Now available on DVD and as a book, a new PBS documentary premiered last month about the little-known Ghost Army of American artists who helped defeat Hitler's forces in World War II.

Kept a classified secret until 1996, the Ghost Army was made up of such artists as minimalist painter Ellsworth Kelly and designer Bill Blass. The elite group of 1,100 soldiers in the U.S. Army's 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, dubbed the Ghost Army, is credited with saving thousands of lives in the Allied forces.

Camouflage artists were heavily recruited from the ranks of professional artists in World War I, and subterfuge has been used to fool enemy combatants for ages, but the Ghost Army in the Second World War took the art to a new level.

They designed and deployed inflatable tanks, airplanes, and artillery, and created sound effects and other illusionary tactics, to dupe the German army into thinking the Allied forces were greater and more widespread than they were.

A related exhibition of artwork by the Ghost Army soldiers was displayed until June 9 at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack, NY.

"Artists of Deception: The Ghost Army of World War II," a related book with 300 illustrations, by Rick Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles, is also available.