When art went to war: CIA artists in WWII “Ghost Army”

By Karen Sandstrom ’12

Guns, tanks, trucks and soldiers: They were among the most important elements used by the Allies in defeating Hitler’s army during World War II. But they were not the only elements.

Camouflage, decoys, deception and theatrics played crucial supporting roles, and artists were key to these efforts.

From 1944 to 1945, at least five men educated at the Cleveland Institute of Art were part of what became known as the “Ghost Army.” These 1,100 soldiers invested their talents into creating the illusion that American battle troops were in places they were not.

The purpose was to divert the Nazis’ attention so that Allied combat troops could take them by surprise. The tools: innovative inflatable tanks, trucks and artillery. There were fake signs, costumes and dummy soldiers. All of it needed to look convincing from the air and even from German reconnaissance men using binoculars.

The artists were part of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a field unit created to appear to be a large and well-armed division.

The 23rd was composed of four groups. The 603rd Camouflage Battalion, to which the CIA artists and others belonged, created and staged the props. The 244th Signal Company sent fake radio signals. The 3132 Signal Service Company recorded sounds of military equipment on the movement and blasted them through enormous speakers mounted on trucks. And the 406th Engineer Combat Company provided defense for everyone else; the camouflage workers had no heavy weapons.

In 2013, CIA alum Pamela Pastoric ’77 watched a PBS documentary by writer and filmmaker Rick Beyer called The Ghost Army and felt a spark of curiosity. Her father Marion “Pat” Pastorcich, an industrial designer, had died in 2003, but she knew he had served in the Army in Europe. Could Pat have been in the Ghost Army?

Pam followed her curiosity to ghostarmy.org, the online home of the Ghost Army Legacy Project. The nonprofit organization preserves the history of the soldiers who served in this unique role. There, fragments of information started to make sense. “I’ve been putting the dots together ever since,” Pam says.

She began researching to learn more about the contributions made by her father (who changed the family name to Pastoric in the ’50s). He had been a student at the Columbus School of Art before he enlisted. After the war, he transferred to CIA, where he earned his BFA degree in Graphic Design and Industrial Design in 1947. That research led to details about four other CIA-related members with profiles on the ghostarmy.org website:

• William Marsalko (1923–2012): Marsalko was best man at Pat Pastoric’s wedding and “Uncle Billy” to Pam and her siblings. Marsalko had taken classes at CIA before the war and, according to the Ghost War Legacy Project, had hoped to become a comics artist. During his service, he was seriously injured by shelling and spent three years recovering. After the war, he worked as a commercial and fine artist.
• George Vander Sluis ’38 (1915–1984): After graduating from CIA with a degree in mural painting, Vander Sluis had some rich career experiences, including drawing at the New York World’s Fair in 1939–40 and completing U.S. Post Office murals as a New Deal artist. He was an art educator for 35 years at Syracuse University.
• William Merkle ’42 (1920–1994): Before enlisting, Merkle spent three years at CIA, where he met fellow student Gloria E. Morgan ’44. During the war, he served in the camouflage unit as a truck driver. According to the legacy project, Merkle and Morgan married in 1945 and eventually moved to California.
• Bernard Bluestein ’47 is the only living member of the CIA group. In the service, he painted stencils on vehicles and created fake military patches for uniforms. After the war, he was an industrial designer and sculptor. “Our mission was to simulate real troops while the real troops were deployed someplace else,” Bluestein told WLS-TV ABC-7 News Chicago in 2018.

Marion Pastoric ’47, left, and Bernard Bluestein ’47, far right, at the Class of 1947’s 50-year reunion in 1997 in Cleveland. Both CIA alums played integral roles for U.S. forces during World War II. Submitted photo.

Among details Pam learned over the years is that Bluestein recalled flyers hung in hallways at CIA promoting a camouflage course that was being taught as part of preparation for the service. Men who were recruited for camouflage work trained for more than a year for the strange work they would be doing.

But further details of her father’s war efforts are lost to time because he honored his duty to secrecy and spoke little about the war, she says. Ghost Army troops had few weapons, but her father carried a “grease gun” (an M3 submachine gun). “The only thing he told me was he came across a German soldier and he didn’t want to kill him,” Pam says.

Well documented, however, is that during downtime at war, the artists recorded their experiences and environments in drawings and paintings. Pat made watercolors of camp buildings and beautiful scenery, as well as a page of quick sketches of a platoon puppy who hung with the soldiers in France.

One of the longtime missions of the Ghost Army Legacy Project was to secure the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest honor the U.S. Congress awards to civilians who have made significant contributions to the country.

On March 21, 2024, Bernard Bluestein, 100, was among three members of the Ghost Army at the U.S. Capitol to receive the medal. There were 600 people in attendance, including family members receiving the medal on behalf of deceased relatives.

The ceremony was “surreal,” Pam says. “I went with my daughter and my youngest brother, Ray, and his wife. There was (House Speaker) Mike Johnson, and (Senator Mitch) McConnell and (Congresswoman Susan) Collins and the head of the Joint Chiefs. In the evening, we had dinner with the families.”

It was after these events that Pam was emotionally struck by the fundamental importance of what the Ghost Army soldiers contributed.

“They were just one cog in this whole thing. There were the paratroopers, the guys landing on the beaches, the spies—so many aspects of the war,” she says. “And it reflects on what we’re dealing with today, and what can happen.”