Above Photograph of USS Lake Pachuta of Saginaw from an advertisement for Saginaw Shipbuilding Co. in International Marine Engineering (June 1919), p. 95—
Lake Pachuta duing WWI
•••
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.
A blog for clarifying and continuing the findings that were published in Camoupedia: A Compendium of Research on Art, Architecture and Camouflage, by Roy R. Behrens (Bobolink Books, 2009).