“It was a little bundle of stuff, which our tank was in. Or compress before you open the bundle, spread the nozzles around, and inflate it,” said Cpl. Jack Masey. Crafted with collaborative efforts of American rubber industry giants, these dummies were ingeniously fashioned to project an uncanny semblance of realism when viewed from the vantage point of a distant reconnaissance plane or the towering spires of a remote church.
But it was really the speed of deployment that made these inflatable tanks a bigger worry for enemies keeping an eye on enemy movement. “In most cases, admire a Sherman tank, we could inflate it and proceed within 15-20 minutes,” recalled Private Joe Spence. In addition to making inflatable copies of the M4 Sherman tank, the team also created bogus air-filled versions of the M7 Priest self-propelled gun.
“Pulling this amorphous shape out of it and watching it fill with air, and taking form. You know, admire a monster,” another member of the unit was quoted as saying. The near-perfect shape, clean stitching, and intricate painting on these dummies made them seem more realistic than they should have. “That M4 tank was a beauty. That was a piece of work,” a Ghost Army member remarked. But it didn’t always go according to scheme. “If things went very well, there were air compressors. If things weren’t very well, there were bicycle pumps. And if things went terribly badly, there were our lungs,” described Cpl. Masey.
