took
313. 14:15turn
314. 14:16four of us were in a group we took turns
315. 14:18driving
316. 14:20and uh there was no radio communications
317. 14:23and we got up there and it was snow
318. 14:26deep snow and i remember when we stopped
319. 14:31i remember sleeping in my sleeping bag
320. 14:34in the snow
321. 14:35on the ground that i remember
322. 14:38but then it was a lot of radio
323. 14:41communication
324. 14:42with fourth armored personnel
325. 14:45but we were given the things to say and
326. 14:48what the
327. 14:50so we we would transmit messages back
328. 14:53and forth
329. 14:54and morse code always in morse code
330. 14:58but
331. 15:02that was a that was a big deal
332. 15:05we we were as a unit
333. 15:09i know that my team
334. 15:12i won't call it my team i was a corporal
335. 15:16we had a sergeant who was my
336. 15:18best buddy he was from coreopos
337. 15:20pennsylvania
338. 15:21he was my best friend we were just like
339. 15:24well he
340. 15:24said to me one time he says you know he
341. 15:27says we're just like a married couple
342. 15:29god we sleep together we sleep in the
343. 15:31same foxhole
344. 15:32we jump in the sleigh same trench
345. 15:34together
346. 15:36we're laughing but anyway i was on
347. 15:39with him and two other guys and we were
348. 15:42a team
349. 15:43and we would be loaned out to other
350. 15:46units
351. 15:47reconnaissance units and we would go on
352. 15:49reconnaissance jobs
353. 15:51because we were very he was a former
354. 15:54he was 10 years older than me and he had
355. 15:56been a radio
356. 15:57amateur for many years so he knew radio
357. 16:02and he was teaching me a lot and we
358. 16:06we would work with other units we'd go
359. 16:08out with them on reconnaissance jobs and
360. 16:10provide communication and what have you
361. 16:13i love doing that
362. 16:15i love doing that i'll where are we i
363. 16:18have no idea
364. 16:20a couple times we were behind lines we
365. 16:22didn't even know it
366. 16:24yeah but i loved doing that i ate that
367. 16:28up
368. 16:29perhaps the 23rd was most famous
369. 16:33for a very successful and dangerous
370. 16:36deception along the rhine river that
371. 16:38helped us finally get across
372. 16:40explain what the plan was there
373. 16:44well i don't know what the plan was but
374. 16:46that was
375. 16:51one of the few where the entire
376. 16:551100 man 23rd headquarters special
377. 16:58troops was involved
378. 17:00everybody was involved in that deal to
379. 17:03camouflage
380. 17:04people that half track people
381. 17:07the ones that used the fake artillery
382. 17:11people they had canisters where they
383. 17:14flash bombed
384. 17:15and it looked like artillery going off
385. 17:18that was a company just did just that
386. 17:21and there were camouflage experts
387. 17:24some of them became famous like
388. 17:27bill blass the designer
389. 17:30clothes designer he was in that unit
390. 17:33ellsworth kelly
391. 17:35was a famous painter today i think he
392. 17:38died a few years ago
393. 17:39he's a famous painter in new york city
394. 17:42he's done work for the united states
395. 17:44government um
396. 17:46there were people of this ilk they were
397. 17:48painters they were artists they were
398. 17:52they did the camouflage work camouflage
399. 17:55was
400. 17:56you camouflage but just you leave just
401. 18:00enough that it shows like there's a
402. 18:03truck there or a tank or an artillery
403. 18:07piece
404. 18:08you just make it look like something
405. 18:11there they didn't quite
406. 18:12hide it good enough and these were
407. 18:15these were units that were blown up with
408. 18:18compressors
409. 18:19and blow up a tank i mean you could pick
410. 18:21it up with one hand almost
411. 18:24did you change your tactics often to
412. 18:27keep the
413. 18:28germans guessing
414. 18:31oh i don't think so
415. 18:35i don't think we changed tactics that
416. 18:37often no
417. 18:39we were pretty basic when the war was
418. 18:42over your work remained classified for
419. 18:45more than
420. 18:4650 years how hard was it to stay
421. 18:49quiet about it well i never really
422. 18:52taught well i talked to my wife about
423. 18:54of course but i it just
424. 18:59i don't know as it ever i just said well
425. 19:02it was a war and
426. 19:03i was a radio operator and i didn't have
427. 19:06to say that it was all
428. 19:07fake so i didn't really talk about it
429. 19:11i mean i just felt they wouldn't
430. 19:13understand anyway so
431. 19:14why talk about it i never talked about
432. 19:16it to my buddies or
433. 19:17i never said anything just let it go
434. 19:21i feel like i didn't do anything
435. 19:26to me and i often think about this
436. 19:31i think about all the 18 year old
437. 19:3419 year old 20 year old guys
438. 19:38that i saw on utah beach
439. 19:41omaha beach all the dead bodies floating
440. 19:44in the water
441. 19:46all the dead guys everywhere and i think
442. 19:48about that
443. 19:50i think they never got to have a life
444. 19:54i mean they went in the war they lasted
445. 19:57one or two minutes and that's it
446. 20:00i mean i feel very fortunate
447. 20:04very fortunate
448. 20:06[Music]
449. 20:20you