Interviews

About the Ghost Army Interview Collection

Selected Interviews with Ghost Army veterans

The Ghost Army Legacy Project archive contains 21 video interviews of Ghost Army veterans, each of which has been transcribed. The interviews were conducted by filmmaker Rick Beyer (with assistance in some cases from Jacqueline Sheridan and Mark Tomizawa) between 2005 and 2010. All interviews are part of the GALP Interview Collection, accession #96.

Each of these video interviews below is accompanied by downloadable PDF of the transcript. (The StoryCorps interview of Gil Seltzer does not have a transcript.)

â€‹The video interviews are the property of the Ghost Army Legacy Project and cannot be reproduced without express permission. To inquire about their use, please use our Contact Page. The StoryCorps interview is used with permission of StoryCorps.

Archives Interviews

John Jarvie

â€‹John Jarvie served in the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, the visual deception army of the Ghost Army. After the war, he spent thirty years as an art director for Fairchild Publications, owner of Women’s Wear Daily , supervising a staff of artists and writers. He died in 2017. You can read more about his life and work in his Ghost Army biography . read more

Jack Masey

Jack Masey served in the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, the visual deception army of the Ghost Army. After the war he designed exhibitions around the world for the United States Information Agency. In 1979 he formed his own company, Metaform. His works include the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York (winner of a Presidential Design Award) and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans. Masey died in 2016. You can read more about his life and work in his Ghost Army biography . read more

Dick Syracuse

Dick Syracuse served in the 3132nd Signal Service Company. After the war, he became a builder and developer. The company he started with his brothers built hundreds of homes and high-rise apartments in New York and New Jersey. Syracuse died in 2013. You can read more about his life and work in his Ghost Army biography. read more

Spike Berry

Spike Berry served with the Signal Company Special. After the war, he worked in radio in North Dakota, South Dakota, California, and Hawaii. He eventually started a travel business and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. Berry died in 2014. You can read more about his life and work in his Ghost Army biography . read more

George Rebh

George Rebh was the commander of the 406th Combat Engineers. As a Rhodes Scholar, he helped establish the Oxford University Basketball Club. A career army officer, he retired a major general. He died in 2018. You can read more about his life and work in his Ghost Army biography . read more

Gil Seltzer

In the spring of 2019, Gil Seltzer took part in three StoryCorps audio interviews. Excerpts of these appeared on NPR. With permission of StoryCorps and Gil Seltzer, we present the full interviews here. Gil is 104 years old and lives in West Orange, NJ.