Prewar Life

Basic Training and the Camouflage Unit

Training and Going Overseas

From England to France

Army Anti-Semitism

Making Fake Patches

Into Germany

The Holocaust and War's End

Returning Home and V-J Day

Shot At For a Stamp

Postwar Life and Career

Closing Thoughts

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum was born in May 1923 in Manhattan [Annotator's Note: Manhattan is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. He started out in the 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion [Annotator's Note: 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, Special]. The 603rd later joined the 12th Army Group as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops [Annotator's Note: known as The Ghost Army]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Nussenbaum to talk about what it was like to grow up during The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1939 in the United States.] His dad came to the United States at the age of 16 by himself from Russia. He did not speak English. He had a cousin who sponsored him and got him a job. He attended night school to study English. His mother came at the age of ten with her family. They settled in what is now Harlem [Annotator's Note: a neighborhood in New York, New York] in New York. His father lived in a hostel where two or three men slept in one bed. He worked his way up in the garment industry and ended up designing women's dresses. His mother worked until she met his father and they married. There were a few good years after World War 1. His father had registered for the draft, but his number was never called. His father and some friends quit their jobs and bicycled all over for a year. When he did not get called, he had to find work. Nussenbaum was the first born. His parents lived in the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York]. He does not remember much about his childhood. He went to school in the Bronx. When he was about seven or eight, he knew he wanted to be an artist. Then the Depression came in 1929 and did not affect his father when it began. When his sisters were born, times got bad, and he lost his job. He told his mother he had ten cents and was going into Manhattan to see if he could find work. It cost a nickel to go each way. During the Second World War, he had a position with a dress factory. His boss was drafted, and he asked his father to manage the plant. From then on, it was clear sailing. Nussenbaum was aware of what was happening before the war started. Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] came as a shock to everybody. He thought at the time that he was going to go to war because he was 18. He graduated from high school at 16. Between 16 and 18, he did odd jobs in the garment center. He went to night school and then heard about Pratt Institute, which is a prestigious art school [Annotator's Note: in the borough of Brooklyn, New York, New York]. He got into Pratt in 1943. In his first year, they had a course in camouflage. He figured if he was going into the Army, he should go into something he knew about. He had registered for the draft and got drafted in the middle of his first year. He got an extension to finish the camouflage course. The instructor gave them an address and said they should ask to be transferred to the outfit.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum is like his mother who is a fatalist. What is going to happen is what is going to happen and there is nothing you can do about it. He said that if he was going to be drafted, there was nothing he could do about it. He did have a patriotic feeling and wanted to do what he could. He did something that was against Army rules and he wrote to the camouflage unit [Annotator's Note: 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, Special, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army], and they got him transferred [Annotator's Note: from an artillery outfit.] The artillery outfit was sent to Africa. He was writing a friend in the outfit who was killed. Nussenbaum's parents took care of the war rationing. His father in particular had family in Europe. His parents did not survive. One sister was killed, and one was in a concentration camp and suffered terribly. They received mail from them to a certain point. There was no television, so they followed the war on the radio. Nussenbaum's mother was more religious than his father. His mother's father was very religious. Nussenbaum had his bar mitzvah [Annotator's Note: Jewish religious ritual and family celebration commemorating the religious adulthood of a boy on his 13th birthday] and went to Hebrew school. Nussenbaum went into the 603rd. He was in Virginia in an artillery unit for a few weeks in basic training. The camp was in the middle of a swamp. The ground was always wet, and everybody was sick. When he was told he was going up, he had the flu. He had gone up the Chesapeake Bay in a steamer to Fort George Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade in in Anne Arundel County, Maryland] in Maryland. They gave him his uniforms and took him to his bunk. He was very sick, so they took him to the medics. They put him in the hospital for two weeks. He had been in the Army long enough to know how to goof off. One week he spent recovering and the other week he spent in the day room making paintings. A lot of the guys had just been inducted. He made some friends. They were training only for camouflage. They did not know about dummies or anything like that. They were not all artists. There were people from the film industry and from the stage. A boyhood friend was a model-maker, and he came into the outfit.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] An average day of training for Seymour Nussenbaum was boring. They marched up and down and were shown movies. They were taught how to make their beds and stuff of nonsense. The food was a culture shock and was edible. He liked nothing about it. He was never really athletic, but he had run some track in high school. Training started to get specific at Camp Forrest, Tennessee [Annotator's Note: near Tullahoma, Tennessee]. He had never been away from home and thought Tennessee was an outlandish place. He went into town with other guys and got decent food. He wrote to his family. His father came down to visit him at Fort Meade [Annotator's Note: Fort George G. Meade in in Anne Arundel County, Maryland]. It was difficult for him. He had no girlfriend until after he came home from the Army. At Camp Forrest, they [Annotator's Note: Camouflage Battalion, Special, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] were told about the deception they were to do and why there were doing it. They were making dummies out of burlap and wood. He thinks the British came up with the idea of using inflatables. Then the training got specific. They were never specifically told the big picture. They were not stupid and figured it out for themselves. Even when overseas on the missions, most of them did not know why they were doing what they were. The only way they knew what outfit they were supposed to be simulating was by the patches that they wore. He left Camp Forrest for overseas around May 1944. They went to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey to depart. He never knew he was prone to getting seasick and thought it would be a big adventure. That particular convoy was the largest pre-invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944] convoy going over. He got to into New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York] and he was less than an hour from where he lived. He went to see his folks but did not tell them he was going overseas. His father told him after he came home, that when he left, he had looked back and that gave him an inkling that he was going overseas. He went over on a troop transport he thinks was called Henry Gibbons [Annotator's Note: USAT Henry Gibbins], but that might have been what he came back on. He got very seasick. Going over was not too bad and took close to two weeks. They did not take a direct route in order to evade the German submarines. They would hear and feel the depth charge [Annotator's Note: also called a depth bomb; an anti-submarine explosive munition resembling a metal barrel or drum] concussions going off. Their bunks were down in the ship, and it was eerie. It was not pleasant. He kept his meal card and his was empty because he could not eat. They landed in Avonmouth, England [Annotator's Note: Avonmouth Port, Bristol, England] and went to middle England for a couple of months before going over to France.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] were in England about a month. He knew there was eventually going to be an invasion. The day before the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944], the planes came over heading for France. They knew something was up. A small part of the 23rd went over on D-Day. The bulk stayed on the grounds of an estate in tents. They were training and packing stuff to go over. He was in Headquarters Company and his job was to supply the rest of the outfit. They were also trained to do what other troops did. Out of the 20 missions they did, Nussenbaum went on three or four. Going over to France should be an overnight trip. They hit a storm and were stuck in the Channel [Annotator's Note: English Channel]. They got to France [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] and started to unload. They unloaded the men over the side of the ship onto a floating platform. A few guys fell off the ship and were almost crushed to death so they kept the rest onboard. They ran short of supplies and were barely eating. Nussenbaum was friends with a German refugee who had enlisted in the Army. He could hardly speak English and was very friendly with everybody. He made friends with a guy who worked in the kitchen. There were three of them in a little group and the guy would feed them the leftovers of the crew's food instead of rations. When they landed in France, there were bodies floating in the ocean. They got on shore and had to climb the mountain. They spent the first night in slight trenches the previous troops had dug. They were wet and miserable.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] In headquarters [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army], Seymour Nussenbaum did not realize what the other units were doing. Each company had its own mess hall. He only learned things from a friend in another company. His First Sergeant was a rabid anti-Semite. The Jewish guys did not have it easy. Nussenbaum had never come into contact with people with like that. He lived in the Bronx [Annotator's Note: the Bronx is one of the five boroughs in New York, New York] and his house was on the corner of the Italian section. He would go there to the delis sometime. His mother would have killed him if she knew. He made friends there. He had direct anti-Semitic instances in the Army. It started in the morning at roll call. Every time he [Annotator's Note: the First Sergeant] called a Jewish name, he made some remark. It was not pleasant. Nussenbaum and the others complained about it. A lieutenant knew it was going on but said he could not do anything about it. Nussenbaum could never understand the brain process that makes someone hate anyone. Nussenbaum participated in a mission outside of Brest [Annotator's Note: Brest, France]. A German unit was barricaded and had the end of the peninsula. They did not want to surrender. The Allies needed it for a port. They [Annotator's Note: 3132nd Signal Company, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops] went in and broadcasted tank noises. When the German commander surrendered and came out, he did not see any tanks and wondered where all the noise came from. Nussenbaum does not know much about the audio. It was meant to make the enemy think there were more troops than there were. It worked. They would move to an area and establish themselves. Three days later, they would move back. They did not know why, they just did it.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum was attached to what was called the factory section in Headquarters Company [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army]. Their job was to manufacture fake shoulder patches. It was impractical for them to get real patches for a mission. They would get one patch and use it to reproduce copies. They started out using templates and would ink with brushes. Later they used a silkscreen process. It was an interesting job. They could make hundreds a day. The actual labor was not too much. They would pack them up and send them out to the companies who sewed them on their clothing. They acted like any company would act. They wanted the enemy to think the first outfit was still there. They would go into town and go to the pubs and make themselves known. Any spies would think the company was still there. The Germans also had aerial reconnaissance when they still had gasoline. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer talks about how downed airmen were shocked by how much the Germans knew about them and asks Nussenbaum if he knows of anything about how they knew.] He has no idea how they would get that information. They were not allowed to have contact with the Germans. They knew there were French sympathizers, so they were careful. The Germans must have had plenty of spies in this country [Annotator's Note: the United States]. Nussenbaum does not know how many other sections were in the unit. They would sometimes be sent out to paint signs on the bumpers of vehicles. As far as he knows, they were never found out. Nussenbaum saw a video about the Ghost Army [Annotator's Note: the nickname for the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops] and learned about how the radio deceptions worked, but he did not know about that at the time.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] The only thing Seymour Nussenbaum remembers about the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] is that they [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] were stationed in Luxembourg at the time. A lot of the action took place in northern Luxembourg. To keep the Germans from overrunning them and learning what they were doing, they packed up and went back to Verdun, France. The Bulge was scary. Most of them felt that the Germans were licked by that time. One time they were strafed by a German plane. They were between the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] then. They all jumped into the ditches. There were some casualties. After the Bulge, he and his outfit went into Germany. The last place they stayed any length of time was in Idar-Oberstein, Germany. Nussenbaum felt uneasy there. He hated the German regime. After the war was over, they would be taken on sight-seeing tours. They stopped at a farm once and the old farmer was very nice. He said he was so glad the war was over. There were some people who opposed the war but did not dare open their mouths. Most of the Germans he interacted with were dejected and subdued. He went on a work job to pick up some coal. Adjacent to the depot, was a place where there a few German prisoners of war. One of the guys in the unit got mad that the prisoners were laughing at them. He took out his gun and made them fill the truck with the coal. The last mission was in Germany, but Nussenbaum was not on it. As soon as the war ended, they were put to running a DP [Annotator's Note: displaced persons] camp.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum heard about the Holocaust [Annotator's Note: also called the Shoah; the genocide of European Jews during World War 2] before even went into the Army. He has a painting he did pertaining to the Holocaust that he did when he was 17. He had no contact with concentration camps. He saw the evidence in Germany like anti-Semitic signs that had not been taken down. He always knew how bad it was. In 1941, there was big rally at Madison Square Garden [Annotator's Note: Nussenbaum is referring to the 1939 German American Bund rally] in New York [Annotator's Note: New York, New York]. Thousands of people came. It was not a secret. Nussenbaum is a stamp collector and has been since he was a boy. When Israel became a State, he decided to save their stamps. A couple of years later, he bought an Israeli catalog. It had a section called Judaica [Annotator's Note: literary or historical materials relating to Jews or Judaism] that had stamps that have some Jewish theme from any country in the world. Little by little, he got rid of his other collections and put the money towards Judaica. He has collected a lot of stuff on the Holocaust, including letters from Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany] and Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany]. You get a good history from these things. He was in Germany when the war ended, he thinks. They all got loaded [Annotator's Note: slang term for getting intoxicated]. One part of the outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] had gone through a town and discovered a cache of liquor and took possession of it. Each person was issued a bottle. He got a bottle of Spanish wine. They were exchanging drinks and that is the worst thing you can do. He was out and when he woke up in the morning, he was laying on the floor. He was so sick, but that is how they celebrated.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] When the war in Europe ended, Seymour Nussenbaum and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] got a furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] for a month when they came back. They all wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, but they landed in Newport News [Annotator's Note: Newport News, Virginia]. He came back in July [Annotator's Note: July 1945]. They had a lot of points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] because they took part in five campaigns. They were thrown into training at Pine Camp, New York [Annotator's Note: now Fort Drum, Jefferson County, New York] and were issued khakis for the Pacific. They were resigned that they were going there. There were signs of battles being won. Towards the end of August [Annotator's Note: August 1945] it was only a matter of time. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks if Nussenbaum remembers the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States.] It was the first time he had seen grown men walking around with tears in their eyes. He was a hero to most of them. It was very sad. Nussenbaum has scrapbooks and a French newspaper that told of his death. Roosevelt had been in power for most of these young people's lives. He was like a fatherly image to them. Nussenbaum found out about the atomic bombs [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima, Japan on 6 August 1945 and Nagasaki, Japan on 9 August 1945] via talking between people. They did not realize the impact and just thought these were big bombs. It was not until the war ended, that they realized they were what had ended the war. When they started to show pictures of Hiroshima and said one bomb had caused that destruction and death, was when Nussenbaum grasped what a nuclear weapon could do. Nussenbaum was on a three-day furlough when he found out about it. His parents went to Sharon Springs in New York which was not far from Pine Camp. He hitchhiked to visit them. That was where he found out the war ended. They had a big celebration at the hotel with free food and drinks. He was probably the only soldier in town.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum was an avid stamp collector. When he worked in the factory section [Annotator's Note: of Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] in Luxembourg, it was in a former exhibition hall. He was on guard duty and a young Luxembourger walked up who spoke perfect English. Nussenbaum asked where the post office was and said he was a stamp collector. The young man invited him to his home. They made dinner for him. The man was an engineer and had designed his own Art Deco [Annotator's Note: name for the predominant decorative art style of the 1920s and 1930s] home. He was a stamp collector and they traded some. When he found out they were leaving Luxembourg due to the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], he owed the man something and he went over the back fence and ran down the block. He did not tell the man they were leaving. Nussenbaum got back to wall where the barracks were. He heard a shot, and something went into the wall. He never ran so fast. He got into the barracks. The guy in the bunk asked what the matter with him was. He only said he was not feeling well. He later thought it had been a stupid thing to do for a stamp. He was with his friend Bernie [Annotator's Note: Bernard Bluestein' Bluestein's oral history interview is also available on this Digital Collections website] one time, and they were in a place they were to clean up. They had just gotten to bed when there was a huge explosion. They all jumped up. They discovered it was one of their artillery units firing into Germany. It was scary.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum got out of the service in November 1945. He missed getting out in October by one point [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. His outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 603rd Engineer Camouflage Battalion, 23rd Headquarters Special Troops; known as The Ghost Army] was disbanded in Pine Camp [Annotator's Note: now Fort Drum, Jefferson County, New York]. He had another month to stay. He was in New York state where he lived, but for that month, he was sent down to Mississippi. They did work helping other outfits disband. They had to store the battalion flags. Some of the flags he folded were from the Civil War [Annotator's Note: American Civil War, 1861 to 1865]. They were told before the 23rd Special Troops were disbanded, that whatever they did was Top Secret. Only in 1995 was it taken off the Top Secret list. He does not recall signing anything. He abided by it pretty much. When people asked what he did in the war, he said he blew up tanks. He only found out later it was declassified. He had other things on his mind then. He used the G.I. Bill [Annotator's Note: the G.I. Bill, or Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, was enacted by the United States Congress to aid United States veterans of World War 2 in transitioning back to civilian life and included financial aid for education, mortgages, business starts and unemployment] for college. He went back to Pratt Institute [Annotator's Note: in the borough of Brooklyn, New York, New York] and got in. He took the time before school started to create two scrapbooks of the stuff that he had sent home. He also did some paintings while overseas. Once he stayed in Montesquieu, France on the grounds of a chateau. The Germans had set off a bomb inside before they left. He went in to look around and saw there had been a large, crystal chandelier that had fallen. He picked out a few of the crystals. He used them as decorations in his house when he got home. He also brought home some white tiles and one blue tile. He painted coats of arms of different French cities on them. When he got home, he framed them and has them hung on his wall. When he finished Pratt, he met his future wife and was looking for work. He found a job designing tags and labels. He found another job as an artist and stayed with the company for 31 years. They manufactured folding cartons. He did designs for toys, food, liquor, and pharmaceuticals. It was very interesting, and he looked forward to going into work.

Annotation

[Annotator's Note: There is a loud hissing noise throughout this clip.] Seymour Nussenbaum believes it is important to have The National WWII Museum [Annotator's Note: in New Orleans, Louisiana]. Nothing as catastrophic as a war should be forgotten. It is good to think that it might stop future wars. He feels the same about the Holocaust Museum [Annotator's Note: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.]. People should now what happened and how horrible it was. He donated his scrapbooks to the Museum [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum]. He thought it was important. Rick Beyer [Annotator's Note: documentary filmmaker, co-author with Elizabeth Sayles of "The Ghost Army of World II", president of Ghost Army Legacy Project] came to his house. Nussenbaum had found out about the Ghost Army Legacy Project via the internet. When Beyer saw the scrapbooks and said that if he had seen them before he made his film, the film would have been different. There was a lot he did not know about. Beyer broached the idea of what would happen to the books. Nussenbaum asked his family what he should do. In one voice, they said he should give them to the museum because it was important for other people to know what is in them. Nussenbaum wants to tell the people of the future to eliminate hate. It is useless. Nussenbaum made some friends in Europe. One day he went into the post office in Briey, France to buy some French stamps. The guy behind the counter either did not understand him or did not want to. A young man helped him and asked why he wanted the stamps. The man's father was the postmaster and he introduced them. He then invited him to his house. He made a friend. He and his wife invited him to dinner. Nussenbaum wanted to bring something, but there was nothing to buy. He decided to bring them oranges to eat. Their little girl had never eaten an orange. His wife gave him the recipe for her French onion soup. His mother made when he got home but said it was too complicated to make again. He also met Ted Severe [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] whose father was a friend of Nussenbaum's in the Army. They worked together creating a variety show called Blarney Breakdown [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. They would take popular music and put Army parodies on them. They would put up signs to get talent. It was great. Al Severe [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and Nussenbaum wrote all the parodies. They gave it twice and had full houses. There was talk of putting it on the road. The Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] came and that was the end of that. The stories should be told.

All oral histories featured on this site are available to license. The videos will be delivered via mail as Hi Definition video on DVD/DVDs or via file transfer. You may receive the oral history in its entirety but will be free to use only the specific clips that you requested. Please contact the Museum at digitalcollections@nationalww2museum.org if you are interested in licensing this content. Please allow up to four weeks for file delivery or delivery of the DVD to your postal address.