Secret Soldiers How a Troupe of American Artists, Designers, and Sonic Wizards Won World War Ii's Battles of Deception Against the Germans

ONE The Swashbuckler 1941-1942I have at times had to seem intrepid without when actually shaking within. -Douglas Fairbanks Jr. More than three years before the Special Troops staged their grand finale on the Rhine River, hundreds of sailors sat waiting in the chilly dark for a different kind of show to begin-on the afterdeck of the battleship USS Mississippi at a navy pier on the James River in Norfolk, Virginia. The night was clear. The air temperature had dropped to the low forties, and a slight north wind made it seem even colder. The men's breath smoked in the damp river air. They had recently returned from Reykjavik, Iceland, so they were used to being outdoors in the cold. Officers and chiefs sat in rows of folding slat-seated chairs. Enlisted men sat cross-legged on the immaculate teak deck, slouched against the bulwarks, or perched atop the lower fourteen-inch gun turret, hanging their legs down the armored face. A sailor lounged astride each of the three massive gun barrels, leaning back against the cool steel slant of the turret, legs crossed or dangling on either side. Others leaned out of antiaircraft turrets, rubbing their gloved hands to keep warm. As they waited, they smoked and joshed and some talked in more serious tones about the war. Little more than a week ago "Ole Miss" had been on station in Iceland, with her sister ship Idaho, when they got the incredible news: The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The USS Arizona was sunk, a destroyer and other vessels damaged. The U.S. was at war. They knew little else. Strict censorship hid from them the devastating success of the attack. In fact five battleships had been sunk, nine other warships badly damaged, two hundred planes destroyed, and more than two thousand men killed. Only three American battleships remained of the entire Pacific fleet. Two days after Pearl Harbor, the two old battlewagons-Mississippi had been launched in 1917 during an era of warfare before air attacks-weighed anchor and steamed south for a brief refit here at Norfolk Navy Yard. In a few days, they would sail for Hawaii and the Pacific War. But tonight's gathering wasn't about the war. A movie screen had been rigged from the crane on the fantail. The catapult holding the observation plane was rotated sideways-as if to launch the plane into the clear, starry night-to allow the screen to hang plumb. When it was full dark, the projector flickered, and all at once the screen came alive as a rectangle of light and moving images: the naval premier of The Corsican Brothers. Before long, a familiar figure captured the screen-the larger-than-life image of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Lean, darkly handsome, with wavy hair and piercing eyes, he grinned devilishly under his pencil-thin mustache. The Hollywood star was the very image of the swashbuckling hero: dark stocking cap, gold ear hoop, brace of pistols stuffed into his sash, sword flashing in his hand. He galloped across the screen on a bay charger, dueled for the lady's honor at the Paris opera, swept up the lovely Countess Isabelle in his arms for a long Hollywood kiss. The men applauded and cheered and some of the officers hooted and jeered, and the one laughing loudest of all was Lt. (jg) Douglas Fairbanks Jr., USNR. He sat grinning with appreciation for his messmates, who had conspired secretly to get a print of the film to show their movie-star shipmate-the first time he'd ever watched his own picture. It was a fine birthday present-he was celebrating his thirty-second on the day they sailed from Reykjavik-and the sort of thing only good shipmates would do, a signal that he'd been accepted, taken seriously as a serving naval officer. That hadn't always been the case. For the next hour and a half, the hundreds of men gathered in the dark could forget they were about to head into battle on a distant, unknown ocean where alreGerard, Philip is the author of 'Secret Soldiers How a Troupe of American Artists, Designers, and Sonic Wizards Won World War Ii's Battles of Deception Against the Germans' with ISBN 9780452283886 and ISBN 0452283884.