Nicholas Leo belonged to a U.S. Army unit that fought a distinct type of World Warfare II.
Their weapons included inflatable rubber tanks and sound results. Some within the unit, twenty third Headquarters Particular Troops, arrange make-believe headquarters and impersonated generals to confuse the enemy as to the placement and dimension of the American models. Others, like Leo, carried out deception over the airwaves, generally known as “spoof radio,” by establishing phony radio networks and sending pretend indicators as in the event that they had been an actual army unit.
They grew to become generally known as the “Ghost Army.” Their mission: to idiot the enemy — Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.
“Now we have this imaginative and prescient of what warfare is. It is the fellows within the foxhole or it is the tanks,” stated Rick Beyer, a filmmaker who made a documentary in 2013 concerning the Ghost Army that aired on PBS. “We do not take into consideration this concept of this unit doing make-believe. They’re doing fake on the battlefield to psych out the enemy, to confuse and disorient them.”
Leo, 99, of Brentwood, a D-Day veteran, and the final surviving twenty third Headquarters Particular Troops member from New York, died Might 18 at Stony Brook College Hospital of congestive coronary heart failure, his household stated. 9 surviving members reside in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey and North Carolina, in line with Beyer.
Leo was one among greater than 1,100 engineers, artists and different service members who made up the twenty third Headquarters Particular Troops. The unit, together with the 3133rd Sign Service Firm, which operated in Italy, was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in February.
For many years, the categorized Ghost Army was saved a secret.
Leo didn’t discuss what he did till Beyer approached him in 2014, lengthy after information had been formally declassified within the mid-Nineties, stated his son, John Leo, of Newport News, Virginia.
Beyer stated Leo didn’t think about his function within the warfare heroic.
“Like quite a lot of the fellows, he took it very matter-of-factly,” Beyer stated. “For Nick, it is similar to ‘here is the job I have been given and I will do it.’ ”
Beyer stated the group of males, together with Leo, remained humble concerning the extraordinary nature of the techniques they executed within the warfare.
“They had been requested to basically draw [enemy] fireplace and perform the key mission that no one can learn about and never discuss it for 50 years,” he stated. “I feel they seem to be a fairly spectacular bunch of individuals.”
At a digital occasion two years in the past hosted by a Lengthy Island group that promotes Morse code coaching and training, Leo recalled how he and others jumped out of a ship at night time and swam ashore at Normandy on D-Day.
“I might by no means clarify it to anyone how dangerous it was,” he stated on the occasion by the Lengthy Island CW Membership within the fall of 2020. “After we had been coming in, we had been being bombarded with artillery. You possibly can’t consider the artillery.”
Then he grew to become emotional on the recollection of warfare.
“I do not need the reminiscence, to let you know the reality. I can not discuss, to at the present time. There are particular issues I can not,” Leo stated, his voice breaking. “Simply serious about it, I can not discuss. I do not need to know anymore. Me and my buddy, we discuss on the telephone on a regular basis. We by no means point out something dangerous, solely the great occasions.”
One other son, Natale Leo, stated his father by no means went to Memorial Day or Veterans Day parades as a result of it might remind him of the warfare.
Nick Leo met his spouse, Pierrette, at a dance towards the top of the warfare in Homecóurt, her hometown in France. They married on Dec. 22, 1945, in France. Pierrette Leo died in 2020 at age 95.
She additionally was affected by the warfare, stated Natale Leo, of Brentwood.
“At any time when there have been thunderstorms round,” he stated, “it might remind her of the bombings that they went by way of.”
The oldest of 5 kids, Nicholas Leo was born in Brooklyn on Aug. 24, 1922 to Catherina and Natale Leo, immigrants from Italy. He graduated from Farmingdale Excessive Faculty in 1940 and enlisted within the Army two years later. He studied artwork and design at Farmingdale State School and earned an affiliate diploma there in 1948. He labored within the artwork division at Grumman Company for 5 years.
After World Warfare II, Leo joined the U.S. Navy Reserve and due to his prior coaching, was a radio man on the destroyer, USS Gatling, through the Korean Warfare.
After Grumman, he labored as a musician, an artist, an architect and a builder, his household stated.
Leo performed accordion since he was an adolescent and cherished studying. When he was in his 80s, he studied Chinese language at Molloy College, then Molloy School, in Rockville Centre, stated his daughter, Michele Leo, of Port Jefferson.
Along with Natale, John and Michele Leo, he’s survived by sons Nicholas Leo of Mount Sinai and Andre Leo of Bohemia. He’s additionally survived by 10 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. The household is planning a funeral on the Arlington Nationwide Cemetery in Virginia.
Dandan Zou covers training for Newsday. Beforehand, she labored for a neighborhood newspaper in Maryland and a private finance journal in Washington, D.C.
