Harlequin Crew | Inadvertent Camouflage Plan

Dazzle-camouflaged SS Australford (c1918)

Above (top) Port side and (bottom) starboard view of the SS Australford, a British Commonwealth cargo ship (c1918). Lower on this page is a starboard view of the SS City of Karachi, British Commonwealth transport ship (c1918). The original photographs, made by Allan C. Green, are in the collection of the Victoria State Library AU.

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Dion Clayton Calthrop, CAMOUFLAGE ABSOLUTE: Ship That Wasn’t There; Sailed with Harlequin Crew, in Queensland Times (Ipswich, Queensland AU), May 28, 1918, p. 6—

[In a shipboard conversation between Captains Holloway and Mason, the latter says] “…You remember last Thursday, when it was blowing up for dirty weather?”

“I was two hours overdue,” said Holloway.

“I was just about to turn in in to get a snooze before sailing in the morning when the officer in charge came aboard and says to me, ‘Mason,’ he says, ‘you’ve got to find room for Major Dash and his gear.’ That’s correct, ain’t it, Herbert?”

“The very words,” said he.

“Hell, I was full up in the hold and I’d got some goods stowed away on deck, and I tell you I was fair horrified when the major stepped into the light and says to me, ‘Captain,’ he says, ‘I’m a camouflage officer, and I’m just bringing by paints and canvas along with me.’ And there, sure enough, was about twenty kegs of paint on the quayside, and a great bundle of canvas. However, what with a war on and all that, I merely says ‘Yes, sir,’ and got the hands to work fixing these blistering kegs on deck and getting the gear stowed away snug and shipshape.”

“Twenty kegs?” said Holloway.

“Of paint.”

“Bad luck for a keg to come so low as paint,” said Holloway. “I’ve carried lily bulbs and parasols and dried cuttlefish in the China seas but never paint.”

“It was blowing nearly a gale, nor’ by nor’-east most of the night,” the skipper went on, “and, though the wind dropped towards daybreak, there was plenty of sea running. However, I had some stuff to get across, and out we went. The major was full of pluck, and stood it for the first hour, and then his face went all colors till it got blue, and then he gave it up…”

“I’ve seen them like that,” said Holloway.

“I’ve been like it once,” said Mason, “but I put it down to pork chops and stout followed by jam roll, but that’s neither here nor there. What happened next gave me the regular jumps. Them kegs [of camouflage paint] broke away, and then the fun began. One keg bashed up against another keg, and after a time when they was pounding away on deck they began to leak. Old man, it was awful, but it pulled the major together, and we got all hands what could be spared to lash ‘em up fast again. We done that, but the damage was done, and I believe the major would have cried if he’d been alone, not feeling strong at the time. The men was blue and green and yellow. I had one red boot and one purple arm. As for the major—well, if a rainbow could swear, that’s what he was. Lord, I did envy him his education.”

“And a gale blowing at the time?” said Holloway, incredulously.

“Hurricane,” said Mason…

“And the ship?”

“Camouflaged herself proper. Decks swimming with paint of all colors, and the paint streaming over the sides. Why, we was so invisible I could hardly see the ship myself. Come into port with one boat on the port side stove in and the men like a pack of harlequins. Took me and Herbert all our time rubbing each other down so’s we wouldn’t look like a sea-circus.”

“What did the major do?” asked Holloway.

“Him? He was a rare good ‘un. He finished the job when we fetched up our moorings. ‘Captain,’ he said, ‘I’m a superstitious man,’ he said, ‘and what Nature bean I’ll finish.’ And he done it.”

Holloway turned his eye seawards, and let his gaze rest over the crowded harbor. In the panorama before him were troopships, destroyers, lighters, mine-sweepers, motor boats, and fishing xxxx, with an airplane overhead.

“Your boat there?” he asked.

“She’s there,” Mason replied. “But you’ll never see her. She’s so camouflaged, she’s lost. I can’t see her with nothing but a kaleidoscope.…”

Dazzle-camouflaged SS City of Karachi (c1918), starboard

 

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Edward Morton | More Milwaukee Camouflage

Restoration of WPA mural by Edward Morton (1938)

Above A Depression-era Works Progress Administration (WPA) mural (titled Winter Sports) by Wisconsin artist Edward Morton, commissioned in 1938 by the US Government for permanent installation in the post office at Oconomowoc WI. In the 1970s, the mural was taken down and thereafter kept in the basement. Fortunately, it was restored in 2003, and is once again on public display in the post office.

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Many years ago, we taught for more than a decade at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. So did an aging artist named Edward Morton, who was then an adjunct instructor of drawing. I had just published a book on art and camouflage. If I had known better, I would have talked to him at length, in part because one day he said that he had served as an army camoufleur during World War II. I didn't follow up on it. He has long since died—and now I have plenty of questions to ask.

A few weeks ago, I ran across an article from the Milwaukee Sentinel (December 11, 1944), which includes a photograph of the young Ed Morton, home on leave from the army, painting a portrait of his wife. Here's what the article says, followed by the news photo—

On leave from camp at Maldon MO, Sergeant Edward L. Morton turned from painting things that do not exist to painting things that are real. In the army, Sgt. Morton is a camoufleur, but in civilian life he was an instructor at [Milwaukee's Layton School of Art] and won prizes for his own work at State Fair art shows. Here he is completing a portrait of his wife Dorothy, at the home of her parents…

Edward L. Morton, US Army camoufleur (1944)

Camouflage Artist | Milwaukee's Eric Gugler

Eric Gugler (c1918), structural deception ploys

Above Eric Gugler, three-stage diagram for a World War I ship camouflage proposal (c1918) in which actual structural changes are made to the height and positioning of a ship's masts, smoke stacks, and other features in order to throw off the course calculations of U-boat gunners.

Comparable diagrams were initially made public in an article by Robert G. Skerrett, "How We Put It Over on the Periscope," in The Rudder. Vol 35 Nos 3 and 4, March and April 1919, pp. 97-102 and 175-179 (recently reprinted in our SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook as "Hoodwinking the Periscope" (pp. 122-151)). The diagram shown here was published in Albert Roskam, Dazzle Painting: Kunst Als Camouflage: Camouflage Als Kunst (Netherlands: Stichting Kunstprojecten en Uitgevergij Spijik, 1987), which attributes it to the National Archives, but the style suggests the possibility that it may have been redrawn.

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Gugler is a prominent name in the printing industry in Milwaukee WI. It begins with a German-born engraver named Henry Gugler, Sr (1816-1880), who came to the US in 1853. During the Civil War, he was an important engraver for the US Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington DC, producing, among other famous works, a life-sized steel engraving of Abraham Lincoln. In the 1870s, he moved to Milwaukee and became a partner with his son Julius Gugler (1848-1919) in the H. Gugler & Son Lithographing Company.

According to certain sources, Julius Gugler was a poet as well as a printer. Among other art-inclined family members were his daughter Frida Gugler (1874-1966), a painter who had studied with William Merrit Chase, and her younger brother, Eric Gugler (1889-1974), who achieved considerable success as a muralist, sculptor, interior designer and architect.

Notably, in the early 1930s, Eric Gugler worked closely with FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt in the expansion, replanning and redesign of the West Wing of the White House, including the current Oval Office. He designed the Theodore Roosevelt Island National Memorial (with sculptor Paul Manship), the FDR Memorial, a memorial to Eleanor Roosevelt at the United Nations, the Harvey Firestone Memorial in Akron OH, the World War II Memorial at Anzio Beach in Italy, a memorial for the Mayo Brothers in Rochester MN, and several buildings on the campus of Wabash College in Crawfordsville IN. He was also involved in the design of Arthurdale WV, the first New Deal federal subsistence housing project (c1933).

Unfortunately, almost no one is aware that he was also an early participant in the development of ship camouflage during World War I. That (and the efforts of other artists) was alluded to in a brief article in the Milwaukee Journal (December 9, 1918), which reported on a talk that week at the Rotary Club by the director of the Milwaukee Art Institute, Dudley Crafts Watson (guardian of Orson Welles). "The coming of war helped American art in an amazing manner," Watson claimed. "When the war broke out, it was a great problem what American artists would do to help win the war. The answer was found in the tremendous help given the country in their work in getting out effective Liberty Loan and other posters as well as in the camouflage departments of both army and navy."

Milwaukee-born architect and WW1 camoufleur Eric Gugler

As an aspiring artist-architect, Gugler studied at The Armour Institute (now the Illinois Institute of Technology) and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then also earned a BA degree at Columbia University in 1911. For three years, before the war began, he also studied at the American Academy in Rome. Subsequently, he set up an architectural office in New York. In the 1930s, he married Broadway actress and dancer Anne Tonetti, who had been a protegé of Isadora Duncan.

So far, we haven't been able to find very much about his involvement in camouflage. We do know that he attended the "camouflage school" that was set up by muralist William Andrew Mackay, who, like Gugler, presumably also admired Theodore Roosevelt. And we also know that he was particularly interested in the use of perspective distortions (as in the diagrams shown above).

Frederick Waugh, Camouflage and Dickie Dare

Coulton Waugh, Dickie Dare (1943)

Above (detail) Coulton Waugh, portion of the comic strip Dickie Dare (showing "dazzle camouflage" on the right), from the Harrisburg Telegraph (Harrisburg PA), December 27, 1943.

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Ray Goulding of the Bob & Ray radio comedy team was a high school classmate of beatnik novelist Jack Kerouac. Film actress Anne Baxter was the granddaughter of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who was also related by marriage to New York urban planner Robert Moses. Western gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok (James Butler Hickok) was related to Civil War general and politician Benjamin F. Butler, as well as to Adelbert Ames II (inventor of the Ames Distorted Room) and to writer George Plimpton. Humorist S.J. Perelman was the brother-in-law of novelist Nathaniel West. And finally (this is the punchline) American artist and ship camoufleur Frederick Judd Waugh (whom we have blogged about before) was the father of cartoonist (Frederick) Coulton Waugh (1896-1973), best-known for the comic strips Dickie Dare and Hank.

The elder Waugh died in 1940. In browsing through various panels of the younger Waugh's Dickie Dare, we've found several references to camouflage, including indirect homages to his father's designs for WWI-era "dazzle camouflage" (see example above).

The F. Coulton Waugh Papers are housed at Syracuse University, while other Waugh Family Papers are in the collection of the Archives of American Art. Among the folders in the latter is one described as "World War I Material, circa 1914. Likely Coulton Waugh's, possibly Frederick Judd Waugh's." Since it was the father (not the son) who served in the war, our suspicion is that this may be his material. It may even pertain to ship camouflage.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016). 

Camouflaged as POTTED RAT

George Belcher cartoon, Punch (1917)

Above Cartoon by George Belcher from Punch (November 29, 1917), p. 365. The caption reads: Officer: Why were you not at roll call last evening? Defaulter: Well, Sir, with this 'ere camp camouflaged so much, I couldn't find my way out of the canteen.

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Anon, CAMOUFLAGE in Brecon County Times, Neath Gazette and General Advertiser (Wales), June 22, 1918 (Supplement)—

I chanced to be in the village post office and an oldish farmer's wife came in with a parcel. When she had gone I noticed two words printed in thick letters of ink above the address.

"Good heavens!" I said, "the meat shortage isn't so bad as all this, surely?"

The postmistress laughed.

"That's Dame Brown's patent for safety," she said. "The old lady sends her soldier grandson a pot of rabbit every week. The pot got 'lost' sometimes in the journey, and she hit upon an idea for labeling the contents. Every week she calls, and always those two words are boldly printed on the wrapper, POTTED RAT. The parcel never miscarries now."

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Anon in Abergavenny Chronicle (Wales), February 28, 1919—

…[So-and-so] said now the war was over it was time the English language was taken out of khaki and put in plain clothes. People were heartily sick of such words as barrage and camouflage.

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Anon, CAMOUFLAGE IN THE WOOD in Brecon County Times, Neath Gazette and General Advertiser (Wales), September 7, 1918 (Supplement)—

The drafting of men for military service has brought to light some queer occupations, but surely none more out of the ordinary than that of the man who makes imitation pheasant eggs. A man before a Surrey Tribunal said his job was to make an egg which hoodwinked the sitting pheasant. The real eggs were transferred to a broody hen's keeping until near the time of hatching, and the hen pheasant kept at her job by means of the artificial "eggs." Then the real eggs were brought back to be hatched out by a mother who could look after them. These artificial "eggs," it seems, mislead the hen pheasant entirely, and cause foxes, hedgehogs and such marauders furiously to think. It seems rather like a yarn, but the Tribunal accepted it, and gave the man six months' exemption.

Bewildering Stripes in Ship Camouflage

Above (top) Starboard side view and port side view (bottom) of the SS Orissa, a British Commonwealth steam ship (c1918) in striped zébrage camouflage. A third view is at the bottom of this page. The original photographs, made by Allan C. Green, are in the collection of the Victoria State Library AU.

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Norman Wilkinson, "Dazzle Painting of Ships" in The Nautical Gazette (September 13, 1919), p. 177—

Some time before the end of the war we had arrived at the striped type of design [for ship camouflage] which was the most successful type. These striped designs were commented on by a great number of seamen as being by far the best for upsetting the calculation of a ship's course.

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Rudolf Arnheim, Parables of Sun Light (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)—

Nothing is more humbling than to look with a strong magnifying glass at an insect so tiny that the naked eye sees only the barest speck and to discover that nevertheless it is sculpted and articulated and striped with the same care and imagination as a zebra. Apparently it does not matter to nature whether or not a creature is within our range of vision, and the suspicion arises that even the zebra was not designed for our benefit.

Warship Camouflage as House Painting

SS Polladern (c1918) in dazzle camouflage

Above Port side view of the SS Polladern, a British Commonwealth cargo ship (c1918). The original photograph, made by Allan C. Green, is in the collection of the Victoria State Library AU.

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John A. Smith, ARTISTS AT SEA: House Painters Protect Ocean Life Lines in Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton, Queensland AU), April 17, 1939, p. 3—

Amongst the preparations against a possible war made by the Government are arrangements for every ship to be "dazzle painted" within a few hours. Landlubbers believe that ships are camouflaged in wartime in order to reduce their visibility. But a vessel camouflaged in the modern manner screams for attention. Its enemies, the submarines, cannot help but see it. It achieves a degree of safety not by becoming invisible, but by a more subtle method. There is a world of difference between the approach of the camouflage artist to the problems of a fixed object such as an aerodrome or a gun battery and of a sea-going vessel. The roofs of military aerodromes today are painted in order to make them blend as far as possible with the surrounding country. But when the artist attacks the sides of a liner with his air sprays and brushes his object is to make the commander of an enemy aircraft unable to believe his own eyes! "Dazzle-painting" is a more correct name than camouflage for the art as used on the sea; it is the term which was generally adopted before the Great War came to an end. 

…The mechanics of "dazzle-painting" were practically identical with those of mural decoration and scene painting, and hundreds of men who in civil life had followed these and similar crafts—including house painters—were enrolled at Devonport and hoisted like flies over the sides of sample vessels. They worked under the direction of naval officers and draughtsmen. They had the right to feel important for on the results of their work depended ocean-going mechanical miracles aggregating in value millions of pounds, the safety of thousands of lives, and the supply arteries of Allied forces.

Robert Gibbings (1921), The House Painters

Anon, "Compendium of Foreign Phrases" in Lansing Warren, En Repos and Elsewhere Over There: Verses Written in France, 1917-1918. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918, p. 105—

The last place for a real artist is in the camouflage department. What is needed is a good cubist or futurist, or, in the finest and most delicate work, a house painter.

additional sources

Camera-flauge?

R.W. Eddy (1919)

Above Cartoon by R.W. Eddy from Cartoon Magazine (1919).

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Anon, "CAMERA GUN" IN FANTASTIC US SHOOTING CASE in Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, New South Wales), January 2, 1947, p. 3 [adapted]—

New York, January 1—New Year's Eve crowds, hurrying homeward, were spectators of a crime as fantastic as any mystery thriller when a woman pointed what she thought was a camouflaged camera at another women waiting for an underground train in Times Square.

When she pulled the "release" a sawed-off shotgun concealed inside went off, blasting Mrs. [Nancy Smith], age 28. With her left thigh shredded by pellets, Mrs. [Smith] fell screaming, while hundreds of startled spectators scattered and ran in all directions.

The police grabbed Miss [Pauline Jones], age 19, who still held the package. She hysterically told them she believed she was taking a picture of Mrs. [Smith] with a camera.

Between sobs she told her story. Several weeks ago, she said, she was employed by an insurance investigator, who told her to investigate a jewel robbery and wanted Mrs. [Smith] photographed. The investigator met her today in the underground station and handed her a package, which was about fourteen inches long with a small hole in it.

"This is a camouflaged camera," the man told her. Then he said, "Follow that woman and take a picture of her."

As the other woman walked in her direction she pulled what she thought was the camera shutter. There was an explosion and Mrs. [Smith] fell. A man rushed up to Mrs [Smith], spoke to her, and then fled.

A bystander rushed up to help the wounded woman, who said to him, "I am going to die. He threatened me before. This time he got me. He can have me now if he wants me. I am crippled. What happened to the police? I called them, but he was too smart for them."

Later, Mrs. [Smith], who is not expected to live, told the police that the man was her husband, [Gregorio Smith], age 30, who wounded her less than two months ago with a pistol.

Miss [Jones], almost hysterical, told the police that the investigator had given her packages supposed to contain a camera on previous occasions, and that she had taken "a picture" of Mrs. [Smith] a couple of weeks ago. The investigator told her that that picture was "no good."

Later, Miss [Jones] visited Mrs. [Smith] at the hospital and said to her, "I am awfully sorry I shot you. I thought I was merely taking a photograph."

Removing the Crazy Quilt Camouflage Coat

Charles Grave in Punch (1918)

Above Cartoon by Charles L. Grave (aka Chas) in Punch, July 17, 1918, p. 43. The caption reads: Skipper of Tug (to careless hand): "Ho! So you've caught the blinkin' cammy-flarge 'abit, 'ave year?"

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Anon, in the Barry Dock News, December 19, 1918, p. 8—

Signs of peace are becoming more evident every day. The steamer Island Liard, lying at Barry Docks, is the first ship in Barry to have the old funnel colors, which were obliterated during the war, repainted. The camouflage is also being done away with on many ships.

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 Anon, WOODEN SHIPS TO BE BLACK: Gray Paint To Be Exhausted By Builders First, However, in the Sunday Oregonian (Portland OR), March 16, 1919, p. 20—

…The painting features of wooden ship contracts have undergone changes since the war started. Inasmuch as it was first prescribed that the hulls have three coats of gray paint, while soon after the foremost members of the fleet were afloat the shipping board ordered camouflage designs to be added, that being substituted for the third  coat [of gray]. The lack of positive knowledge that German raiders in the Pacific had all been disposed of and the chance that wooden ships might operate in the Atlantic were responsible for the camouflage. With the signing of the armistice, the "crazy quilt" coat was left off and plain gray provided.

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 Anon, REMOVING THE CAMOUFLAGE in the South Wales Weekly Post, April 26, 1919, p. 4—

Many of the boats detained in Swansea Docks owing to the strike are seizing the opportunity of removing the weird camouflage colors of wartime, and are once more resuming a respectable appearance.

Crime Spree | The Perfect Camouflage Artist(s)

Fougasse, Punch cartoon (1918)

Above Cyril Kenneth Bird (aka Fougasse), "The Perfect Camouflage Artist" (Before and After) in Punch, November 20, 1918, p. 331.

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Anon, THIEVES USE CAMOUFLAGE in Indianapolis News, August 7, 1920—

Columbus IN, August 7—Jesse McNeal, a farmer living east of this city, noticed footprints in his potato patch and was unable to account for them until he started digging potatoes for his own use. He learned that thieves had entered the patch, robbed many hills and had replaced the plants so skillfully that the loss could not be learned until an attempt was made to dig the potatoes.

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Anon, POTATO CROOKS BEWARE! in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 27, 1920—

Pachogue NY, September 27—If anyone comes up before County Judge George Furman of Suffolk County for stealing potatoes he probably will "get all that is coming to him." Judge Furman had an acre of potatoes planted this spring and spent over $125 in planting and raising them. There would have been a crop of over 200 bushels, but the Judge harvested only 100 bushels. Thieves took the balance. To camouflage their operations they pulled up the vines, took off the potatoes and stuck the vines in the ground again.

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Anon, ST LOUIS THIEVES CAMOUFLAGE SAFE WHILE THEY ROB IT in Albuquerque Journal, January 31, 1933—

St Louis, January 30—Camouflage was employed by burglars who looted a grocery company's window safe of $350 and some checks last weekend.

They turned the strong box around so the back would be visible from the street, pasted eight dummy hinges, two false knobs and a likeness of a dial on the back and set to work.

Moonshine & Camouflaged Shenanigans

Will Vawter, "More Camouflage" (1918)

Above "More Camouflage" by John William (Will) Vawter, from Life magazine (1918).

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Earle Bowden, MOONSHINING IS PROFITABLE BUT DANGEROUS, in Panama City News-Herald (Panama City FL), July 11, 1950, p. 6—

Most moonshiners keep chickens, hogs and cattle nearby for camouflage reasons. They must have legitimate excuses for buying chicken feed, grain and scratch feed.

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M.F. Dacey, RUM RUNNERS IN MONTANA USING ARTIFICIAL CAMOUFLAGE TO GET BOOZE ACROSS BORDER, in El Paso Herald (El Paso TX), February 5, 1921—

Speed, daring, deception, invention, camouflage and cunning combined with nerve of a high order; utilization of every known means of transportation, from the Indian papoose's place on the back of a squaw and packets tied on drifting sheep to speedy scout planes designed for war, are devoted nowadays to delivering liquor purchased in Canada to cities hundreds of miles below the northern boundary of the United States.…

Funerals designed with the artistry of professional stagecraft, calling every member of a large cast to act with ability, were used successfully for a time. Spare tires of automobiles are chestnuts now, as are reserve tanks hidden within gasoline tanks.

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Anon, AUTO THIEVES WORK BOLDLY, in Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita KS), December 9, 1918—

Police in Petersburg VA captured a Haynes car loaded with fifty quarts of whiskey and drove the car to the police station garage, where they left it to go inside and make out their reports. When they returned to the garage the car was gone—whiskey and all. No clue.

…The up-to-date thieves operating in Rochester NY drive their loot out into unfrequented parts of the country, run the car in a field and camouflage it to resemble a broken down shed, hay stack or pile of brush. The police have recovered a number of these camouflaged cars since the scheme was discovered through a confession.

[John G. Williams, an old-timer from Omaha NE] recommended hanging as a punishment for auto stealing. "If we string up a few of them, it will discourage the others," he said. "It discouraged the horse thieves in the old days."…

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Anon, CAMOUFLAGE LATEST PROVIDENCE DRINK, in Huntington Herald (Huntington TX), June 21, 1918—

Providence RI, June 21—A drink called "camouflage," sold to soldiers and sailors in certain cafes here and calculated to intoxicate in jig time, is responsible for the closing of one hotel and several cafes are under suspicion. The agents of the department of justice says girls pilot the soldiers and sailors to the cafes, where the drink is sold without question.

Centenary of World War 1 Camouflage

14-18-NOW website

Above Throughout the UK, Europe and elsewhere, starting this year and continuing through 2018, all sorts of things are being planned in connection with the World War 1 Centenary—exhibitions, events, publications and online information blogs. Shown here for example is the opening page for an extensive website on 14-18-NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions (a convenient way to keep updated), maintained through the efforts of the Imperial War Museum and the Department for Culture, Media & Sport. The image above is one of a series of woodcuts by British Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth who, as a dock officer during World War 1, supervised the painting of more than 2,000 dazzle-painted ships.  

Below is the colored camouflage plan for the starboard side of the HMS Highflyer.

Dazzle camouflage plan for HMS Highflyer

Another helpful current source is the BBC's multimedia guide to WW1, with an especially rich section on ship camouflage, including the diagram posted below.

Diagram of HMT Olympic camouflage