RAZZLE, DAZZLE, NEW CAMOUFLAGE EFFECT in Pittsburg Press, February 24, 1918—
USS West Galoc / 22 August 1918
NEW YORK, Feb 23—Camouflage is all right on the high seas but it is a nuisance in port. So say skippers on the harbor ferries here.
A great liner with razzle, dazzle decorations almost cut a Lackawanna ferry in two when the steamship emerged from her self established concealment the other day.
With the port full of pied pigment, commuters are wearing goggles to avoid paint shock. Whereas the early idea of camouflage was to make the ship blend into the sea and air, the latest wrinkle is to so dazzle enemy gunners with startling designs that they are unable to properly adjust their range finders.
The steamer that almost sank the ferryboat was a work of art. Light blue covered her bow for twenty feet than appeared three green and white semi-circles while a great black band ran from the poop deck at the sheer strake to a point on the waterline abaft the foremast. It was thirty feet broad. This black streak sprang from an arrangement of black and white concentric circles.
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).