Ship Camouflage Website Revised and Updated

Introduction

We've embarked on a major revision, a complete overhaul, more or less, of our World War I ship camouflage research website. Above is a screen grab of a portion of the introduction or home page. At the top of that page is a black-and-white bar, each section of which links to one of five other pages: events (a timeline or chronology), the process of ship camouflage, the people or camoufleurs, ship camouflage plans, and a list of books, articles and media sources. Below are additional screen grabs of portions of those pages. In the coming days and weeks, more changes will be posted.

Chronology

Process

People

Plans

Sources

Our Tiger Saskia Just Died | Rest In Peace

RIP Saskia the Cat (2018)

Above Our cat Saskia just died. It's a quiet Sunday morning here, and she died peacefully at home about an hour ago. She lived with us (tolerated us really) for eighteen years, which is a pretty long time for a creature who began life as a forlorn feral farm kitten.

She never allowed us to tame her, although she surely loved her mom. She loved to be held and squeezed by her mom—whom she also liked to bite, without warning. She craved belly rubs as intensely as she despised having her nails clipped. An episode of nail clipping, the mere mention of the word "clippers," or leaving her home alone for a day, were unpardonable causes for not speaking to (or even looking at) her mom for hours afterwards. Her father didn't exist (unless she was hungry for tuna).

Saskia was a perfectly beautiful tiger, a walking haute couture "poster child" for the stipey optical elegance of animal camouflage. She was named after Saskia van Uylenburgh, the model and eventual wife of Rembrandt. Our Saskia spent a lot of time in Mom's studio.

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William Blake—

Tyger, tyger, burning bright / In the forests of the night / What immortal hand or eye / Could frame they fearful symmetry?

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.