Harold Flinn, who has lived outside of Maquon for 67 years, was a member of a World War II U.S. Army unit so secret the soldiers outside the 1,100-man unit didn't know it was real.

MAQUON — Harold Flinn was a ghost.

Not the kind hunted on endless cable programming. Or seen in cemeteries and haunted houses.

The 90-year-old who has lived at Fruit Hill Farm outside of Maquon for 67 years was a member of a World War II U.S. Army unit so secret the soldiers outside the 1,100-man unit didn't know it was real. In fact, the military kept its existence secret until 1996.

And as Memorial Day approaches, Flinn agreed to tell some of the incredible stories of the Ghost Army.

“When I got out of high school, I had to sign up for the draft,” Flinn explained as he sat inside the farmhouse where his wife, Ruthann, was born and raised and where the couple returned to raise five biological children and one foster child.

“But the same day I signed up for the draft, I just decided to enlist. It was in 1943.”

Flinn never knew why he was considered to be a part of a secret Army Unit dedicated to deceiving the enemy.

“I took some tests, and then I got orders to Fort Monmouth in New Jersey,” he said. “And then we fiddled around there for a bit and I took some tests.

“I guess I did OK, because then they came to me and asked if I would be willing to keep a secret.”

It was a secret he had to keep from Ruthann, the woman he'd met at a Walgreen's soda fountain in Jacksonville, Illinois, when he was a student at Illinois College and she was attending MacMurray College. By early 1944, Flinn ended up at Pine Camp in New York. But not before he married his sweetheart on May 16, 1944.

“I never even knew he was at Pine Camp,” Ruthann explained. “I never knew where he was or which unit he was of. I went months and months never hearing from him.

“That's the way it was. That's what they needed to do.”

Until he reached Pine Camp, Flinn wasn't even sure what he faced. What he found was a small unit dedicated to deceiving the enemy through the use of sound, fake weapons and simple acts of misdirection.

The Ghost Army was officially known as the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops. The unit consisted of the 406th Combat Engineers (which handled security), the 603rd Camouflage Engineers, the 3132 Signal Service Company Special and the Signal Company Special.

Flinn was part of the 3132 Signal Service Company.

The 23rd Headquarters Special Troops used equipment pioneered by British forces — dummy tanks and artillery, fake aircraft and giant speakers broadcasting the sounds of men and artillery. The goal was make the enemy believe they faced a much larger force and deflect attention from the locations of larger allied combat units.

Flinn ended up in a half-track with a large metal speaker that used a string recorder to play sounds like bridge construction and radio conversations between units. The unit employed 18 of what were called “sonic half-tracks.” Two had metal speakers and other 16 used Jensen speakers.

“The Jensen's played the tank sounds better. And the explosions,” Flinn said. “It had a better bass range. The metal speakers were more realistic for human sounds and non-war sounds like building.”

From Pine Camp, Flinn and his unit headed to Stratford-upon-Avon in England. A few weeks after the D-Day Invasion of June 6, 1944, Flinn and his unit landed on Utah Beach and set about deceiving the German Army.

“I saw a lot of France,” Flinn said. “We were based in Luxembourg, but we were all over France.”

From June 1944 to March 1945, the Ghost Army staged 20 battlefield deceptions, beginning in Normandy and ending along the Rhine River. But the Ghost Soldiers had no real identity.

“We started out as part of the 6th Army — we were going to shadow them and throw the Germans off them. But that army was annihilated on D-Day. They just didn't have the guns to get close to the Germans.

“But we wore fake patches the entire time we were in Europe. When one of our guys was killed, they'd strip them of all their patches so no spy could suspect. We were just ghosts.

It was at the Rhine where the importance of what the Ghost Army was doing hit home for Flinn.

“We had some great sounds of bridge construction,” he said. “I mean, it was so good they even had the sounds of workmen talking and swearing. It was good.

“We were up river and our actual army was crossing down river. I think we did a job. The Germans shelled nothing for hours. I later heard that operation saved an estimated 10,000 lives.”

While Flinn served in secrecy, Ruthann had moved to Chicago to work as a room clerk at Presbyterian Hospital.

Harold returned home in August 1945 and took a job with Illinois Bell Telephone.

“We had an apartment — which a lot of people couldn't find in those days,” Flinn said. “But we got a chance to move back to Ruthann's family farm. This is the place she grew up.

“I was very lucky. It was great decision and I've never regretted it.”

Flinn said he has no regrets about his time in the Ghost Army. And he said the recent recognition of its achievements “isn't very important” to him.

“We did what we did,” he said. “It was a war and we fought it.”