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Heltaher
Heltaher

Ghosts, Corpses, and Cunning: Four Bizarre Tales about War

Series Overview
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Ghosts, Corpses, and Cunning: Four Bizarre Tales about War is a historical series exploring some of the most surreal and ingenious episodes in military history, where reality blurred with illusion and desperation birthed legend.

The journey begins with The Attack of the Dead Men (1915), where Russian soldiers, lungs dissolving from poison gas, launched a terrifying counter-charge that sent 7,000 German troops fleeing in panic. It then shifts to The War of the Golden Stool (1900), a fierce Ashanti uprising in modern-day Ghana sparked not by territory, but by a British governor’s sacrilegious demand to sit on a sacred artifact believed to hold the nation’s soul.

Moving to World War II, the series details Operation Mincemeat (1943), the audacious British scheme that used a corpse dressed as a fictitious officer to trick Hitler into defending the wrong location before the Allied invasion of Sicily. Finally, it reveals the secrets of the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops (1944–1945), the "Ghost Army" of artists and sound engineers who used inflatable tanks and fake radio traffic to simulate entire divisions, saving thousands of lives through pure deception.

Together, these stories highlight moments where courage, culture, and creativity defied the conventional logic of war.

References
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  1. Armitage, C. H., & Montanaro, A. F. (1901). The Ashanti Campaign of 1900. Sands & Co.
  2. Bening, R. B. (1979). The location of administrative capitals in Ashanti, Ghana, 1896-1911. The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 12(2), 210-234.
  3. Beyer, R., & Sayles, E. (2015). The Ghost Army of World War II: How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery. Princeton Architectural Press.
  4. Boahen, A. A. (2003). Yaa Asantewaa and the Asante-British War of 1900-1. Sub-Saharan Publishers.
  5. Buttar, P. (2017). Germany ascendant: The Eastern Front 1915. Osprey Publishing.
  6. Cherkasov, A. A., Ryabtsev, A. A., & Menjkovsky, V. I. (2011). "Dead Men Attack" (Osovets, 1915): Archive sources approach. European Researcher, Series A, 2(12), 1577-1582.
  7. Edgerton, R. B. (2010). The fall of the Asante Empire: The hundred-year war for Africa's Gold Coast. Free Press.
  8. Gawne, J. (2002). Ghosts of the ETO: American tactical deception units in the European theatre, 1944-1945. Casemate.
  9. Gerard, P. (2002). Secret soldiers: the story of World War II's heroic army of deception. Dutton.
  10. Holt, T. (2024). The attack of the dead men: The true story of the Russian counter-attack that terrified the Germans. Pen and Sword Military.
  11. Howard, M. (1995). Strategic Deception in the Second World War. W. W. Norton & Company.
  12. Kauffman, J. E., & Kauffman, H. W. (2016). The forts and fortifications of Europe 1815-1945: The Central Powers: England, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia. Osprey Publishing.
  13. Kneece, J. (2001). Ghost army of World War II. Pelican Publishing.
  14. Latimer, J. (2001). Deception in War. John Murray Publishers.
  15. Macintyre, B. (2010). Operation Mincemeat. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  16. Menkovsky, V. I. (2011). "Attack of the Dead" (Osovets, 1915): Myth or reality. Cherkas Global University Press, 4.
  17. Montagu, E. (1953). The Man Who Never Was. Naval Institute Press.
  18. Petrone, K. (2015). "Now Russia returns its history to itself": Russia celebrates the centenary of the First World War. In B. Ziino (Ed.), Remembering the First World War (p. 135). Routledge.
  19. Smith, E. W. (1926). The Golden Stool: Some Aspects of the Conflict of Cultures in Modern Africa. Holborn Publishing House.
  20. Smyth, D. (2010). Deathly Deception: The Real Story of Operation Mincemeat. Oxford University Press.
  21. Svechnikov, M. S. (1917). The defense of the Osovets fortress during the second, 6 1/2 month siege of it. State Public Historical Library of Russia.
  22. Ward, J. L. (2022). Yaa Asantewaa and the War of the Golden Stool: The Ashanti uprising of 1900. Ohio University Press.
  23. Willcocks, J. (1925). The romance of soldiering and sport. Cassell.