C A M O U P E D I A: 2025

Monday, June 23, 2025

face camouflage / sidestep the flu by growing a beard

Above Rex Whistler, comic portrait (repeated five times) of a bearded man whose identity changes when positioned upsidedown (c1930).

•••

Anon, HIRSUTE VEIL CAMOUFLAGE IS FLU GERM DUPE, in Salt Lake Herald Republican, December 15, 1918, p. 48—

Further hint to the flu dodger—masquerade behind nature’s mask, the moustache. Or, as a further safeguard, raise whiskers.

’Tis thus some of the health authorities advise. A fuzzy growth, whether on lip or jowl, they explain, is a germ strainer. The burglarious bacillus, trying to break in, has about as much chance as a camel at the needle’s eye or a carrot in a colandar.

If the moustahe or whiskers prove to be real preventatives, lots of Salt Lake men who pine to retire from an ailing world will take the hirsute veil. Faces which would have been displayed merely as faces may take on the aspect of sylvan retreats and bosky dells. Razor and scythe will be laid away and phizes will be allowed to sprout in all their wild carefree abandon. Familiar countenances will be concealed behind an impenetrable camouflage and the only recognizable features when friend meets friend will be a pair of eyes, a twinkling nose and two untrammeled ears.

The local Adonis, whose finely-chiseled beauty won the hearts of all feminine beholders, will appear in his bewhiskered role as plain as a welcome mat. The homely citizen will resemble a discarded Christmas tree, which has reached a sere and yellow past. It will be a sad day for the barbers, but the hedge trimmers and landscape gardeners may build up a profitable business.

If Salt Lake men decide to go in for moustaches and whiskers, the caravan-series may become strangely quiet. For not a one of them will have the hardihood to order soup.

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circumvent the heat by disguising oneself as a julep

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O. Harvey, KNOW WHAT CAMO[U]FLAGE IS? WELL, THEN, HERE’S THE ANSWER, in The Telegram’s Daily Magazine, Salt Lake Telegram, September 8, 1917, p. 5—

I have decided to write a piece for the paper about a word that is not in the dictionary.

I get so reckless sometimes I don't care what I do.

Therefore I shall write a piece.

Old Man Webster knew a lot, but he didn't reckon on the war. You can read his well known books till you sprain an eye, but you won't see the word "Camouflage."

I don't know why, but it is so.

Camouflage is a bilking Industry with the libretto and music written by the French. The theory is to swindle the Germans' eyes. The Frenchmen cover themselves with a lot of leaves. They get the idea from Adam and Eve—but they don't pay any royalty on it.

After he is camouflaged up in a set of form fitting leaves, the Frenchman ankles off for a short vegetarian stroll toward the Kaiser's trenches. Some husky Boche tosses his optic toward him, but figures him out for a rhododendron bush rehearsing for a tableau vivant. First thing he knows, the rhododendron bush goes Democratic and poor old Hans is listed among the slightly killed, totally wounded or partially missing.

The idea of camouflage is to gyp the enemy. Give him one five for two tens. You heard about the cowboy who called on his best girl and found her bivouacking in another cowboy's lap. He pulled out his .45 caliber revolver to shoot the beauty spot off her false, deceiving chin, when she looks at him like page 256 in any of Ouida's novels.

"Do you believe your dearie, or do you believe your eyes?" she piped.

The poor fish believed his dearie, and they got married and lived snappily ever after. She had that fool cowboy all camouflaged up, with her metropolitan tongue and city ways.

Still, camouflage is no novelty among the unfair sex. A flapper will high heel along the macadamized turf, all ambushed up in a swarm of Dior Kiss. She will have a gang of summer furs lurking on her shoulders and a mob of paint, powder and other beauty utensils loitering on her face. She will have a complexion fairer than a supreme court decision. But when she gets home and starts to camouflage she puts on ten years for everything she takes off. She has one of those removable complexions. By the time that she has moulted her blonde hair, shed her automatic teeth and discarded her mechanical eye, she is older than hieroglyphics, and gaining every lap.

She has one of those folding complexions that you can carry in your handbag. The French have no monopoly on that camouflage institution.

Under the modern regime of beauty camouflage, everything about a woman's complexion Is detachable except her ears.

There are different branches of study In the camouflage curriculum. In Washington the senators have oratorical camouflage down to a science. Their specialty is painting word pictures, using their chin as a brush. There isn't a battle that the senate can't win with a few maxillary calisthenics. Rhetorical camouflage is great stuff, but you can't bridge the ocean with a pontoon of words. Any union senator with his vocal camouflagers on can build a fleet in three paragraphs or raise an army with a few chin excursions. Aesop's jackass had the camouflage Idea when he attended the zoo bal masque wearing the lion's coat and vest, but a few chirps of his fool mule tongue gummed his camouflage.

The gent who disguises himself behind a camouflage of women's skirts in order to escape military service to smaller than the Republican vote In Alabama. A guy that little can ambush himself behind a canceled postage stamp. The slackers are utilizing a camouflage of women's skirts, dependent relatives, conscientious objections, flat feet, weak heart and weaker knees. Which Is a camouflage that falls to camouflage by quite a few flages. And a culprit who tries to hide behind a woman's petticoats would have to pass his career in a bureau drawer. That's where the ladies are wearing their pettyskirts. We read the Delineator.

The paramount idea of camouflage is to create an aura of low visibility which will enable you to ramble around in safety. The chameleon has the right idea, and one that might be elaborated. For instance, a bill collector would never find you if you were camouflaged as a waste basket. All the props you need for this ambush is a loose wicker basket and a hat made of old newspapers, vacant letters and unraveled souvenir postcards. You can circumvent the heat by camouflaging yourself as a mint julep. With enough practice you can become a perfect julep. Even your wife will be unable to detect the difference on your breath.

Peace hath her camouflages as well as war. With a lIttle cranial dexterity and a few cerebral gymnastics, camouflaging can be utilized to alleviate the inconveniences of civilization.

There will be a camouflage for every ill.

Of course, in the case of a poor henpecked husband, we can paint no disguise with a brush.

The only camouflage will is distance. And you will have to paint that with your heels.

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Sunday, June 22, 2025

women are expert camoufleurs / it is their middle name

Cartoon, Fay King 1918
CAMOUFLAGE IS MIDDLE NAME OF WOMAN: EXPERIENCED IN KEEPING WILLIE ‘HALF-FARE’: IF SHE CAN PAINT RED CRAWFISH ON PLATTERS, CLOUDS WOULD COME EASY

by Fay King, San Francisco Examiner, May 20, 1918

In my humble opinion, if there is one branch of the service that we women oughta excell in it’s CAMOUFLAGE.

If I had my way I’d give every woman a job in the camouflage department, and is she’s over forty she’s a master of the art.

Figure it out for yourself. A perfect forty-eight has been looking like a perfect thirty-six for centuries.

Give any woman three days’ notice and a good dressmaker and she can be hippy or hippless, according to fashion’s decree. She can look like Mrs. Vernon Castle or Maxine Elliott or whoever happens to be the most copied at the time, even if she has a face as hilly as San Francisco.

The wife of a small salaried man has long camouflaged as the wife of a steel magnate.

She can make a table full of dishes look like a square meal. Can you imagine what a cinch she’d have making a battleship look like a bucket?

Camouflage is woman’s middle name—why not make it her “bit”?

SURELY her experience at keeping Willie looking like a half-fare is proof enough of her success.

A lip stick and a powder puff have won many a husband for a clever woman. She could certainly win a war with a barrel of paint and a ton of powder.

She’s been painting red crawfish so long on platters and buttercups on butter dishes, she’d not have the slightest difficulty in designing storm clouds on ship masts, waves on battle-boats and daisies on the nose of a cannon.

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WWI swimsuit camouflage / latest fashion clothing fad

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Saturday, June 21, 2025

broken figures / the ruling style at present was dazzle

Cover of Jack London's novel (1902)

As we are once again learning at this point in American life, even if something is blatantly false, it can be widely assumed to be true, if it continues to be repeated. Over many decades of researching the history of modern-era camouflage (ship camouflage specifically), I’ve watched as people have increasingly claimed that Americans popularly referred to disruptively-patterned WWI ship camouflage as razzle dazzle.

While it is true that the British called it dazzle or dazzle-painting when they officially adopted that approach in 1917, neither they nor the Americans called it razzle-dazzle. They certainly could have, since the term was in use (in the US) and would have been appropriate, but they chose not to. If anything, the Americans called it baffle painting, in part because they were reluctant to use the term that the British had already chosen. Another proposed American term was jazz painting, but eventually, dazzle won the day.

In earlier posts we’ve talked about the etymology of razzle-dazzle and its relevance to ship camouflage. Two other more recent findings may provide additional help—

First, the term is central to an autobiographical novel, titled The Cruise of the Dazzler, by American writer Jack London (1902). In that novel, the central character named John Barleycorn purchases a sloop named the Dazzler, which is central to the book. At age fifteen, London himself had purchased a comparable boat, called the Razzle Dazzle, with which he harvested oysters to sell to restaurants in the San Francisco Bay. So the term was commonly in use, but far in advance of WWI proposals for wartime ship camouflage.

Second, it may be helpful to quote a passage from a magazine called Clothier and Furnisher (January 1889), which claims that razzle-dazzle was current as American English slang as early as 1886, and suggests that the following passage may be its first use in print—

My confrère, The Chevalier, last month gave a new name to the scarfs of disjointed pattern when he called them the razzle-dazzle. The name was evidently a hit of the most patent character, for in several avenue and Broadway stores the clerks have thrown out a display of broken figures before me and explained that the ruling style at present was the razzle-dazzle, and the word seems to have been equally effective with the public, for when it is quoted by the live salesman, the customer, I am told is at once interested and caught by it.

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Friday, June 20, 2025

failed camouflage / wife's hat must not be so employed

Above This cartoon was published in the Boston Sunday Post on September 23, 1932. The title reads ABRAHAMSON'S CAMOUFLAGE FAILETH with the subtitle of WIFE'S HAT MUST NOT BE SO USED. Where one might expect the artist's name, it simply reads "(Silent Comic.)"

So—who might that "silent comic" be? There is an unreadable signature of sorts at the bottom right. It might possibly be MEB or Michael Edward Brady (1896-1941). But I doubt it.

One of Brady’s other cartoons was published beside it on the same newspaper page, and the layout makes it confusing to know if this one is his also. Regardless, there is a helpful article about Brady’s life, written by Alex Jay, which can be accessed here online.

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Friday, June 6, 2025

the perils of counterfeiting / a George H. Blair cartoon

Above This is a camouflage-related cartoon from 1918. It was drawn by George H. Blair, who was a Boston-area newspaper artist and cartoonist. I don’t know where it was first published (this is a restored and rearranged version) but it may have been the Boston Globe. Blair was not a camoufleur, and the relevance of this cartoon and camouflage may be a stretch. Someone in the cartoon—namely Uncle Zeke’s ram Old Ben—has been hoodwinked into thinking that a painting of a ram is the same as the thing itself, a counterfeit. My friend and colleague of many years, plant ecologist Paul Whitson and I once collaborated on an essay that addressed the same subject, titled “Mimicry, Metaphor and Mistake,” which can be accessed here online.

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EASY MONEY ADOPTS OLD STUNT: Takes Dollar Bills and Makes Tens Out of Them: Neat Piece of Work: Camouflaged Bill Discovered Today at Bank Where It Was Deposited—Report Made to US Treasury in Alexandria Gazette (Alexandria VA) November 7, 1919—

Making tens out of ones is the art some enterprising Alexandrian just now is engaged in. In other words the guilty party is taking Uncle Sam's perfectly good one dollar bills and converting them into $10 bills.

The deception was discovered this morning when a victim of the clever camouflage presented the supposed $10 with his usual morning bank deposit.

The counterfeiter it was admitted had done a rather clever piece of work which while it might not pass the average banker it certainly would fool the average busy merchant.

The master camouflager had taken the edges of four ten dollar bilk and cut off a sufficient part from each one to make the figure naught and to all intents and purposes had produced a perfectly good ten dollar bill by using a little glue to help complete the deception.

The bank officials have made a report of the work of the counterfeiter and efforts probably will be made by the Secret Service men to chase the frenzied financier down.

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Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Noel Martin, Ralston Crawford as WWII Camoufleurs

Noel Martin exhibition poster

Canadian-born American artist Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) is usually said to have been a Precisionist, with the result that his paintings (and photographs) are typically grouped with those of Joseph Stella, Charles Demuth and Charles Sheeler. Until recently, I hadn’t realized that, early in his career, Crawford worked as an illustrator at the Walt Disney Studio. Later, in the 1930s to early 1940s, he taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati.

In 1942, at age 36, Crawford received a World War II draft notice. As an experienced photographer, he asked to be assigned to photography for the US Navy. But when he failed to meet the Navy’s requirements, he applied for the camouflage division of the US Engineers Corps. He despised basic training, so much so that he later said that “the enemy was not Hitler, or Mussolini” but what he described as those “those miserable, stupid and sometimes vicious people” who trained recruits “in modern assasination techniques.” As a result, he asked to be assigned to the Weather Division of the Visual Presentation Unit (producing training materials, such as instructional drawings, models, and filmstrips).

While teaching in Cincinnati, one of Crawford students had been a young man named Noel Martin (1922-2009). From 1942-45, Martin served in the US Army as a specialist in camouflage and information. After the war, Martin was asked to design various information brochures for the Cincinnati Art Museum. He learned about the printing process from a craftsman at the museum, and then gradually taught himself the rudiments of graphic design, a profession not then taught in art schools because (in Martin’s words) of “art school snobbery.” Other prominent graphic designers and illustrators who were associated with the Art Academy of Cincinnati at about the same time were Malcolm Grear and Charley Harper.

Beginning in 1986, I taught illustration and graphic design at the Art Academy of Cincinnati until 1990. Noel Martin had more or less retired as the museum's designer, but he was still in the area.

By that time, I had published a number of articles and one book on art and camouflage. When I learned that Martin had been a WWII camoufleur, I arranged to meet with him for lunch. We talked about his camouflage service, and I jotted down some cryptic notes. I no longer know their whereabouts (although I have them somewhere), but one thing that I do recall is that he mentioned several others whom he knew who had also served as camoufleurs. Of those I clearly remember, one was Victor Christ-Janer (1915-2008).

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Monday, June 2, 2025

William Twigg Smith / New Zealand-born Camoufleur

In earlier blog posts we’ve talked about a New Zealand-born artist, named William Twigg-Smith (1882-1950) who was one of the first members of the American Camouflage Corps during World War I. Through online searches of vintage newspapers, it’s not difficult to find quite a few articles about him. Among the most thorough is a lengthy full page article by Mike Jay titled Twigg Smith Camoufleur: Camouflage Saved France from the Huns, which was published on page 1 of the Magazine Section of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin (July 12, 1919). An image of the article (not readable obviously) is reproduced above, and the article’s full text is as follows—

•••

Art for art's sake and camouflage for land's sake!

Camouflage saved the land of France, held the ground time and time again in the big German advances. Without it the gun positions would have been more readily detected by the enemy and progress of the Huns would have been more rapid and swift and perhaps might have fully succeeded. By the time the United States entered the war, France and the French troops knew full well the great life and land value of camouflage.

But to the American officers making their first appearance on the firing line "over there"—well!

"Suffering cats and blue blazes! We're here to fight, not hide! Whadda we want with that old stuff?"

That's the way they talked at the beginning. Then came the first mild shower of shells from an unknown and unseen source miles away and brought them around in double quick time with a request for all that "old stuff" such as wire, nets, burlap, screens, twigs and other material that goes to make up camouflage.

Later on, when these selfsame officers had endured it hot and heavy, their tendency was to swing too far into the other direction and to burrow into the ground for concealment of their guns with the camouflage section of the Fortieth Engineers, AEF.

Though born In Nelson, New Zealand, Smith was to all intents and purposes an American long before he secured his naturalization papers while in France on service for Uncle Sam. He was a student at art schools in San Francisco, Chicago and New York and had visited Honolulu eight or nine times before his start for France in 1917.

He landed on French soil on January 7, 1918, and was sent almost directly to the front. He remained at the front until within three days of the signing of the armistice, when he was ordered to an officers' training camp.

"Talk about trouble, I guess we had ours, all right," he remarks on the subject of camouflage for the American guns In France.

"After experimenting for many weary months with color schemes, different systems of coverings, various styles of screens and other stuff, the American camoufleurs finally decided upon a plan that worked to perfection. Not only could the gun position be hidden from ground observers but so well was the plan worked out that it was absolutely impossible to detect such a position even by photographs from the air.

"The French system of camouflage was on the burrow style with a little opening forward for the gun. The top was screened and carried twigs and other material to give it the appearance of the ground.

"That was fine so long as there was no aerial observation. But a photograph taken from an airplane immediately detected the shadows cast by the hump of the mound and the first thing that happened was a shell In the vicinity from a Hun gun."

After trying some 40 different styles, the American camouflage section decided upon a wire screening with strips of burlap hanging down. There were large open places in the top of this netting which made some of the officers think that it was not effective. But it certainly was. These strips cast a series of mottled shadows that photographed exactly like ground would under a tree and gave it such a natural appearance that it was impossible of detection. That was camouflage carried to the highest degree.

"The color scheme entered into this as well. The French had worked that out nicely. We practically used their systems of mottled colors for varied conditions. But the system of shadow casting was entirely our own.

"There was considerable difference in the systems of keeping up the camouflage work also. The English maintained 'dumps' all along their sectors and issued a catalogue of the various kinds of camouflage in store. When request for a certain kind was made a pamphlet of printed directions was sent up with the material of any point on the front. It was then up to the gunners themselves to put the camouflage in place.

"The French also maintained 'dumps' and their camouflage section would give word-of-mouth advice together with a lot of artistic terms as to the manner of placing it. They were strong on watching the color schemes. The artillerymen had to put up their own camouflage, however.

"The Americans on the other hand aimed to have men aways on the front. These men would issue from the 'dumps' and wherever possible herd a gang of trained workers with each division to attend to supervision of concealing a battery. Inspections were made daily to see that discipline was carried out. The camouflage section always had the last word In the matter. If it was negative to movements on dangerous grounds its word was followed. It it was agreeable then the rest of the authorities could thresh it out.

"The older officers, especially those who had served with the British and French troops before coming into the United States army, recognized the worth of camouflage without question and strictIy enforced the orders of the deception division. Just to give an idea, here's a case in point.

"In a position near Bois Chanot, in the vicinity of Beaumont, there was a light fall of snow one morning. The camouflage section immediately requested no movements in order to keep from making tracks to battery position. Orders were issued by the commanding officer of the battery to shoot anyone attempting to get off the paths wired out by the camouflage section.

"General Summeral of the 1st Division was a great crank on camouflage. He learned by bitter experience. He thought it 'all bunk' at first, but later issued orders that no camouflage be attempted without advice and direction of the camouflage section.

"One of the favorite tricks at the front was to use a position a great deal for a few nights and then move out, at the same time keeping up appearances of activity. A fire at times to make a lot of smoke. This would draw the fire and detract the enemy attention from a new position a few hundred yards to the right or left of the old.

"On the other hand some of the artillery officers seemed to think that anything sent out by the camouflage section was endowed with magic powers of concealment. Without any reference as to its fitness in the natural scheme they would drape the material over the ammunition guns in such a manner that if anything it made the position more conspicuous. And they would be well satisfied with the job until a camouflage section man came along to rave and tear his hair and straighten the thing out.

"The camouflage section was composed of artists, sculptors, house painters, marble workers, tile layers, bricklayers, builders, carpenters and if I remember right we even had a former parson one section. They were all trained at the school conducted back of the lines before, they went to the front to work. Some of them proved grand little camoufleurs, too.
"One stunt that was started by our section and taken up with avidity was that of laying temporary camouflage for guns on the march when making a short halt. The first thing gunners were ordered to do at a halt was to cut branches and arrange them over the field pieces. This saved many a gun from a sad fate. The gunners could always find room beneath the canopy of branches in times of stress."

Twigg Smith brought back with him from France a big collection of photographs of camouflage work, some of which are published today for the first time. These are unique pictures in that they show actual work done by the camoufleurs to protect guns, screen roads and conceal movement of either guns or troops.

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Tuesday, May 27, 2025

aha / painting cheese on the moon in a lunar eclipse

Above US Government photograph of American artist (and wartime camoufleur) Charles Bittinger painting an eclipse of the moon on site, as it happens.

•••

Anon, The Avalanche Echo (Glenwood Springs CO), February 27, 1919—

Camouflager Charley DeWitt , son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank DeWitt, is home accompanied by his wife. He was in service at the front as a camouflager and saw active service for two months. He is a pretty good boy to get acquainted with for he has learned a trick or two about painting cheese on the moon to make the Germans look that way while other khaki boys stole towards Berlin.

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Sunday, May 4, 2025

airplane plants camouflaged by set designers in WWII

Lockheed plant (before)

Lockheed plant (after)

Above and below Various US government views of a WWII aircraft factory, concealed from aerial view by suspended imitations of suburban neighborhoods.

•••

Susan Elia MacNeal, THE HOLLYWOOD SPY: A Maggie Hope Mystery. New York: Bantam, 2021.

They passed through tall, imposing gates to a security checkpoint, and John showed his identification. "Yes, Flight Commander Sterling," one of the guards said, a lean man with a bulbous nose. "Mr. Hughes told us you'd be here this afternoon—and bringing a guest." He waved them through.

As they walked into the giant wooden hangar, Maggie looked around. Men in coveralls, and even one woman—her hair tied up in a Rosie the Riveter bandanna—were working on the planes. The air smelled faintly of oil and jet fuel. "Impressive," she said, voice lost in the cavernous space.

"Takeoffs to the west have to be coordinated with the Los Angeles International Airport," John said.

Warplanes going to the Pacific, Maggie realized. "Where are the factories?"

"Close by, but hidden. The defense companies worked with set designers to camouflage the plants—they've even gone so far as to put fake grass and wooden cows on the roofs.”

"That's very...Hollywood."

above and below ground views

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Saturday, May 3, 2025

Wol I thought you was part of the camouflage scheme

Above Charles Grave, cartoon from Punch, January 23, 1918: Docker (to Jack, who has been silently regarding him). “Wot yer starin’ at, Nosey?” Jack: “You shouldn’t have spoke, mate. I thought you was part of the cammyflage scheme.”

•••

CAP’N CALEB’S CAMOUFLAGE in Punch, June 12, 1918, p. 374.

He was an object of interest in the bar of “The Sloop,” for he was one of the crew of a vessel which had been torpedoed off the headland during the night, and he had been landed with other survivors at the fishing village that morning.

“Yes, it gives yer a shock being torpedoed,” he said in answer to a question; “but I'm orlright now, and I'll be better when I've 'ad some more beer. I ain't lost my thirst, not that you could notice, though I was blown up in the air when the torpedo 'it us, and came down in the sea.”

The questioner took the hint and ordered another pint of beer, which the shipwrecked mariner drank deliberately with the air of a connoisseur.

“It ain't bad beer that, boss," he remarked politely to the landlord; "but I reckon a man would get waterlogged before 'e could get drunk on it.”

The landlord smiled and discreetly turned the oonversation back to the subject of the submarine menace.

“No, I ain't afraid o’ submarines, but my missus is;” said the mariner; ”that's why I'm 'ere. I’ve been torpedoed twice this year, and my missus is to blame. But it serves me right for listening to ‘er and leavin’ the old Saucy Anne.”

“It all comes o’ this cammyflage ideas,” he went on with a heavy sigh. "If it ‘adn't been for old Cap'n Caleb's a-cammyflagin‘ the Saucy Anne the missus'd never've got the wind up about submarines and I'd never've been torpedoed. And I wouldn't be standin’ ‘ere now with an empty glass in me ‘and."

It was the landlord who took the hint this time end hastened to remedy the defect.

It was like this, y'see," resumed the victim of camouflage when he had again refreshed himself. "I was third mate on the Saucy Anne—not that third mate meant much, 'cos the crew was only four all told and the Saucy Anne was a little old steamer o' two hundred ton gross. But she was a nice little craft, and old Cap'n Caleb Collins, what was master and owner, was one o' the best—treated us more like pals! than a crew, 'e did.

”Five year I'd been third mate on the Saucy Anne when the War started, bringin' coal from Cardiff to Port Carbis, and home regular every ten days. Cap’n Caleb ’ad been doin’ that for twenty year, and he jest went on doin' it and never worried hisself about the, War.

“Then the German submarines started their dirty work and sunk a Port Carbis boat; but our old man took no notice and kep' on sailin' reg’lar—said he'd like to see any blinkin' German tryin' to sink 'im. Well, two more Port Carbis vessels was sunk, and some o' the other skippers starts what they calls ‘protectin’ themselves'; but Cap'n Caleb never did nothin'. Then a chap in uniform comes down to Port Carbis and he starts explainin' this 'ere cammy-flagin' idea to the owners.”

He paused to empty his glass once more, wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand and proceeded with his story.

"The officer, or whatever he was, tells Cap'n Caleb about paintin' the Saucy Anne to cammyflage 'er, and the old man listens attentive. ‘Yes,' says 'e, I sees the notion, Sir. The old ship could do with a coat o' paint, 'er not 'aving 'ad much this seven year, and I'll see about cammyflagin’ 'er myself. We've got some artist chaps 'ere in Port Carbis,' says the Cap'n, and I'll 'are the Saucy Anne cammyflaged proper,' 'e says.

"So Cap'n Caleb 'e lays the old ship up for a week, runs 'er inter a boat-builder's yard and gets an artist and a sign-painter from the town to come and 'ave a go at cammyflagin' the Saucy Anne. He never let none o’ the crew nor nobody see 'er, and when the painters was done 'e 'as 'er refloated, but with big tarpaulins 'anging down 'er sides to protect the new cammyflage paint, 'e says. Not till we was loaded and casting off from the quay does 'e let us reef them tarpaulins.

"I knowed there was something funny about as as soon as the Saucy Anne starts steamin’ out o' the 'arbour,' 'cos the crowd on the jetty starts runnin' along to watch us, and some of 'em cheered and waved their 'ats. So I takes a good squint overside to see wind our now caummyflage looks like—and I nearly fell overboard with the shock when I sees what Cap'n Caleb 'ad 'ad done.

"There was a big Union Jack painted right down the bows o' the Saucy Anne; 'er sides was painted bright blue; and in white letters on 'em—big white letters you could have read a mile away almost—right along from the bows to the stern, there was painted:—

‘BRITISH—AND DAMN YOUR SUBMARINES!'”

The listeners in the bar of “The Sloop" gasped, restrained an inclination to cheer, and some of them almost struggled for the privilege of buying the shipwrecked mariner more beer.

“Surprised? You're right," he resumed with a reminiscent grin. "I was surprised, so was the rest of the crew, and so was everybody in Port Carbis. When the bloke at the Admiralty station on the point outside the bay saw us 'o nearly 'ad 'ysterics and starts wagging flags at us; but Cap’n Caleb takes no notice. ‘I'il give 'em cammyllage’ he says, looking as proud as punch.”

“Well, we gets to Cardiff, and a fine how-d'-ye-do there was there, I can tell yer. ‘I reckon they think the Saucy Anne is the Royal yacht,' says the Cap’n solemn-like, when they starts cheerin’ us from other ships and blowin' sirens, and a crowd comes down to the wharf to welcome us. We all had plenty o' free beer that night—all 'cept the Cap'n, ‘im being a teetotaler end never drinkin' nothin' but gin.

In the morning down comes an old chap with gold braid and brass buttons to the wharf, just as Cap'n Caleb was standin' admirin' the Saucy Anne. 'E takes a look at our ship, then 'e goes red in the face.

“‘Wot does this moan, Cap’n?’ ‘e says.

“'That's my cammyflage, Sir,' says Cap'n Caleb, 'aud that’s my motter on the ship's side.’

“The old bloke in the gold braid starts argyfyin', but I could see 'e was laughin’ inside, and presently he shakes 'ands with our old man, gives ‘im a cigar and goes away.

"Well, to cut a lomg story short, we sails back to Port Carbis, and there's a crowd to meet us, cheerin' like billyoh; but when I gets ashore them's my missus on the quay, cryin’ ‘er eyes out. Said she'd never expected to see me again, and begged an’ prayed too not to make another voyage in the Saucy Anne. She said it was temptin' Providence to sail in a vessel painted like that, and we'd get torpedoed next trip as sure as sure.

I argues with 'er till I was nearly black in the face, then I gives way and does what she asks for the sake of peace and quiet. Cap'n Caleb 'o said it was like deserting in face of the enemy, but I left ‘im for the sake of the missus and got another ship."

He gazed into his glass and mournfully shook his head.

"Yes, it's all the fault of the missus," he concluded with a sigh. "I tried another ship, and got torpedoed first voyage, and now 'ere I am torpedoed again. It's almost enough to make a man turn teetotal. The Saucy Anne’s still runnin’ and never been touched; but I did ‘ear as the Admiralty made Cap'n Caleb put some other kind o' cammyflage on her."

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Sunday, April 27, 2025

Edwin Howland Blashfield / was he a ship camoufleur

Edwin Howland Blashfield

During his life time, American artist Edwin Howland Blashfield (1848-1936) was typically referred to as “the dean of American muralists.”

We have mentioned him twice in earlier blog posts, because of his connection to the American Camouflage Corps, a civilian camouflage group that was initiated in 1917 by muralist Barry Faulkner and sculptor Sherry Edmundson Fry. But if he had any involvement in ship camouflage, we were not aware of that.

Here’s what we found: In an obituary in The Quincy Evening News (Quincy MA) on October 13, 1936, an article titled CAMOUFLAGER OF WARSHIPS DIES AT CAPE SUMMER HOME stated that Blashfield was “in charge of camouflaging US vessels during the World War.”

The article goes on to claim that “On the advice of President Wilson, the war department in 1917 placed Blashfield in charge of camouflaging American ships traversing the submarine zones. Blashfield was awarded the Legion of Honor medal by the French government.”

Really? That’s amazing. In fifty-five years of researching and writing about ship camouflage, we don't recall any other mention of Edwin Blashfield in connection to ship camouflage? Additional digging may be in store.

This is what we knew before: that Faulkner and Fry “were the prime movers in the American camouflage. They enlisted the aid of others—Walter Hale, Edwin Blashfield, J. Alden Weir and men of similar distinction and called a meeting…Mr. Blashfield was made chairman and Mr. Fry secretary. The Washington was notified, and an appreciative letter returned from the office of the Chief of Staff.”

Beyond his elusive connection to wartime camouflage, Blashfield was primarily known as one of the country's leading muralists. In 1893 in Chicago, he designed the dome of one of the buildings at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. H also painted the murals on the central dome of the Main Reading Room at the Library of Congress.

Blashfield mural in Iowa State Capitol [detail]

In 1915, he created a large mural (see detail below), titled Westward (14 feet high by 40 feet wide), in the State Capitol of Iowa that was intended to portray Manifest Destiny. It was, in Blashfield’s words, “a symbolical presentation of the Pioneers led by the spirits of Civilization and Enlightenment to the conquest by cultivation of the Great West.” There may be few better phrases than “conquest by cultivation” to describe the fate of indigenous wildlife and peoples, and the on-going current decline of the region’s livability, not by armed raids but by poisons.

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Thursday, April 24, 2025

WPA artists / engineers also worked on camouflage

Recently, while preparing a talk about the Depression-era WPA (Works Progress Administration), I was surprised to find how many American camouflage artists were also involved in various WPA public art projects. Below is one example of that—

WPA SEEKING OKAY ON ROAD CAMOUFLAGE in Greensburg Daily Tribune (Greensburg PA), October 18, 1940—

Traverse City MI—WPA engineers at a conference here disclosed plans are under consideration for a camouflage project to conceal highways and gun emplacements.

The project, discussed at a conference of national, regional and state WPA engineers, would be undertaken by Michigan artists. Huge camouflage nets would be spread over strategic defense spaces and military objectives, it was disclosed.

Approval of the project was awaited from Washington.

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Tuesday, April 22, 2025

camouflage / war work training for art school students

Ad, The Boston Post, June 8, 1941

WAR WORK FEATURE FOR ART STUDENTS in Trenton Evening Times (Trenton NJ), September 18, 1918—

All classes at the [Trenton] School of Industrial Arts this year are being conducted with the special aim of making them worthwhile to the student for war purposes. At present there are many former students engaged in war service, some in camouflage work, and others in poster making. Much more poster work will be done this year than usually, notwithstanding that this has always been an important field of activity.

Emphasis is being laid also on the classes in fine art, as it is felt that students in this branch will have unusual opportunities when the war ceases. In the industrial revival which will sweep over the country, designers will be needed in almost unlimited numbers, and this is an ideal time for them to prepare.…

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Monday, April 21, 2025

stained glass artist / WWI camoufleur / bird enthusiast

Len R. Howard, Grace Church window

Surely, there can’t be many people—outside of those who specialize in stained glass window design— who have ever heard of a British-born American artist named Len R. Howard. Born Leonard Richard Howard in London on August 2, 1891, he became a youthful apprentice at a large British stained glass company, James Powell and Sons. He had also attended school at St. Martins and the Camberwell Art School in London.

Howard moved to the US in 1913, where he studied in New York at the Art Students League, and Pratt Institute. He was living in Boston in June 1917, when he registered for the draft. He had moved to the US from England in 1913. Two years later, he married an American woman named Madeleine Copping, and began to apply for citizenship. Soon after, they settled in New England, and Howard continued his studies at the Copley Society in Boston.

World War I began in Europe in 1914, but the US did not enter the war until 1917. In that year, Howard joined the army, and was assigned to the Camouflage Corps of the AEF, during which he served in France.

Len R. Howard

When the war ended, he returned to the US, where he worked for the Gorham Company in New York. In 1922, he and his wife settled in Kent CT, where he established his own commercial studio, where he designed stained glass windows. According to an article in the Scarsdale Inquirer (March 2, 1951), “His windows are in business buildings, churches and schools all over the country.”

During the Depression, Howard was commissioned by the WPA Federal Arts Project to complete a stained glass window, titled American Literature, for the high school in New Milford CT. Years later (c1963), he also designed a major window for Grace Church in Milbrook NY. That window, known as "the Lincoln window" (shown at the top of this blog post) was initially controversial because it portrays Abraham Lincoln as a “savior,” and because its imagery includes a reference to a slave auction.

Whatever the circumstances, Howard was also interested in birds. He was the author of two unusual books on the subject (both illustrated with photographs and drawings), titled Birds as Individuals, and Living with Birds. There is online access to both at Internet Archive. He continued to work into his eighties. He died in 1987 in Arkansas.

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Sunday, April 20, 2025

architects / they have an eye for the looks of things

Above Photograph of Homer Saint-Gaudens, by De Witt Clinton Ward.

•••

HOLLYWOOD PROP MEN ABLE AT WAR CAMOUFLAGE in The Boston Globe, January 15, 1942, p. 12—

WASHINGTON January 15 (AP)—Hollywood “prop” men—the chaps who design the stage sets for the movie stars—make the best prospects for military camouflage work, an Army expert on strategic concealment asserted today.

Lieut. Col. Homer Saint-Gaudens, Harvard-educated head of the camouflage branch of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, said in an article in the Military Engineer:

"Our best men are moving picture property men. They not only have camouflage ideas, but they understand the application of those ideas. They are resourceful; they are disciplined; they have an eye for the looks of things: they can build you the answer."

The colonel, who was himself stage director for actress Maude Adams. and is director of fine arts, Carnegie Institute, says that when a would-be camouflage worker comes to his desk and declares he is a marvellous painter, he (Saint-Gaudens) makes this reply:

"That's okay. But let me have a look at your hands. How are your feet? Can you lug 60 pounds 20 miles and do it again the next day?

"Yes, I remember that set where Robert Taylor makes love to Hedy Lamarr. You say you designed it and helped build it, too? You are just the young man we are looking for."

Saint-Gaudens, who received numerous decorations for his camouflage work during the first World War, said the best camouflage officers, the ones who direct the workers, are young erst-while architects."

Such men, he declared, have "already learned to cope with the builders of new houses who insist on having the stairs and the clothes closet in the same place.”

•••

Below Page spread from an article by Edwin Schallert, Trick Photography in the Gold Rush, in Science and Invention (December 1925), pp. 714-715, showing various special effects and scenic props used in the filming of the Charlie Chaplin comedy The Gold Rush.

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