Fort Wayne’s Bill Blass and his U.S. Army unit will be honored for their top-secret miliary efforts in a special installation at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art.
The exhibit, “Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II, opens Saturday, Aug. 2.
Organized by The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, the exhibition tells the story of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops — the first mobile, multimedia, tactical deception unit in US Army history.
The unit waged war with inflatable tanks and vehicles, fake radio traffic, sound effects and even phony generals, using imagination and illusion to trick the enemy while saving thousands of lives.
Armed with nothing heavier than .50-caliber machine guns, the 23rd took part in 22 large-scale deceptions in Europe from Normandy to the Rhine River, the bulk of the unit arriving in England in May 1944, shortly before D-Day.
Here, we discuss the scope and tactical brilliance of the project as well as the fashion icon’s hometown connections with Bill Blass Legacy board member Kathy Carrier and Eric Johnson, First Vice Commander of the National Veteran’s Memorial Shrine and Museum.
Event Information:
Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II
At the Fort Wayne Museum of Art
Friday, Aug. 2 through Sunday, Oct. 26
Find museum hours, related events and admission information at the FWMoA website.
Connect with the local organization at the Veteran’s National Memorial Shrine and Museum website.
Here is a transcript of our conversation:
Julia Meek: Kathy Carrier, Eric Johnson, welcome.
Kathy Carrier: Thank you for having us.
Eric Johnson: Thank you for having us.
Julia Meek: So, Kathy, you reminded the world about our local hero, Bill Blass and his fashion legacy back in 2022 when he and his alma mater, South Side High School, both turned 100. Why is his impact so important and perennial?
Kathy Carrier: Because he was one of the nation's premier fashion designers. He's also, as it turns out, a decorated World War Two hero, and he's a Fort Wayne native, so we celebrate that legacy that he's left us.
Julia Meek: Okay, Eric, this exhibit tells the story of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, the first mobile multimedia tactical deception unit in US Army History. That's a really big deal. What did this entail?
Eric Johnson: This deception unit was a group of specialty people. They were graphic designers, they were artists, they were theater people, they were people that worked in the arts.
And I think when you talk about being recruited in the military, everybody wants infantry soldiers. And these guys were semi-infantry soldiers, (chuckles) but they were setting up a scene that was unbelievable and tactically would throw off the German army to give away our location and not give away our location. And there was only 1100 of them.
Julia Meek: And just how did it compare with other more in-line daring and dangerous missions of that day.
Eric Johnson: I think anytime you're in war, Julia, it's dangerous. I don't care where you're at, if you're behind the lines, in front line, you could be anywhere and receive the brunt of the force of the enemy.
And you never knew that when that was going to happen, whether it was the middle of the night, whether it was first thing in the morning or during the day, it wasn't unusual to have attacks at all hours of the day.
And to be in a unit like this, to deceive the enemy was not only interesting, but tactically brilliant.
Julia Meek: Wouldn't it kind of leave you dangling out there, as in, not real weapons, not real tanks, not real military power?
Eric Johnson: Well, it was deception to the point where they didn't know where you were. And I think when they were setting up, they did it at all hours of the day and night.
They'd bring in their audio. They'd bring in their physical samples, even though they were rubber tanks and rubber trucks. But you put sound with it and the enemy's monitoring you, you have no idea.
They had no idea where we were, what we were doing, but they knew there was movement going on, and it was enough to throw them off so our troops could be 10 miles up the road doing what they should be doing, and the enemy didn't even know where we were.
Julia Meek: And it really worked.
Eric Johnson: And it really worked.
Julia Meek: Now back to local heroism, Kathy, and fashion design. Is there an indication of how all of this drove his career trajectory? Can you see evidence of this influence?
Kathy Carrier: His career really started at Southside High School. He sold dress sketches during the Depression, while he was a student at Southside High School and in the bunkers during World War II.
When he was with the Ghost Army, he had a sketch book where he drew fashion design while he was waiting in between missions in the Ghost Army, where he served.
When he came back, he launched and continued his fashion career for five decades, which is a very long fashion career. Interestingly, though, we interviewed a lot of people who knew Bill. It's in our digital archive at the Allen County Public Library.
But he didn't talk a lot about his wartime experiences to people he knew in the fashion industry. Like my father, who was a very private world war two veteran, I think Bill Blass was also. I'm sure what he did there influenced his work, but it wasn't something he talked about openly to people.
Julia Meek: Now we can speculate on the temperaments and skill sets these heroes shared, as well as an incredible determination. What do the historical facts and military records tell us about these fierce, creatives on active duty.
Eric Johnson: Well, I think everybody that goes in the military has an MOS, which really is their area of expertise, and you're trained for that.
So, when these guys were in World War II, I mean, World War II was the big war, (chuckles) and it's kind of like everybody was going, everybody was volunteering back home. It was a world effort to win the war, whatever it took.
And I think these guys stepped right in and said, hey, we're going to be in this specialty unit, and nobody's ever heard about it, but I'm going to use my talents for what they are. And I think when you had these guys that were artists and did a lot of drawings and very creative people.
In Kathy's display that she brought to the Veterans Memorial the first time around, we had a lot of artwork from artists and his buddies that drew when they were on, on the job.
It's interesting to see how creative they really were, whether they were cartoonists or whether Bill was a fashion designer. It didn't matter.
Everybody liked bill, because he thought outside the box when it came to fashion, but the other guys were just really creative people.
Julia Meek: And so, part of that bond was getting it together and bringing it on, putting it together and making quite a force.
Eric Johnson: Oh, yeah. And when you think about what they were building and the things that you see, we had the tank, and everybody wanted to come out and see the tank at the Veteran's Memorial, it was a blow-up tank.
But you know what, from 20,000 feet in the air or whatever? That was a moving tank down below, and the Nazis didn't have any idea whether. Was a real tank or was a fake tank. And that's what's so cool about it.
Julia Meek: Special effects.
Eric Johnson: It's special effects. (both chuckle)
Julia Meek: So, this exhibit, organized by the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. How will that story be told? How does it tell that story? What will we see?
Kathy Carrier: That's the magic. When I saw this exhibit in Skokie, Illinois, three years ago, I was dumbfounded. Sometimes museum displays fall flat. This one does not because the people in the Ghost Army were creatives.
So the exhibit is full of caricatures they did, paintings they did, sketches they did, things they wrote. When I saw it in Skokie, I said to myself, we have to bring this to Fort Wayne. Fort Wayne has to see this exhibit.
And we're so proud that we were able to receive funding and partnership from the Fort Wayne Museum of Art to bring it to town. First thing you'll see when you walk into the exhibit is a fantastic Bill Blass piece that we put with his guide on from World War Two.
Brian Williamson, our curator is doing a masterful job customizing the exhibit to Fort Wayne and to Bill Blass. But it's a mesmerizing exhibit because it's creative. It engages you. The story is told through the creativity of the people who were in the Ghost Army.
Julia Meek: The mission was larger than life, you're telling us, so was the display?
Kathy Carrier: Yes! When they were doing their deception, it was not only battlefield deception with inflatable tanks and the sound deception and the radio signals, it was also they simulated being a unit.
So, one of the corner displays is the actual where they were faking being officers in the military. And so, it's like their headquarters with their fake uniforms.
And the...in fact, Rick Beyer, who is part of Ghost Army Legacy, went back to that part of Europe and found the actual, the one that's in this exhibit. He found it in real life, fairly recently in the last couple of years.
So the actual fake headquarters is there, and we have the blow-up tank. It's on loan to us. We're not gonna put it in the exhibit itself, because it's gigantic, but we'll find somewhere to put it in Fort Wayne while the exhibit's up, I'm sure.
The Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum may not have space for it, but we'll put it somewhere. (all chuckle)
Julia Meek: And okay, future famed artists, Ellsworth Kelly and art Kane were on board. What a set design team? By all reports, how did this translate on that battlefield, their energy, their everything?
Kathy Carrier: You know, what comes to mind is chicken feathers. (all laugh) One of the things that just makes me laugh is, they came up with all sorts of uses for chicken feathers.
They had access to them. And then they laughed, in the records that they wrote about their wartime experiences, they laugh about how many uses they could find for chicken feathers.
But there was a journal that was kept by one of the men. It's 50-some pages long. It was secret. They weren't supposed to record anything that they were doing. And this was a tiny little journal it's, you know, maybe the smaller than a three by five card.
And he kept an account of what happened. In fact, he snuck it home, and it was Bill Blass' mother who transcribed it into a document, that little, tiny journal.
Julia Meek: Remarkable, remarkable.
Kathy Carrier: Yeah. Sometimes they're larger than life and sometimes they're small. (all chuckle)
Julia Meek: And generally speaking, this exhibit has been shared with the public for several years now. What's the response, the feedback that you're hearing, whoever sees it?
Kathy Carrier: The traveling exhibit, most recently has been in St. Louis, and we had several members go to St. Louis to go to the exhibit. And in fact, there was a reunion of all the Ghost Army families about a month and a half ago.
I think the response has been phenomenal. We've just gone for two weeks to 40 some veterans' organizations and military organizations, and we've put marketing material out there.
Because we believe, since the exhibit is free to veterans, active military and their family members at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, we believe not only military members will be interested in it.
We know school groups are interested in it. My grandchildren are mesmerized by the story of the Ghost Army. So, the exhibit's been quite popular in other cities, and I think that will definitely follow suit here in Fort, Wayne.
Julia Meek: And meanwhile, Eric, how is Blass and his military presence represented at the Veterans Shrine and Memorial here locally?
Eric Johnson: Well, thanks to Kathy and her organization, we've built an interactive display that's two sided.
It's very large, has a camouflage top on it and a monitor with interviews with people that were in the Ghost Army, which is really cool because to the guys that were actually there, or you get to listen to the remarks and what they were going through at the time.
But the Bill Blass stand-up, the gold coin is on display at the museum, and we have a lot of people that go from side to side and look at it, and they can't believe what they're actually seen, because it's all new to them.
Even now it's new to them, especially kids, students that we have come out from schools and colleges. They find it fascinating that this ever took place, and it's finally out in the public now, and you can see and realize what really took place during World War Two.
Julia Meek: It has to make you awful proud to have something like that.
Eric Johnson: Well, it's a great partnership with Kathy and her group, because they're constantly wanting to, you know, feed us new information, get new materials out, get things that we can use to promote it.
And we have a Ghost Coin challenge coin. Military people exchange challenge coins. We have challenge coins for a lot of different wars and conflicts, but the Ghost Coin is kind of special because it has their logo on it and our logo on the other side.
And we'll be selling those in the gift shop down at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art too.
Julia Meek: What a remembrance. Now Kathy, since all of this has transpired with the help of you and others on the Legacy Foundation, what are some of the results? What are some of the stories now being told about Blass and his legacy?
Kathy Carrier: A couple things come to mind. One of the things that comes to mind are the students at Southside High School. There is a House of Blass at Southside.
It was 1/3 of the freshman class last year that we sponsored. But we're over there with John Baker, the history teacher and Jennifer Sloan, the art teacher, regularly.
And when I was there just before school ended, one of the gals in the back said, That's Blass-tastic! which is hilarious because that was something that I said at a Veterans Day event probably two years prior at that school.
So, we have a continued effort at Southside High School to make sure that the kids, the high schoolers, know what Bill Blass did and his legacy.
Most importantly, though, Bruce Haines and the team at PBS locally a year ago, produced a 24 minute, it was a Ghost Army and Bill Blass story, which aired Memorial Day weekend of last year.
And on June 21, just a few weeks ago, it won an Emmy Award, which is a huge deal, a huge honor for our local PBS station, to Bruce Haines and Todd Grimes and the rest of the group out there.
So, you can be sure we'll have a red-carpet event. We're gonna show that film and do it proud. But we're very, very excited about the honor that PBS received locally. Pretty neat.
Julia Meek: Hero, and local hero. Something very, very special.
Kathy Carrier: Yes.
Julia Meek: Okay, so now let's talk about relevance. Some 80 years and many wars and conflicts later, we're still engaged in special missions and wars. Is there still such a thing as combat con artists, Eric? Is any remnant of this approach still with us?
Eric Johnson: I think there is, Julia. I think with the CIA and what goes on in the military today, we probably won't know those things, and people can't talk about them, but there's covert operations going on.
But nothing like the deception unit you have today. You know, I heard that story about Cuba, when we had people serving over in Cuba, there was these radioactive signals that were affecting their heads and brains and stuff like that.
And I thought, you know, there's today's technology working on today's atmosphere. You know, it's in foreign countries. A lot of things go on that aren't good, and that's one of them.
And when you heard about those people getting headaches and they're serving over there, you think to yourself, that's a covert operation. That's something going on. Who's doing it, where it's coming from, they don't know, but it was in Cuba, where it was first noticed.
And I have no idea, but I have no doubts, that some foreign adversary is, is cooking up something that will psychologically affect not only our, our warriors, but also the citizens that are Americans living in those countries. It's very dangerous, I think.
Julia Meek: Will there ever be another Ghost Army on the ground protecting us, figuring out how to?
Eric Johnson: Oh yeah, I think there, there'll be somebody and something, with all the technology that's going on today, I saw a report the other day where Marco Rubio, somebody had tricked out his photograph and his remarks with AI.
And you don't know what to believe. Is that real? Is that fake? Who do you believe? And where's it going to go from here? It's, it's scary stuff, really is. It's, it's counterintelligence, and that plays a big part in the head games that countries are playing with each other today.
Julia Meek: And last question, as we look forward to the display, as well as this extremely well-deserved attention it's going to bring to his memory, what should we all remember and treasure about our own local hero, international designer and combat con artist, Bill Blass,
Eric Johnson: Well, you know, (chuckles) being a student at Southside High School, myself, graduating from there, we've had several ties to Southside.
Dick Waterfield's working on a World War One monument now, he went to South Side. Mark Hagerman helped us with the Vietnam wall. He went to Southside High School.
I think when you think about all the guys that have come through the system and local heroes, you know, when somebody says you're from Fort Wayne, Indiana, wasn't that the home of Philo Farnsworth, the guy that invented the television tube?
And I go, yeah, and then Carol Lombard and Bill Blass, the names go on and on, and Zach McKinstry, who plays for the Detroit Tigers, he's from Northside High School, and he's going to the All-Star game this year.
So it's great to bring focus to Fort Wayne and the incredible people that live here, work here every day. And I always thought it's a great place to live. It's a great place to raise your family. But you know what?
We have a lot of heroes too, and Bill Blass was just one of them, and it's great that we can remember him. And now, over 100 years later, his name still stands out, and he'll always be remembered as a Fort Wayne kid.
Julia Meek: Kathy?
Kathy Carrier: I think there are two things that are remarkable about Bill's story. He lived a life of adversity here in Fort Wayne. He was raised by a single mother. His father took his life through suicide in his home on South Calhoun, while Bill was in the room when he was five.
So, he grew up in a single parent household, very poor. During the Depression, he started that, selling his designs in high school. So, he had this dream, and he went after, and he never gave up. The other thing that I find remarkable is his entrepreneurship.
I'm an entrepreneur, and I know how hard it is to make a business work. Fortunately, I've been able to do that. Bill had a five-decades fashion career. So yes, he started as an apprentice under many designers.
He learned how to do it. He figured out how to make his own label. Wasn't making any money doing haute couture fashion. So, he sold his brand, you know, put it on chocolates and jeans and anything that would make money.
So, he figured out how to make money at it. He was known internationally, was well regarded, received 20-some awards, high, high awards in the fashion industry.
So, this is a man who had a dream, did it, and in the middle of all that, he went and fought in World War Two and received a Congressional Gold Medal a year ago in March because of his heroic World War Two experiences.
There isn't another story in Fort Wayne that equals that, in my opinion. For those reasons, I believe he is a Fort Wayne native that we should celebrate, and that's what we're doing.
Julia Meek: Kathy Carrier is a Bill Blass Legacy board member and Eric Johnson, 1st Vice Commander of the Veteran's National Memorial Shrine and Museum here in Fort Wayne.
Thank you so much for your dedication to this Legacy project, as well as sharing your story with us. Have a great show.
Kathy Carrier: Thank you, Julia.
Eric Johnson: Thank you, Julia, appreciate it.
