geological dazzle painting / as in a certain small island

agate pattern

Author and exact source unknown, in Blackwood's Magazine, c1922—

[The appearance of a certain small island] is very remarkable. It consists of a rounded lump of hills, with three or four central conical peaks, seven hundred feet high. The lower parts, all completely barren, are striped. and patched, and barred with a geological "dazzle-painting" in ochre and red, brown, purple, and buff, while the surmounting cones, in strong contrast, are pure white. The whole effect is that of some monstrous pudding, standing on the blue-and-white plate of the sea, over whose apex has been poured (in pre-war days!) a large jug of thick cream.

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

Camoufleur Donates Materials to Brooklyn Museum

US Navy photograph of ship camoufleur Everett L. Warner

Brooklyn Museum. Report Upon the Conditions and Progress of the Museums for the Year Ending 1919, p. 16—

Mr. Everett L. Warner, the etcher, gave to the Library a quantity of material on camouflage consisting of photographs, diagrams, postcards, etc., which was a welcome addition to our file of such material.

RELATED LINK

Disruption versus dazzle

B.J.O. Nordfeldt's connection to WWI ship camouflage

Portrait of B.J.O. Nordfeldt

Above This image is cited on Wikipedia Commons as a portrait of Swedish-American artist Bror Julius Olsson Nordfeldt. An etching dated 1935, it is presumably a self-portrait since he is also listed as having made it (yet, oddly the signature seems to read Schneider). It is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Chicago Society of Etchers.

We have blogged about Nordfeldt before, and with good reason. As we noted in an earlier post in 2019, Nordfeldt designed ship camouflage for the US Shipping Board during World War I in San Francisco. He was a fascinating character, with an all but unbelievable breadth of interests and capabilities. In addition to his involvement in ship camouflage, he was also an early participant in the art colony at Provincetown MA (he designed sets for the Provincetown Players) and eventually settled in New Mexico, where he was associated with the Taos Society of Artists.

Recently we ran across a news article about an exhibition of his artwork, titled “Nordfeldt Shows Interesting Work” in the Oakland Tribune, November 10, 1918, p. 6. That review concludes with this curious note:

Mr. Nordfeldt is in San Francisco at the rquest of the government, in charge of the camouflage department of the shipyards.

Would he tell us, if we cross our hearts not to tell, what the plan is that he and his conferes are following with the ships that go down to the sea?

There are those among us—good Americans at that—who are wondering “Who’s looney now?”

The USS Western Spirit (shown below) was most likely one of the ships whose dazzle camouflage Nordfeldt was responsible for.

USS Western Spirit c1918 (digital coloring)

RELATED LINKS    

 Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work?

 Nature, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

 Optical science meets visual art

 Disruption versus dazzle

 Chicanery and conspicuousness

 Under the big top at Sims' circus

World War I marine camouflage exhibited in Brooklyn

Above An official US Navy photograph (digital coloring) of Lieutenant Harold Van Buskirk, who was head of the Camouflage Section (comprised of two sub-sections) in the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair during World War I. He is applying the finishing touches on the "dazzle" camouflage pattern on a scale model of an American ship. Notice the completed models on the background storage shelf.

Once the model was completed, it was taken to a testing theatre, equipped with a periscopic viewing device and changeable seascape backgrounds. The viewer was challenged to estimate the angle of the model as it was positioned on an adjustable platform (as shown in a photograph of Navy camoufleurs Van Buskirk and Kenneth MacIntire ).

•••

Exhibit of Marine Camouflage in Science, Vol 50 No 1287, c1919, p. 205—

The Brooklyn Museum Quarterly describes a special exhibit held at the museum of models, design. and other objects illustrating the practice and some of the principles of marine camouflage. The exhibition was arranged by the curator of the department of natural science, and was made possible through the interest and cooperation of Mr. William A. Mackay, of the United States Shipping Board, camoufleur of the Second Naval District, and Lieutenants Harold Van Buskirk and Everett L. Warner, of the Camouflage Section, Bureau of Construction and Repair, United States Navy. Numerous other naval officers, members of the American Society of Marine Camoufleurs, and others, also contributed to the success of the exhibit by lending illustrative material.

A aeries of photographs made in the naval laboratories at Washington DC, and Rochester NY, showed successive stages of the experimental work by means of which the colors and patterns employed in the camouflage designs had been arrived at. These illustrations included views of the elaborate periscopic theater at Rochester, in which painted models of ships were tested under conditions which simulated, in all essential respects, the open ocean. The history of marine camouflage was briefly traced by means of labels and colored models, while approved as well as experimental designs of the "low-visibility" type, the British and American "dazzles," and the French system, were shown by means of models, photographs and colored lithographs issued by the Navy Department.

A case in the center of the exhibition room contained a miniature convoy of transports in charge of a cruiser and a flotilla of destroyers, each camouflaged model an exact replica of its namesake, or, rather, the original working model from which the transport or war vessel had been camouflaged. A simple, illuminated theater, equipped with a periscope, enabled visitors to observe a model as if from a submarine point of view, and moreover, demonstrated surprisingly well the distortion and other types of illusion produced by the camoufleur's design. 

a claim about the origin of WWI US ship camouflage

Lake Pachuta duing WWI

Above Photograph of USS Lake Pachuta of Saginaw from an advertisement for Saginaw Shipbuilding Co. in International Marine Engineering (June 1919), p. 95—
•••

Until recently, I had never heard the name of Michael V. Dailey. While searching for leads in my research of the involvement of artists and others in the design of camouflage, I came across an article on a person with that name.

He was born in Massachusetts in 1872, and died at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Jamaica Plain, in Boston, February 2, 1959. He was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, but he evidently played some role in World War I. The article headline makes the claim that M.V. DAILEY DEVISED CAMOUFLAGE OF SHIPS DURING WORLD WAR I (The Boston Globe, February 3, 1959). Really? How interesting, since I have never run across his name in more than fifty years of researching the subject, during which my focus has frequently been on WWI ship camouflage.

But the article goes further. At two locations in the text, it appears to claim that not only did Mr. Dailey contribute to ship camouflage, it states that he was the “originator of ship camouflage during World War I.” A few lines later, more details are provided, as follow—

He was a special aide to the Secretary of War [which presumably refers to Newton Baker] in World War I when he received a special citation for his camouflage origination.

And so, I don’t know what to think. Is this true? Why haven’t I heard about it before? One has to wonder if there’s been some odd misunderstanding, inadvertent or otherwise. I suspect this sometimes happens, as when stories about one’s family’s past are repeated but not verified.

disruptive coloration used not to conceal, to advertise

Above An Ambulance Used Effectively in a Wartime Campaign, Decorated Camouflage-Fashion for the Purpose of Attracting Attention. Popular Mechanics (c1919).

CAMOUFLAGE AMBULANCE ADVERTISES “DRIVE” / A striking feature of a wartime “drive” recently conducted in Chicago was an ambulance that had been elaborately decorated camouflage-fashion. Thousands of persons looking down into the city streets saw this truck with its top painted in mottled hues and at once their curiosity was aroused. If the vehicle’s appearance was not strictly in accord with army regulations, it nevertheless served as an excellent advertisement for a good cause.

RELATED VIDEO SERIES

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work?

 Nature, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

WWII charming camouflage fashions for mothers to be

Margaret Brentnall, John Hutton, Artist and Glass Engraver. Philadelphia PA: Art Alliance Press, 1986, pp. 40 and 45—

The [World War II British] camouflage soldiers were, on the whole, the most unwarlike collection of men imaginable—painters, sculptors, designers, and architects. They had, in fact, been drawn from the very section of the community that, in warfare, the regular soldier regarded as a bit of a joke.…

An example of the regular army’s attitude in dealing with the camouflage men…was described by Geoffrey Barkas in an article written in 1952 for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps Gazette. Barkas, as chief camouflage officer, Middle East Forces, had been informed that an expeditionary force was being assembled under the code name Lustre Force and that he was to be responsible for its camouflage equipment. He asked where Lustre Force was going, but for reasons of security such information could on no account be divulged. Could he have some clue on suitable tones and colors—was it a yellow, brown, or green country, lumpy or flat, with trees or none? Certainly not. That would be telling him where Lustre Force was going. What was the size and composition of the force, and how long did he have to assemble the material? But this was expecting the planners to reveal the date of embarkation! Barkas did, eventually, make an accurate guess (the destination was Greece) and by direct approach to the director of Ordnance Services he got the support he needed. Although only a few weeks remained for assembling the camouflage supplies, Lustre Force was equipped.

Don Jules Camou | Ye Olde Checkerboard Technique

Full-page article on Don Jules Camou (1932)

Five years ago, I ran across a news article that claimed that modern camouflage was originated in the 19th century by a French general named Jacques Camou (1792-1868). At first, I thought it was a joke. The coincidence of the person’s name and the Modern-era military term (which did not come into common use until 1914) was bizarre.

But I have now found a more detailed news article from 1932 that provides an account of the life of Don Jules Camou (not Jacques Camou), described as a major landowner (“a dictator, almost”) in the Mexican state of Sonora. Written by Oren Arnold, the article is titled INVENTED CAMOUFLAGE A CENTURY AGO TO SAVE HIS RANCH FROM THE APACHES: Fooling the enemy with paint was not originated by modern war strategists after all—for wily Jules Camou used it against his Indian foes in 1832 (Arizona Daily Star, May 22, 1932).

Accompanying the article are several surprisingly clear photographs of the then surviving structures on the Camou estate, located in Sonora, 250 miles south of the Mexican-American border. When the article came out, it was claimed that “more than 100 alleged heirs” were “still squabbling over his estate, and romantic yarns about him are becoming a vital part of Sonoran folklore.” Reportedly, part of the interest was due to the possibility of ore deposits, and, less credible, the rumor that a cache of gold was hidden somewhere on the property. “The courts at Hermosillo, the capital city of Sonora,” the article notes, “are crowded with matters concerning the Jules Camou estate.”

Jules Camou’s purported use of camouflage took place in 1832. His cattle ranch was huge; according to the article, “a horseman can travel in a straight line for two days” and never leave the estate. Each year he raised as many as 16,000 head of cattle, the success of which required dependable access to water. He decided to construct a dam with which to form a 400-acre lake. But he was plagued by frequent attacks by neighboring Apaches, who regarded him as an intruder.

In order to construct the dam, Camou first devised a large ranch fortress, with a cylindrical stone tower at each end. When attacked, the workers could flee to the towers, and fire at the attackers from above through five-inch square-shaped portholes. But the portholes themselves were a target. It was Camou’s innovation to make the portholes hard to see by randomly locating them within a surface pattern of painted squares. As a result, the article claims, “where any one Indian might before have seen four or five targets, he now could see only a confusing picture of colored squares.”

Did Camou actually do this? It seems that he did, but even so, it’s unlikely that he was the first. A comparable checkerboard pattern (to conceal the location of gun ports) had long been used by ships at sea. In an earlier posting about camouflage and checkerboards, we referenced the aforementioned Jacques Camou, who appears to have had no connection to Mexico. In Paris, there is a street called rue Camou, named in his honor.

In the article on Jules (not Jacques), historian John McPhee is quoted as saying—

…Jules Camou originated what we now call “camouflage.” I don’t know whether he named it or not, but it is at least a coincidence that the names—Camou and camou-flage—should be so similar, isn’t it?

Related to this is an earlier news article with the headline GERMAN CONSUL MADE TO PAY HEAVY RANSOM: Sonora Rebels Abuse Max Muller and Extort $10,000 From Him, in the Los Angeles Call (April 4, 1913). The article tells the story of the threat to wealthy residents of Sonora, who are in danger of being kidnapped and held for ransom. One of the victims was Max Muller, who was vice president of the Bank of Sonora and the German consul at Hermosillo. After paying the ransom and being released, Muller fled to safety in Los Angeles, where other Sonorans had already fled. The article adds—

Among the refugees now here [in LA] are thirty-two wealthy members of the Camou family, headed by Fermin Camou and Albert Camou. This family owns practically all of the state of Sonora, and is rated as worth more than three million dollars.  

RELATED LINKS    

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

Dustin Keller | Camouflaged household appliances

Dustin Keller / Lozenge camouflage toaster

Ala serendipity, we've run across an online site called Keller's Blog on which a Canadian high school teacher (of art and guitar) named Dustin Keller has posted a camouflaged-themed problem for his students at the John Oliver Secondary School in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Dustin Keller / Three-tone camouflage toaster

A variety of problems are posted there, but the one that we were drawn to (of course) is Skins & Camouflage. As specified on that page, the students were asked to design a prototype of a quasi-camouflaged "small household applicance," such as (for example) a toaster.

Dustin Keller / Dazzle camouflage toaster

The three examples posted here were designed by Mr. Keller. It's a great idea—elegant, fun, and nifty for sure. Surely, his students enjoyed it.

U-boat destroyed by deck guns on American tanker

HMS Balmoral Castle (1918)

Above HMS Balmoral Castle [not the ship described below], a camouflaged British troopship as photographed in New York harbor in November 1918. Digital coloring.

•••

During World War I, it was common to anticipate that Allied ships were in danger of being torpedoed by German U-boats. But in March 1918, an American tanker, the USS Paulsboro, spotted an enemy submarine on the surface. By setting its deck guns at an extreme elevation, the tanker was able to find the range of the submarine and to begin shelling it from a distance. The U-boat fired 50 rounds, while the tanker fired 88 3-inch shells, and succeeded in sinking the U-boat.

The incident was reported on March 30, 1918, in Town Talk, in the San Francisco Daily Times, p. 9, which included the following excerpt—

The [tanker USS] Paulsboro attracted a lot of attention in the harbor because of her camouflage, which is said to be unique in ship decoration and quite helpful in bewildering the marksmanship of the submarine gunners. Her sides are painted sea color, with wave effects starting from the waterline and ending about fifteen feet up. The superstructure, masts, and funnel are bediamonded, spangled, triangled and otherwise geometrically treated in red, green, blue, black and yellow. Some of the paint was scraped off where the shrapnel struck, and in many places the pelting of the metal hail has improved the camouflage. A part of a rail and funnel were liberally punctured, but no damage was done near or below the waterline.

Concealing bad tattoos | A cluster of forget-me-nots

Cover illustration for Puck (1917). Library of Congress.

Above Satirical portrait of a tattooed Theodore Roosevelt, from the cover of Puck magazine, April 10, 1917. Caption: THE NEW TATTOOED MAN. He Makes An Exhibition of Himself.

•••

Charles W. Purcell, Jr., Getting Under Your Skin in The Baltimore Sun, December 8, 1946, p. 15—

“Before and during the war [WW2] all my work was putting [tattoos] on, now it’s taking off,” says Charles J. Gelzer. To the servicemen who climb the narrow stairs to the second floor, one-room parlor of his East Baltimore Street establishment he is known as Tattoo Charlie.

Seventy-five percent of m work is covering up names, initials, and work that returning servicemen don’t want their wives or girlfriends to see,” he says. “I also do a lot of retouching and going over work that is undesirable, poor jobs done by beginners.”

Ironically, when Charlie camouflages an old girl friend’s names, he uses a cluster of forget-me-nots.

“During the war,” he says, “a lot of guys were turned down by recruiting stations until they had obscene or immoral tattoos covered.

“All I had to so with the usual nude designs was to put on a grass skirt and a lei, then the fellow was ready for service.”…

“I never had a complaint about my work until a few weeks ago,” he says, “A woman who had been in before, came in and demanded that I remove or do over her husband’s name inscribed on her arm. They had just been divorced.”

•••

WOMEN IN ARMED SERVICES PAY VISIT TO TATTOO ARTIST in St. Louis Times-Tribune, April 5, 1943—

[St Louis Tattoo artist Bert Grimm’s] most original customer, a girl, changed the bromidic “Death Before Dishonor” to “Death Before Dishwashing.” His most chagrined patron was a man who brought in a Chinese line [of characters] which he said meant “good luck, farewell.” A few days after the words had been written on him a Chinese laundryman interpreted the inscription as “four pairs of socks, two suits of underwear, five handkerchiefs.”

RELATED LINK
Embedded Figures

bark- and leaf-like camouflage suit on tree stump

Above World War I photograph of an American soldier, dressed in a bark- and leaf-like camouflage suit, positioned on a tree stump (c1918). Public domain. Digital coloring.

A small camouflaged cement house in Los Angeles

Engineering and Cement World (c1918)—Walter S. Davis of Los Angeles is now in the camouflage service with the United States Expeditionary Forces in France. Mr. Davis went to France as an interpreter attached to a regimental staff and later secured a transfer to the camouflage service.

•••

Walter Swindell Davis (1887-1973), architect, A SMALL CEMENT HOUSE IN LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA in House Beautiful (September 1920)—

There has been so much speculation as to the sources of inspiration for this house [as pictured here] that we are only glad to “reveal.” While in the camouflage section of the Army Engineer School, Fort de Saint Menge, France, we were greatly impressed with the effects of time, the weather, and vegetation on the tile and thatch roofs. The whole rainbow was there in mosses, lichens, grasses, time-stained tile, and weather-bleached thatch: all blending together in an indescribably beautiful medley of color. Being camoufleurs, we speculated upon just how we could imitate in Los Angeles the colorful work of kindly time. And we have succeeded! The exterior was a memory materialized of the charming cottages of Cote d’Or. The interiors—the gold bathroom, the vaulted chambers, the mural decoration belie our faltering pen. The garden in front is planted informally with wildflowers and pungent-smelling native shrubs. A winding path of flagstones winds across the sunken garden to the grandsward. The wide-spreading sycamore covers the entire front garden and with its time-gnarled branches protects the picturesque little garage nestling at its base.

Disruptive camouflage patterns applied to vehicles

In the last years of World War I, it was common practice in the US to paint disruptive patterns on vehicles, both military and civilian, but for different purposes.

The government photograph below shows a disruptive pattern being applied to military equipment, for the purposes of camouflage. On the right, the boundaries of the areas to be colored are being marked out with chalk and labeled with the first letter of the color. On the left, the color is actually being applied. There were sometimes disagreements about the wisdom of clearly separating the colored areas with dark boundary lines, as shown here. 

In the top photograph, a bus has been painted with disruptive patterns for the purpose of attracting crowds at a wartime fundraising rally, as was also frequently done at recruiting events. In this case, soldiers recovering from injuries are seated on top of the bus. This pattern was most likely painted by the Women's Reserve Camouflage Corps. As Bessie Rowland James explained in For God, For Country, For Home (NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1920)—

Tanks, ambulances, and trucks were camouflaged at the request of different branches of the government to encourage recruiting, for wherever the camoufleurs went in their uniforms, spreading their bright paints, a crowd was sure to gather.

US Government photographs (1918), with hypothetical coloring added.

WWI Ship Camouflage Artist | Arthur Turnbull Hill

USS West Zula (1918)

In 1918, The East Hampton Star (East Hampton, Long Island NY) announced its plan to publish a list of residents who were serving in World War I. Among those who replied was an artist named Arthur Trumbull Hill (1868-1929), who had already been employed as a civilian “camofleur” [sic] for several months. He welcomed the opportunity, he said—

to give you some idea—no detailed description is allowable—of the unique and important work the Navy and Shipping Board have done in Marine Camouflage since the United States entered the war.

This was published as a Letter to the Editor on the front page on October 18, 1918. He went on to say—

Everyone, of course, has by this time, seen some of the camouflage ships, but few know that these remarkable, and frequently very handsome, cubistic looking productions in line and color, are the result of a carefully defined system adopted by our navy and only after the most exhaustive tests, and that the designs, far from being a hit or miss proposition, are most carefully worked out and elaborated [in] almost infinite variety under the immediate direction of artists employed solely for this purpose by the Federal Government. In fact, the personnel of the Navy and Marine Camouflage Departments include some of the most talented artists in America.

In signing his letter, Hill listed his affiliation as USSB, EFC—for US Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation. In other words, he was working for the civilian branch of wartime camouflage, which itself was overseen by the US Navy. In December 1918, four of his paintings were included in an exhibition in New York of war-related art, titled the Allied War Salon. His exhibited works were titled “Camouflage at Robins Dry Dock,” “Camouflaged Ships at Erie Basin,” “Camouflage on the Mystic River,” and “Leaving for Providence.”

These works and those of fourteen others were included in a section in which the artists were described as “Marine Camoufleurs of the US Shipping Board, Second District.” This is the same district (based in New York) for which William Andrew Mackay was the Chief Civilian Camoufleur. The other camoufleurs were Spencer B. Nichols, Hobart Nichols, Alonzo Kimball, Alfred Huty, George E. Harris, Hubert R. Chapin, Henry Davenport, Harry Farlow, Thomas D. Benrimo, Ralph T. Willis, Carol M. Sax, M. McGregor Jamieson, Alon Bement, and George Wright.

Arthur Trumbull Hill died in Brooklyn NY in 1929. Five years later, there was a memorial exhibition of his artwork at the South Gallery, Guild Hall in East Hampton. The majority of the exhibited works were from his wife’s collection. She also wrote the catalog introduction, which included the following statement—

In this collection, as a matter now of historical interest are several pictures of camouflaged ships which my husband painted when he served as a camoufleur in the marine camouflage in the World War.

USS Major Wheeler (1918)

USS Major Wheeler (1918) second view

•••

Sources

A.E. Gallatin, Allied War Salon. Exhibition catalog. New York: American Art Galleries, 1918.

Arthur Turnbull Hill, in National Cyclopedia of American Biography.

Hill, Arthur T. A.T. HILL, CAMOFLEUR. Letter to the Editor. The East Hampton Star (East Hampton NY). October 18, 1918, p. 1.

Local News: MEMORIAL SHOWING OF WORK OF A.T. HILL AT GUILD HALL. The East Hampton Star (East Hampton NY). July 19, 1934, p. 5.

Note The ship photographs on this post are intended merely as examples of WWI dazzle ship camouflage. They may not have any connection with Arthur T. Hill.

Stages in WWI Ship Camouflage Application | 1918

USS George Washington (1918)

The SS George Washington was an ocean liner that was actually built by the German government prior to World War I. They named it for the first US President, and it kept that name throughout the war, although in 1917 it was seized by the US and used to transport American troops. It could carry almost 3000 passengers. When it was used by the navy, it was officially known as the USS George Washington. When used to transport army troops, its designation was USAT for US Army Transport.

The ship was initially camouflaged for the first time in 1918, in dazzle style. That formidable task was accomplished, from beginning to end, in less than a couple of weeks. Lieutenant Harold Van Buskirk, who was the executive officer in charge of the two-pronged US Navy Camouflage Section, described how that was undertaken in an article titled “Camouflage,” published in Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society (Vol 14 No 5) on July 21, 1919, pp. 225-229. Here is a portion of what he wrote—

On April 21, [1918], I received a request for a design for the USS George Washington, due to arrive at New York, April 27, and due to sail May 2. The blueprints of this vessel were obtained at once and outboard profiles and fore and aft elevations of the main superstructure were drawn at 1/16 inch to the foot. At the same time construction was started on a wooden model of the vessel at a scale of 1/32 inch to the foot. As soon as the drawing was completed it was sent to the US Geological Survey for copies. The model on completion was turned over to the design room. Here a design for this particular vessel was considered, tried and finally developed, with the aid of a submarine periscope looking over a false sea towards changeable sky backgrounds, which were operated from the periscope. On the sea, at a distance representing 2,700 yards or 1 1/2 miles was a turntable that also operated from the periscope. In this way, the model placed on the turntable could be observed from the periscope at various angles with varying sky backgrounds and lighting conditions. In order to obtain a veiling glare such as exists at sea due to fog, mist, smoke, etc., a movable semi-transparent mirror was mounted between the observer and the model to reflect scattered light into the eye of the observer in a way entirely analogous to the condition existing in nature. Generally, the design had been approved by the time the printed forms had been returned from the Geological Survey. The model bearing the approved design was then turned over to the drafting room where it was transferred to the outboard prints. This entire process averaged four to five days so that in this case on the morning of April 26 the design of the George Washington was mailed to the Navy Yard, New York, by special delivery and there awaited her arrival.

In this case, there are surviving photographs of the ship's completed camouflage, as shown (above and below) on this post.

There is also a photograph of the wooden model of it that was used to test the camouflage in an observation theatre.

Van Buskirk (right) and Richardson with USS George Washington model

USS George Washington in harbor at Brest, France (1918)

There is even a wonderful photograph of Lieutenant Van Buskirk and (we think) Ensign Raymond J. Richardson, originally from Reading PA, who, prior to the war, had been an architect and, after it ended, taught architecture at the Carnegie Insitute of Technology in Pittsburgh. At the camouflage facility in Washington DC, Richardson was in charge of the drafting room, where the ship plans were prepared.

A few months after the publication of Van Buskirk's article, Lieutenant Everett L. Warner (who oversaw the artists in the design subsection) published a lengthy account of the steps in the process of ship camouflage. The article, titled “Fooling the Iron Fish: The Inside Story of Marine Camouflage,” appeared in a popular magazine called Everybody’s Magazine, November 1919, pp. 102-109. He mentions the USS George Washington, in describing how wooden ship models were made—

The work began in the model-making room, where about a half dozen skilled men under Ensign Kenneth Maclntire were kept constantly busy in the production of miniature wooden models, which were accurately made to a fixed scale from blueprints of the vessels required. The reader may get a general idea of the size of these models from the dimensions of the President’s ship, the USS George Washington. It was one of the largest of them and measured about twenty-two and a half inches in length.

Warner refers to it as “the President’s ship” because on two occasions (December 1918, and again in the following March) President Woodrow Wilson and his diplomatic entourage traveled to the Paris Peace Conference on this same ship. But for those two trips, the USS George Washington was apparently no longer painted in a dazzle camouflage design.

Philip Little | Boston Common Camouflage

Philip Little (1918), Camouflaged Liberty Loan Building, Boston Common

In earlier posts, we reported on the World War I camouflage experiments of Salem artist Philip Little, including a colorful dazzle pattern applied to the Liberty Loan Headquarters building on the Boston Common in 1918. He called it "reverse camouflage" because its primary function was neither confusion nor concealment, but rather to drum up publicity for a series of fund-raising meetings for the Liberty Loan campaign. We've published news articles and black and white photographs of Little's building design here and here, but we've now just found a clearer one, as shown above.

Dazzle-Painted USS Western Sea | A Bridge of Ships

USS Western Sea in camouflage (1918)

Above Government photograph of the USS Western Sea, wearing a dazzle camouflage plan, on May 25, 1918. Original source NH 65037.

WESTERN SEA IS LAUNCHED in Oregon Daily Journal (Portland) Mary 27, 1918, p. 10—

Seattle, May 27—Another ship in the "bridge of ships"* which the United States is going to throw across the Atlantic came out of the J.F. Duthie & Co. yards [in Seattle] late Saturday, when the 8800-ton steel steamship Western Sea was launched. The keel of the Western Sea was laid January 8. She is the eighth ship launched from the Duthie yards. The ship has the distinction of being the first to be launched on the [Pacific] coast painted in camouflage style.

* During World War I, the phrase "bridge of ships" referred to the US use of passenger liners, ships loaned by the British, and seized German ships to transport men and cargo to Europe.

WWI Camouflage Illustrations by Algernon Black 1918

Algernon Black (1918)

At this point, we have no information about a WWI-era British illustrator named Algernon Black. But several days ago, we ran across a two-part magazine article by Raymond Raife titled Camouflage and Q-Boats: Telling the Splendid Story of the VC's of our Mystery-Ships. Published in the annual compilation of a London-based periodical called The Boy's Own Paper (Vol 41, 1918-1919), the lengthy article is accompanied by about ten drawings pertaining to camouflage, signed by Black. We've reproduced a few of them above and below on this blog post.

Woodpecker Compared to Dazzle Camouflaged Ship

Hypothetical ship camouflage / ivory-billed woodpecker

Above Provocative justaposition of John James Audubon's portrayal of a woodpecker with the design of a hypothetical camouflaged ship in the style of American artist Corita Kent.

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Unsigned, CAPTAIN SAW U-BOAT OFF NEW YORK HARBOR In The Washington Times, July 26, 1918, p. 13—

Boston, July 26—The captain of a coal steamer now at this port believes he sighted a large German submarine off Fire Island NY last Sunday at noon. He was confident she was German, he said, as her superstructure was different from that of American undersea boats. She was lying on the surface a mile distant.

There was a light fog at the time and the captain of the coaler expressed the opinion that the haze and the steamer's camouflage prevented the submarine from sighting him.  He estimated the length of the submarine at between 300 and 400 feet.