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CAMOUFLAGE ARTIST CONVERT LEAR’S POST INTO ROAD STAND in Reading Eagle (Reading PA) September 12, 1941—
Somewhere in Louisiana with the Second Army (AP)—People just walk up and demand service—the place looks exactly like a refreshment stand. But the structure, on closer inspection, turns out to be Lieutenant General Benjamin Lear’s headquarters, artfully camouflaged in cloth.
It solves the problem of placing the directive headquarters of the Second Army in a spot close to telephonic communications without being too conspicuous.
The make-believe soft drink stand can be moved quickly and the general with it. So it violates no secret to reveal this fact as the enemy would have to inspect every refreshment stand in Louisiana to find it.
The job brought to light the work of the heretofore highly specialized group of soliders—the 8th Engineers Battalion, the first camouflage engineer unit ever formed in the army. It is quartered regularly at Fort Belvoir VA and commmanded by Major Ralph Lincoln.
Half-Skilled Workers
Now, the goal of virtually every artist and sculptor taken into the army, the battalion already has 50 per cent of its personnel professionally skilled workers. Each of the nation’s four armies will have similar units within the next few months.
The prize project in camouflage now underway is one by Private First Class Joseph Arasimowicz [1917-], of Pittsburgh, which he calls “new fall colors for snipers’ suits.” This consists of baggy, pajama-like uniforms dyed various shades of reds, browns and green to match the seasonal foliage the sniper picks to hide in. Arasimowicz claims a man in one of these suits is almost invisible at 30 yards.
To reduce worry for soldiers sleeping in the field, Corporal Constantine Dallas [b.1915], of Pittsburgh, who exhibited paintings throughout the East, is trying to figure out how to camouflage a pup tent so airmen overhead can’t spot it.
To cover up an entire sawmill, Corporal F[orest] C. Bess [1912-1977], former Bay City TX landscape gardener, has a crew busy stretching wires from tree to tree, from which bushes are suspended to look like the top of a forest.
The camouflage troops look on these jobs as those of “life savers,” for the reason the less the enemy can see the soldiers the less their chance of killing them.
