C A M O U P E D I A

exciting new exhibition at spy museum coming soon

So discouraging. There was a time, not too many years ago, when I could speak fluently, without constant hems and haws, while being interviewed live for radio, television or documentary videos. I may have to call it quits for anything off-the-cuff. I'll be eighty years old in a few months, and in a live radio session recorded only yesterday, I proved all but incapable of completing a single sentence without stuttering, stumbling, or completely derailing my train of thought. Bummer.

The interview was conducted by a wonderful radio host named Ben Kieffer, who is featured daily at noon during the week on Iowa Public Radio on a program called River to River. He was wonderful, as was Kathryn Keane (who spoke so eloquently and without a single flaw), who is one of the top executives at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC.

Our tandem interviews came about because that museum is about to open a new, major exhibition about camouflage (called Camouflage: Designed to Deceive), beginning March 1 and continuing for three years. You can find out more about the exhibition contents online at the museum's website. And you'll also find details about the exhibition catalog (for which I wrote the introduction) online here.

Friday, February 6, 2026

Ghost Army Legacy group funds camouflage research

More than a dozen years ago, Rick Beyer came out with a documentary film, titled The Ghost Army, which premiered on PBS. It provided a vivid account of a once top secret World War II American Army unit (known as The Ghost Army), the mission of which was battlefield deception, using sonic and radio confusion, visual camouflage, inflatable decoys, and all sorts of persuasive deceptive events.

Two years later, Beyer and Elizabeth Sayles (whose father belonged to the unit), produced an equally wonderful book titled The Ghost Army of World War II (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2015).

Beyer's Ghost Army efforts have enjoyed enormous success. It has enabled him to establish a Ghost Army Legacy Project, and to unearth further details about two WWII tactical units, the US Army's 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and the 3133rd Signal Service Company.

Now, it has just been announced that the Ghost Army organization has established a Research and Creative Grant Program, open to those who might have an interest in "supporting and expanding the public's understanding of the unique contributions and legacy" of the two Ghost Army units.

Proposals are due May 15, 2026, with an awards notification date of August 15, 2026. Complete information can be found online at this link.

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Wednesday, January 21, 2026

the man who signs a dictated letter but hasn't read it

Above World War II American ship camouflage, as applied to the USS Gladiator (1944), a minesweeper. US Navy photograph, public domain, AI colorized.

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Sophie Irene Loeb, WHAT IS CAMOUFLAGE? in The Washington Post, January 31, 1918, p. 7—

…The husband who pretends to be furious because his wife was so slow in letting him in the house that she forgets to scold him for being out late. When a man tells a woman he understands her perfectly. When a strange saleslady calls you "dearie," while waiting on you. The eating place that decreases the portion and increases the price on the plea of patriotism. When wifey buys her husband a lovely sofa cushion for his birthday. When a stranger tells you how much he is respected in his own home town. When a dressed up doll keeps talking about how she "doesn't care a thing about money." The new spring crepe shirtwaists. The youthful old lady who hasn't a gray hair in her head. The lounge lizard who prates about what a grand family he came from. The small boy who brings home a playmate to help square things. The individual who congratulates you on what a fine man your grandfather was and wants to borrow $5. The middle-aged chap who goes to the circus to amuse the neighbor's little boy. The city uplifter who goes to the farmer's wife to tell her how to can fruit. The landlord who tells his shivering tenants how long and hard he has tried to get coal. The climber who invites newspaper reporters to her "exclusive" pink teas. The woman who writes applications to serve near the trenches while she is having her breakfast in bed. The salesman who invites you to dinner because he is "so lonely" and charges it to his firm, from whom you are to buy. The "pillar" in the church who loudly prays for sinners, having yesterday quietly foreclosed the mortgage on the home of the widow and her children. When hubby tells his wife he has a very important meeting at the lodge or must sit up with a sick friend. The fellow in the party who is very busy telling a story when the waiter presents the bill. The man who is always "in a conference" when you telephone. He who signs a letter "dictated," but not read. Many a knitting bag carried in public. The politician who tells newly enfranchised women that his party secured the vote for them. Public officers sitting in skyscrapers and telling how they are reducing the cost of living. The storekeeper who tells you that the thing you asked for is not being "used this year."…

Sunday, January 18, 2026

wartime camouflage efforts of an El Paso car dealer

Above WWI photograph of US General Patton (cropped) standing in front of a tank in France, 1918. Public domain, Wikipedia.

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UNIQUE SCENE IN CAMOUFLAGE: Cleverly Painted Auto Cannot Be Distinguished from Surroundings in El Paso Herald, June 8, 1918—

In the display window of the Buquor Motor Company is a camouflage scene rarely equaled "over here." In the background is a canvas on which is painted a battle scene—bursting shells and air lurid with explosives. Before this is a Maxwell car, although its best friend would hardly recognize the car because of the camouflage. It is spotted and spattered with green and fire colored splotches. Foliage, in addition to that on the canvas, is supplied by palms and leafing plants.

Standing close to the arrangement, there appears but little remarkable about it, but from the sidewalk the camouflage is quite apparent. From the middle of the street the automobile can hardly be distinguished from the plants and the glare of shots. The work, performed by J. L. Buquor, is so admirably executed that the machine blends with both the glare of shots and with the foliage in such a way as to quite conceal the auto from across the street. The work was done with water colors.

In thus showing how camouflage prevents autos from being detected in time of battle, a spot light has been provided which is used at night time, giving an even better effect than a day view. Naturally things "over there" are constantly in the mind of Johnnie Buquor, his brother, Ad[olph] Buquor, being now ready to depart for France from New Jersey at any time.

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WOMAN COLLAPSES WHEN MACHINE GUN UNEXPECTEDLY EXPLODES IN HER FACE—REALISTIC OLD TANK in El Paso Herald, June 15, 1918, p. 15—

Because he operated a machine gun carelessly Johnnie Buquor is in line to become the defendant in a damage suit. In the display window of the Buquor Motor Company is a big war tank—marked F-4—of the type used by General Byng to roll the biggest victory of the war over the Germans. It is a massive thing with mud-splotched wheels, steel-plated and heavily riveted, surmounted with machine guns whose ominous muzzles frown toward passersby.

Thursday evening a dozen or more pedestrians had stopped on the sidewalk before the window to view the war monster. One woman pressed close to the glass to get a better view of a machine gun pointed towards her. Suddenly the gun belched out fire and smoke, right in her face, the woman screamed and collapsed on the sidewalk.

Now for a little inside information: The big tank that looks like a steel-riveted fort on wheels from the sidewalk, is found when viewed from the other side to be made of old packing boxes, Maxwell mud pans, tubes and old crates. Johnnie Buquor has one of the guns so constructed that lamp-black is puffed out of the muzzle by compressed air, and that's how the woman got shot. Invariably when there is a crowd before the window and the machine gun is touched off, somebody jumps to get out of the way. The discharge is so realistic that people before it don't feel safe.

Saturday, January 17, 2026

1918 bird's eye / no wonder cubist art started in France

aerial view of village in France (1918)
Above An aerial photograph from Collier's Weekly, June 22, 1918, p. 10, which included the following caption—

NO WONDER CUBISM STARTED IN FRANCE! No one need wonder any longer where the cubists got their inspiration. They must have gone up in an airplane and had a good look at France! This airplane view of an observation balloon floating over a French village is as good a bit of cubist art as anything that Marcel Duchamp ever turned out.

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Henry G. Wales, Correspondent of the International News Service with the AEF, HOW THE LINES LOOK FROM A FRENCH AIRPLANE: Trip Across No Man's Land Has Its Thrills Even at a Height of 6,500 Feet—American Batteries' Havoc in The Stars and Stripes (France), May 3, 1918, p. 7—

I have been two miles inside the German lines—at a height of 6,500 feet. I flew over the American lines on the Toul front, crossed No Man's Land, and penetrated as far as the enemy second line defense. I saw some of the destruction inflicted by bursts of gunfire from American batteries, and even while over the German positions I saw American shells drop there and silently explode, spouting a dusty upheaval of brown dirt mixed with smoke.

I made the flight, which is the first taken over the actual fighting lines by a civilian, war correspondent or otherwise, since the war began, in one of the British two-seater Sopwith observation biplanes used by American observers in regulating American artillery fire, and piloted by a French sub-lieutenant who usually takes up with him an American observer. The only difference was that the twin machine guns were not put in place for my trip, as they are when the combination observer-machine gunner goes up.

It was just after four o'clock sun-time and excellently clear for observation. A group of mechanicians strapped me to the bucket seat deep down in the fuselage, so that only my head showed and I looked squarely at the pilot's cranium, just showing in front of me.

Mile a Minute on the Ground
We raced down the field and picked up a mile a minute gait, then rose so softly that before I realized we were off the ground the hangars and buildings seemed to be dropping below. We circled over the field a while, banking steeply on the turns to make our height, as the fields are near the front, and an airplane must fly high to cross the lines, otherwise it is dangerous business.

Mounting to 6,000 feet, we started toward the front, traversing roads and villages I knew well from passing through them daily in an automobile. As we gained height, with our speed exceeding two miles a minute and the wind pressure becoming greater, it seemed though we were standing stock still.

As I gazed through the floor glass of the plane, objects below made it seem as if we were barely creeping along, just making headway against some raging gale, though in reality there was scarcely any breeze. But gradually we passed landmark after landmark that I knew, and I realized we were really moving fast.

Then, far to the right, I saw another French machine at about the same level, also apparently stationary, although in reality moving as fast as we were. We were so far above the earth's surface that one lost all sense of movement save that the air rushing past and filling the lungs with great gasps of oxygen.

War Zone Creeps In
Scrutinizing the landscape below I passed the rearmost American Army zone, out of danger except for long-range guns, then gradually the war zone crept in almost imperceptibly. I first noticed the telltale shadows invariably cast by the most skillful camouflage. Then I saw how mere manmade camouflage cannot mimic nature exactly, no matter how hard he is trying to copy the landscape.

Soon we saw the beginning of the communication trenches. Sinuous, winding, irregular, they toiled devious ways like moles' tunnels seen on a moist morning at home. Then, instead of villages, I could see merely clumps of ruined, shell-torn stone houses, and out from the clumps stretched the wonderful French highways—clear, clean-cut and ribbon-like under the eye, so that I could tell exactly where I was by their configuration from the pilot's map I carried.

It was the roads that told us first that we were approaching the actual fighting zone—that stretch close up to the front line trenches which ie dally and nightly ploughed up by shells. There the highways widened, lost perceptibly, and vanished like a ribbon fraying in tiny strands at the ends.

Where the Road Ends
The thoroughfares gradually lost themselves in the yellowish-brown strip marking No Man's Land. Through powerful binoculars I looked down upon the maze of American trenches, inter-winding, interlocking, seaming the earth to a considerable depth behind a tiny hairlike line trench marking the advanced fire trench. All this area was so shell-pitted that it resembled nothing so much as the footprints of thousands of dogs on the seaside sands, at some places blurred and blended into millions of tiny undulations where the rain had washed down the softened shell crater marks.

The lane of No Man's Land, as far as the eye could see, was a baren, empty sit torn up, yet still with certain marks left, such as a shell-battered stone farmhouse which the gunners of neither side had so far seen fit to raze, and an old cow stable whose walls were still standing at a feeble height. These places are favorite rendezvous for night patrols in attempting to gain pos- session of the machine guns of their opponents, who try to enter.

Then I passed the advanced German line. It looked exactly like the American line, with the same endless scroll of trenches burrowing wormily every which way and extending back to great depth.

We veered left and saw the spot where the American bombardment had prepared the way for the raid of the previous morning. The effects of the rain of shells were plainly visible, the new craters bowing up bolder and deeper than others which had been made a long time before.

Roads Begin Out of Nothing
Passing over the Germans' first network of trenches, I noticed the stream-like communicating positions leading back towards the second organized position. There, too I saw clumsily camouflaged gun pits, and glancing at the map found them accurately noted there for our gunners' information.

The villages behind the enemy's line were crumbling and shot torn exactly the same as those behind ours, and the roads began again from nothing, gradually assuming shape in the fine highways a little way further on.

No puffs of white smoke, indicating shrapnel, nor of black smoke, indicating high explosive, molested us. We continued onward, not straight ahead, but obliquely, so that we could veer off and double back if a hostile fighting plane appeared. We saw a couple of German two-seater observation machines regulating artillery fire at about our own level, but they minded their own business and we paid no attention to them.

Gazing earthward, I saw shells coughed up from the from the throats of American guns far behind plump into the enemy's positions and burst, throwing up cloudlets of black-brown dirty smoke.

Once, when we were farthest within the enemy's lines, I looked back toward the German front line and saw several flashes which I afterwards learned were trench mortars throwing flying pigs over toward the American lines.

Not a Human Being in Sight
In all that journey I had not seen a single moving human being, through my glasses, despite the fact that the subterranean positions beneath teemed with fighting men. In all the advanced positions on both sides I did not see a single moving vehicle, although far off to the rear of the German lines I could discern dust clouds rising from convoys on the move.

We turned slightly, tilting steeply on our wing, and soared homeward. The pilot signaled to me to look down, and, staring through the floor-glass, I saw another French machine much lower. Almost at the same instant a dull thud penetrated the terrific noise of the whirling motor. The pilot motioned again, and I saw a fluffy white cloudlet of anti-aircraft shrapnel—enemy gunners trying to lay the range on the comrade beneath us.

Then came a dozen more almost inaudible thuds, and I saw a string of these fluffy white cloudlets hanging in the air along the path which the French machine below had been taking. But he was far away—he wing slipped, turned, and escaped entirely. Although we were less than 10,000 feet up, enemy anti-aircrafters did not choose us for a target.

Passing again the American battery positions, I saw ominous flashes from the breeches, but heard no shot fired or shell whistling through the air. We passed over an American observation balloon and reached the field, alighting like thistledown at 80 miles an hour.

I looked at my watch. We had been gone 35 minutes, but it had seemed ages because of the persistent idea that we had been battling continually against a head-on gale.

"Did you see that Boche single-seater above us just before we turned back?" asked the sub-lieutenant pilot, hopping from his seat. "I think he spotted us without a machine gun and thought us easy prey, as he was on his way home, then turned and chased us a little way. Otherwise, I would have taken you over and shown you the German positions there, with big guns mounted, and their observation positions."

WWI aerial photography

who has been stealing my cigars—it surely is a puzzle

ARNOT ART GALLERY, Star-Gazette (Elmira, New York), 17 Dec 1918, p. 4—

The Arnot Art Gallery will be open this evening from 7 to 9 o'clock and every afternoon during the remainder of this week from 2 to 5 o'clock. Two hundred and sixty-six visitors called at the gallery Sunday to see the color concealment or camouflage pictures. They are very interesting and some of them will puzzle you a little to find the hidden bird. The principles of camouflage are embodied in these pictures.…

Can you find the cigar thief in the Victorian-era puzzle picture above?

Age Camouflagin' / Kin Hubbard talks disguising age

Anon / good place for a painting / Chicago 1889

Abe Martin [Kin Hubbard], SHORT FURROWS, in The Indianapolis News, September 28, 1918, p. 4—

Rev. Wiley Tanger addressed "Th' Serious Thinkers" in Tell Binkley's insurance office, last night, takin' fer his subject, "Age Camouflagin." After garglin' a dipper o' water, he said: "One o' th first things a feller notices after he reaches fifty is how swiftly Saturday night rolls around. He no sooner takes a bath till he begins t' lay out his underwear fer another one. He no sooner shaves th' snow from his chin till it's white agin. Th' weeks an' months an' years dart by like a Chaplin film. He no sooner gits used t' a straw hat with a polka dot band till it's time t' look around fer a rakish green hat. Th' day's gone ferever when he could git by with a youthful face an' sparklin' eyes an' th' time t' camouflage has arrived. Th' never endin' battle agin relentless ole age is on. Th' barber, th' masseur, th' tailor, th' presser an' cleaner, th' shoe maker, th' osteopath an' th' toupee maker must all be drafted int' his service an' he starts forth t' conquer an unseen foe. But why should a feller try t' hide th' fact that he's fifty? Surely ther's room enough on this earth fer people o' fifty! Who's he tryin' t' fool? What's he tryin' t' put over? He has started over th' top an' a talcumed face an' tan spats won't hold him back! A polka dot hat band an' gray hair won't mix!! A peeled gray head an' a green hat only excite comment—speculation!! I don't mean t' say that a feller should begin t' unravel an wither at fifty. If ther's anything I hate t' see worse'n a peeled gray badger in a pinch-back suit, it's a reconciled feller o' sixty sittin' around fumblin' a set o' white whiskers when he ought t' be plowin'. A feller ought t' be tickled t' death t' reach fifty! He ought t' be proud of it!! What I'm drivin' at is that a feller ought t' stay in his class. A toupeed feller kin never look like anything but a restorer ad! Bright colors only emphasize ole age. If you're spared till fifty, take advantage o' ever' moment from then on, but do it leisurely an' gracefully. Don't try t' look like you've been born agin!

"You kin be youthful in spirit without shavin' all th' time an' smellin' like Floridy water!! Talk about th' golden days o' youth!!! What's th' matter with th' diamond studded years beyond fifty? At fifty we should quietly apply th' brakes an' leisurely descend th' slope with seasoned muscles, ripe judgment, shorn of illusions, rich in experience, filled with sweet, memories, grateful fer havin' successfully weathered th' adventurous years o' youth, with a keen appreciation o' ever precious hour an with th' knowledge that ther's no new sensations. Let's stop camouflagin' an' leave th' pinch-back clothes an' zebra shirts t' youth. Let's bathe ever' Saturday as usual, but let's not worry about our chins bein' white. We've had our fling at lady killin' so let's sober down an' resolve not t' drain our reserve tanks chasin' after a procession that's only headed fer where we already are."

Friday, January 16, 2026

camouflaged dummies as artists' wartime specialty

soldiers placing decoys / artist unknown
CAMOUFLAGE—THE ARTISTS' BIT IN THE WAR in Oregon Daily Journal (Portland), August 18, 1917—

One of the interesting developments of the world war is the art of "camouflage," wherein artists excel. Camouflage is accomplished in a variety of ways, the general Idea being to deceive the enemy—to make him think he sees something that he doesn't see, or to make him see something he thinks he doesn't.

It is a trick in which nature excels, the wily opossum and the chameleon and its coat of changeable hue being probably the best known examples. The marking on the wings of a butterfly, the shaping of insects like leaves, the coloring of the sage hen to blend with the sagebrush, are but a few of the natural demonstrations of the principle of camouflage.

In warfare, thrusting above a trench a helmet stuck on a bayonet to draw enemy fire is a crude example. Raiders carry a dummy smokestack to hide their identity, submarines carry fake periscopes, etc.

Getting down to the finer points of the game, and this is where the artists come in, waves and foam are painted on a warship to deceive the enemy as to the ship's waterline, and the "tank" is so painted that at a comparatively short distance it merges with the landscape and is hard to distinguish.

The French and English have even gone so far as to stretch canvas upright to a height of several feet, and to paint trees, shrubbery and landscape on it, so that to the enemy it will look like the edge of a woods. Behind this curtain, then, like stage hands passing behind the back drop on a stage, thousands of troops have marched to new positions. To fool enemy airmen, canvas stretched like a canopy over a roadway is painted to blend with the surrounding field, while soldiers march beneath It, or it ls painted to represent a road over which the enemy will keep lookout for troops while the troops march elsewhere.

And so on. Camouflage is really playing an important part in strategy of campaigning, and the United States army war department has so recognized it as to put artists at the large training camps to teach the art, and painters and decorators are enlisting in special camouflage branches of the service. The illustration above shows troops placing "dummy" soldiers in position to draw enemy fire, and [below] is a camouflaged "Yankee" [a dummy made of papier maché, before being painted]…

inspection of unpainted American decoy

railway car reminiscent of wartime ship camouflage

WAGR Railway Car [AI colorized]
TESTS FOR DIESEL'S SAFETY PAINT, COMMENT WELCOMED, CRISS-CROSS EYE-CATCHER in Northern Times (Camarvon, Western Australia, Australia), March 7, 1947, p. 5—

Following complaints from the country that WAGR [Western Australia Government Railways] cream and green diesel-electric rail cars merged into the countryside background colors, thereby endangering the safety of road travelers at level crossings, a novel attempt is being made to ensure public safety.

Each end of a diesel-electric rail car has been painted with diagonally converging black and white lines, four inches wide, producing a rather startling and bizarre effect reminiscent of ship camouflage during the war [World War II].

While this color scheme certainly detracts from the generally pleasant and smart appearance of the diesel cars, it shows the Railway Department is ready and willing to do all possible for public safety.

[A] Car so painted is under test to ascertain whether it is now more readily visible to country road users when approaching railway crossings and the department will welcome the comments of country residents.