Clayter, Sullivan & other Pittsburgh Navy camoufleurs

Frederic C. Clayter / 1918

Above Many years ago, when we first wrote about the team of camouflage artists who designed US Navy ship camouflage with Everett Longley Warner during World War I, among those we cited was someone named Frederic Charles Clayter (1890-1978).

Earlier, we had unearthed a wartime government photograph of Clayter and others in the camouflage “model-making shop” In Washington DC, but we must not have known much more than that. In CAMOUPEDIA: a compendium of research on art, architecture and camouflage (2009), there is no biographical entry for him, although his name is listed in the caption for that photograph.

Clayter, working as a camoufleur in Washington DC

The above portrait photograph of him appeared in The Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, December 22, 1918, p. 1). The headline reads: CAMOUFLEUR IN US NAVY RETURNS TO INDUSTRIAL ART DEPARTMENT AT PITT. Professor Clayter, the article states, is—

head of industrial art education in the University of Pittsburgh, [and] has returned to the School of Education after having served in the camouflage section of the United States Navy. He enlisted in the navy last spring and received a leave of absence from the university…While in the navy he was associated with several well-known artists who were engaged in the same work.

Clayter was originally from Muskegon MI. In a newspaper obituary, he is described as a “master craftsman and jewelry maker,” who had studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art, and had been awarded a fellowship at the L.C. Tiffany Foundation in New York. He also studied goldsmithing in England. As a professor, he had taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1916 to 1921, and at the Carnegie Mellon University from 1921 to 1956. In 1953, he was designated Pittsburgh Artist of the Year.

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In the photograph below (the same photograph as before, but cropped differently) four camoufleurs are pictured. They are (left to right) Kenneth MacIntire, Frederic C. Clayter, someone named Richards, and an artist named D. Frank (Sully) Sullivan (1892-1967). The only one yet to be identified is Richards.

Clayter (rear center) in model-making studio

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Daily Post (August 11, 1919, p 16)—

Sullivan had charge of public school industrial arts in Boston before the war and has just been discharged from the service where he was employed as a camouflage artist in Washington DC.

A few weeks in advance of that article, another notice (which includes a photograph of Sullivan, as shown below) had appeared in the Gazette Times (Pittsburgh, July 6, 1919), with the headline BOSTON MAN APPOINTED EXTENSION WORK CHIEF IN PITTSBURGH ACADEMY. It reads—

The appointment of [D. Frank] Sullivan of Boston as director of extension work for the Pittsburgh Academy has been announced by Director Herbert G. Lytle of the local school. Mr. Sullivan was recently relased from the Navy, where he was assigned to the headquarters of the naval camouflage department. He is a native of Massachusetts, and a graduate of the Massachusetts Normal Art School. He has been a member of the faculty of this school and of the Parlin School of Everett MA. Just before entering the service he was head of the department of mechanical drawing and drafting in the Pittsburgh Academy.

D. Frank Sullivan / 1919

 

In later years, Sullivan appears to have taught commercial art at Connelley Vocational School in Pittsburgh. In an article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette (March 30, 1951) titled RESCUE OF SUSANNA, it is reported that Sullivan was the owner of a painting by Allesandro Pomi (1890-1976) titled Susanna. A month ago, the article states—

fire swept Mr. Sullivan’s studio in the Whitfield Building, East End, and destroyed practically everything. But Susanna was saved. He carried her out himself…

Alessandro Pomi, Susanna (193

scientists adapt wartime devices for peacetime uses

World War I US Navy camoufleurs

Above This is a wonderfully detailed photograph (digitally colorized) from World War I of members of the US Navy’s Camouflage Section in Washington DC. Headed by Everett Longley Warner, and referred to as the Camouflage Design Subsection, these four men are in process of assembling wooden ship models. When completed, these models were then painted in camouflage patterns, and subsequently tested (in a periscope-equipped observation theatre), to determine their effectiveness in causing German U-boat gunners to make miscalculations in preparing to fire torpedoes.

We were reminded of this photograph when we recently found an article in the New York Sun, dated April 27, 1919, p. 8, as shown below in a restored and rearranged version. It is one of a series of US government photographs that were released to the public for use in news articles, perhaps in 1918 or early 1919. It was reproduced in the top left of what is nearly a full-page article. In the bottom center of the article, I have inserted a much clearer version of the same photograph.

A full-size scan of the original article can be found online, by searching through newspaper archives. The small-scale version posted here is not readable as such, but the topmost headline is: Scientists Hard at Work Turning War Inventions to Peace Uses. It’s a fairly detailed article, and it talks about aspects of camouflage-related research that one rarely sees discussed. During the war, underwater microphones were used by both sides of the conflict as a way of detecting the approach of enemy ships or submarines that were not yet visible. In this article, it is revealed that (now that the war is about to conclude) those same microphones might be used to detect the location and condition of miners who become buried underground when mines collapse.

There is even a brief description of the interior workings of the work area of the Design Subsection, which was located in “the new Navy Building.” The article continues: “At the rear of the office is a door leading into a back room which presents a very unusual appearance. Against the wall appears a collection of miniature ships carefully modeled and painted in curious and bizarre colors. An odd looking instrument is noted which, it later develops, is the periscope of a submarine.” 

detailed account of the process

US ship camouflage as an exact science / 1919 WWI

This article appeared in the Boston Sunday Globe on June 1, 1919, p. 112. It is unsigned, but the information would suggest that the writer had obtained firsthand information from Everett Longley Warner, who was in charge of the Design Subsection of the US Navy's Camouflage Section during World War I. Most articles on the subject then were replete with errors, but this one is an exception to that.

RELATED LINKS    

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work?

 Nature, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage

 Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage

 Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage

 Optical science meets visual art

 Disruption versus dazzle

 Chicanery and conspicuousness

 Under the big top at Sims' circus

Margaret Fitzhugh Browne on WWI ship camouflage

Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, Self-Portrait

Above Self Portrait by Margaret Fitzhugh Browne (1884-1972). Browne was a Massachusetts portrait painter, and this is one of her finest works. She was also the art editor for the Boston Evening Transcript at the end of World War I. Presumably while serving in that capacity, she attended a public talk by American Impressionist Everett Longley Warner. Wartime censorship having been lifted, Warner spoke in great detail about his involvement in American ship camouflage, including so-called “dazzle painting.” Browne published a lengthy and especially vivid account of Warner’s lecture. Her complete text is published below. It may be one of the finest accounts of the process. For my overview of the same subject, see Disruption versus Dazzle: Prevalent Misunderstandings about World War I Ship Camouflage, as well as the four short videos listed at the end of this blog post.

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Margaret Fitzhugh Browne, TAKING DAZZLE OUT OF DAZZLE PAINTING: Lieutenant Everett L. Warner, an Artist in Charge of the Navy’s Camouflage Designs During the War, Explains Secrets of the Optical Illusions Created, in the Boston Evening Transcript. August 11, 1920, Part 2, Page 5—

Perhaps none of the devices and inventions of science used in the late war has had such a general and pictureque appeal as the subject of camouflage. Certainly the principles of none have been so apparently easy for the public to grasp, as the general acceptance of the term and its useful and established place in the language bear witness. But in spite of this wide understanding of the broad aims of camouflage—namely, to produce an optical illusion—there has been an almost universal misapprehension of its methods and principles. This has been especially the case in marine camouflage and was due to the fact that the many attempts to explain it were made by writers who, because of the close navy censorship, which was maintained even long after the armistice, had access to no reliable information. The result was that an emormous amount of false or misleading material was published even in periodicals of a semi-scientific character.

A most interesting and valuable opportunity to understand the true aims and principles of naval camouflage was afforded in a talk on the subject in Duxbury MA, under the auspices of the Duxbury Art Association, by Lieut. Everett L. Warner, who was in charge of the Section of Design of naval camouflage in Washington during the war.

Lieutenant Warner is an artist of high standing, a member of the artists’ colony at Lyme CT, with a studio in New York in the winter, and was one of the many artists who turned to account their imagination, ingenuity and years of training in the study of things as they appear in this branch of war service. His talk at the Duxbury Yacht Club was delightfully informal, full of interesting anecdotes and illustrated by lantern slides from photographs of ships or models made to demonstrate the camouflage designs.

Land and Marine Camouflage
Lieutenant Warner first emphasized the essential difference between land and marine camouflage, saying that the two had almost nothing in common, either in their methods or their aims. Land camouflage was more obviously a deception of the eye, as it attempted to make things invisible or make them look like something else. Whereas in the navy, though it was desirable to conceal the character or identity of a ship when possible, that was far from being the chief end of camouflage. The early experiments tried for “low visibility,” as it was called, almost exclusively, but it was soon found that the movement of the ship and the constantly changing and infinite variety of light upon her made such deception very uncertain.

Many suggestions along these lines, however, were submitted to the Navy Department throughout the war. One man had an elaborate scheme for painting the ship to look like an island with trees and houses and even a lighthouse on it—a suggestion which would have been only more complete by having the steamer’s smoke issue from the chimney of the lighthouse keeper’s house. Of course an obvious drawback to this plan was that as the ship was not stationary the camouflage would hardly be very convincing.

Another idea was that the ships be covered with mirrors, which it was supposed would reflect the surrounding sky and sea and so make the ship invisible. The originator of the plan, however, while he had realized one of the necessities of “low visibility” camouflage, namely, that it would have to change with every condition of sea and sky to be effective, still was far from a solution, as he did not recognize the fact that the mirrors would only reflect the sky and water behind the submarine, and not behind the ship to which they were applied, and that furthermore, with every roll of the ship, they would flash alternatively light and dark, greatly increasing her visibility; a condition which the Navy had realized and tried to eliminate by giving up entirely the use of any glossy paint or bright surfaces on the ships. Other imaginative minds suggested such things as enveloping the ship in a net to make her look like a cloud on the horizon, or painting a destroyer on her sides so that she would appear to be closely convoyed—a scheme which would, of course, have its only chance of deception when she was exactly broadside on to the submarine.

Low Visibility Abandoned
Doubtless the people who submitted these kindred ideas for “low visibility,” and, in fact, the public at large, have wondered how the crazy zig-zag patterns with which the ships were painted could possibly achieve this result, and it certainly did seem as if the vessels were made more noticeable by them. The truth of the matter was that the designers and experimenters with marine camouflage did not make ships invisible simply because they couldn’t, and the patterns on the ships were not designed with that in view. It was soon discovered that a method of painting which could make a ship less visible on one kind of day made her more visible on another, and that a paint which would look dark on sunny days would appear most white on cloudy days, in contrast with gray skies and seas. Then, too, the microphone, a listening device by which a submerged submarine could hear the engines of a moving vessel at a distance of as much as twelve miles, and could often hear and roughly determine the position of a steamer long before it could be seen, rendered the reduced visibility of ships of doubtful value.

As an illustration of the extreme delicacy of this instrument, Lieutenant Warner told of an experience of the British Q-boat Barranca, while hunting submarines. A German U-boat was located by microphone on the bottom of the sea, where, as it was before the days of depth bombs, she was safe from attack, though the listener at the instrument on the Barranca could plainly hear a phonograph playing German songs on the U-boat below.

The development of this marvelous instrument forced the scientists to come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done but to evolve a color of the lowest visibility and paint the ships with that without any further attempts at camouflage. But the imagination of the artists had been aroused and they would not give up. The idea of “dazzle painting,” as it was ultimately known, was finally conceived by a British artist, Norman Wilkinson. In the spring of 1917 he presented to the British Admiralty his plan. This was the use of strongly contrasted designs which so distorted the appearance of the ship that it was difficult to determine her course. He argued that though it had not proved possible to paint a vessel so that she was hard to see, it was still possible to paint her so that she would be hard to hit, and that as she could be both seen and heard anyway, a method of painting which rendered her more invisible would lessen her danger from torpedo attack if it distorted her course.

Spoiling the Torpedoes’ Aim
From then on the basic idea of marine camouflage was, not to make a ship difficult to see or to change her character, but to make it difficult for a submarine to determine the course which she was traveling. The submarine, after locating her prey, tries to reach a good position for firing by keeping submerged and thrusting up her periscope at as long intervals and for as short periods as possible. A ship whose course was puzzling would force the submarine to keep her periscope up longer, and the chances were that she would be seen and her quarry make its escape before she put up her periscope to locate it again. Furthermore, as the ships cannot be fired at point blank, owing to the slow rate of speed at which a torpedo travels, the range must be determined with the greatest accuracy, and the torpedo aimed so as to meet the ship at a given point on her course. The slightest mistake in the estimation of her course would send the torpedo harmlessly ahead or astern of her, and “dazzle painting,” by distorting the course, frequently caused the U-boats to take up the wrong position, and spoiled the accuracy of their long shots.

That the Germans fully realized the importance of determing the true course of a ship is shown by a quotation which Lieutenant Warner gave from the confidential manual issued for the instruction of German submarine officers at Kiel. A copy of this was secured by the British Secret Service and passed on to us through the office of Naval Intelligence. In this manual it was stated that “the determination of the track angle of the enemy’s course is the foundation of the whole art of firing submerged.”

Now that the importance and value of course distortion was generally accepted, the next step was the principles of design and pattern which would produce this result. At first the work was carried on by means of countless experiments with one pattern after another, and the English evolved some very successful designs in this way. Lieutenant Commander Wilkinson, the originator of the idea, came to this country for a month and gave our navy the benefit of the British experience in ship camouflage. Lieutenant Warner worked with him and many of the devices and patterns which the English had found resulted in “course distortion” were adopted by our Navy, but it was not until some time afterwards that the principles underlying these results were understood and the general law governing the effect produced was discovered.

Working with Models
As everyone knows, teaching a subject involves reducing it to its basic principles and putting the principles in a clear and easily understood form, and it was largely through explaining the “dazzle painting” to the camoufleurs of the Shipping Board, whose duty it was to apply the navy designs to the ships, that the subject was put upon a practical basis of procedure, having a logical certainty of result. To secure more complete cooperation and that they might better understand the principles underlying the designs, three of the camoufleurs came to Washington each week for an intensive course given by the camouflage designers.There, in the Navy Department’s camouflage theatre, they were shown the little models of the different types of ships, carefully made to scale, with which the camouflage designers made their experiments. The ships were painted with different dazzle designs, placed upon the turntable and viewed through a periscope to determine whether the camouflage gave the necessary course distortion before the designs were approved and issued for use.

In order that the camoufleurs might be more familiar with the basic construction of the patterns, Lieutenant Warner had made a number of wooden blocks of different geometric shapes, which could be arranged in imitation of the patterns applied to the ships, and it was gradually discovered that every successful pattern, whether based on geometric or any other form, was capable of explanation along the same lines, and was governed by the laws of perspective.

One of the most successful methods of producng course distortion was that of projecting upon the ship’s sides a pattern consisting of a series of forms which apparently turned towards or away from the observer, according to the way in which they were drawn, with the result that the ship appeared to be steering in the direction indicated by the pattern.

Illusion of this sort is familiar to everyone in scene painting, or, in fact, any pictorial representation, and Lieutenant Warner gave an illustration which should make the principle clear, even to those not accustomed, like the painter, architect or sculptor, to realize the changes in the appearance of objects seen at different angles, and of course explainable by the laws of perspective. For instance, a row of bathhouses along a curving beach painted upon the backdrop of a stage would look equally convincing if that backdrop were erected upon an actual beach. The beach and houses would appear to be curving away, though in reality painted upon a flat surface. The same principles of perspective applied to a pattern made up of geometric forms painted upon a ship’s sides would make her appear to be turning away from the observer when she was actually broadside on.

Other methods of producing an optical illusion were also used such as parallel, vertical bands to make a ship look taller and to conceal smokestacks or confuse her construction, and so make it difficult to fix upon a point in calculating the range. Broad bands were sometimes painted upon her sides at such angles as to create the illusion of a bow in advance of her real bow, and the lights and darks cause by her actual construction were confused by the application of fictitious structural shadows painted upon her.

The matter of color was not of importance in “dazzle painting,” dealing as it did with the distortion of form, and though many experiments with color were tried especially in the earlier attempts for “low visibility,” it was finally demonstrated that values or degrees of light and dark were of more importance, and some of the best results were obtained with only blacks and grays, though blue was frequently used, in the hope that it might on certain days blend with the sea or sky and so add to the distortion of the form of the ship and obscure the direction of the course upon which she was traveling.

The success of camouflage cannot, of course, be definitely demonstrated, owing to all the other factors which enter into the matter of a ship’s safety, but the navy statistics in comparing the losses among the camouflage and un-camouflaged ships are so greatly in favor of the former as practically to prove its success. Its future is, of course, problematical. In the event of another war it would, without doubt, be carried even further and its field widened. There may be a future for it in peace, however, for if ships can be painted so as to distort their course they could be made to show more clearly the direction in which they are traveling and so lessen the chances of collision and miscalculation.

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See also 

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Fitzhugh_Browne>

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

speeding up the daily production of ship camouflage

During World War I, did any of the ship camouflage artists come up with clever procedures by which they could speed up the daily production of dazzle designs?

The answer is affirmative, although we do not know to what extent these were actually put into practice. Among the most ingenious was a method that originated with an American Navy camoufleur named Everett L. Warner. It was he who oversaw the ship camoufleurs in Washington DC at the Design Subsection of the US Navy’s Camouflage Section. Not only did he originate this method, he also documented it with photographs and described it in an article that was later published.

Here is what we know about his innovative method of producing new schemes for the sides of ships: At some point, he discovered that the painters at the harbors, who were applying the schemes to the actual ships, did not fully understand how various distortions worked. As a result, he initiated the practice of requiring small groups of those painters to attend training sessions at the Design Subsection. The distortion effects were a challenge to explain, and Warner soon found it was helpful to have on hand a number of cut-up, variously-colored wooden scraps to use in demonstrations.

One day, while preparing these demonstrations, Warner inadvertently arranged a number of these scraps of wood on the surface of a table. With no particular purpose, a wooden model of a ship, painted in monochrome gray, had been placed on the same surface, so that it served as a contrasting background. At that point, Warner realized that he could easily rearrange the scraps, in all but an infinite number of ways, and then use that arrangement as a flat, confusing pattern on the surface of the ship. If the scraps were aligned at an oblique angle, the plain gray ship behind them would appear to be positioned at the same angle. more>>>

diagram of a ship camouflage viewing theatre in 1918

Recently, we devised a diagram of the type of observation theatre (equipped with an upsidedown periscope) that was first used by the British and then the Americans (and most likely other Allies too) for testing dazzle ship camouflage schemes during World War I. 

Reproduced above is the left half of the diagram, showing two camouflage artists. Included in the diagram are American Navy camoufleurs Kenneth MacIntire (taking notes), and Harold Van Buskirk, who is looking through the periscope, trying to determine the angle at which a camouflage-painted ship model is headed.

As shown below in the right half of the diagram, the ship model was placed on an adjustable turntable, on the other side of a barrier wall. Behind that turntable was a painted canvas background that could be changed to simulate various visibility factors, such as weather or surrounding. Illumination could also be changed. The turntable (or perhaps the surface on which it was mounted) was marked with degree increments. When the periscopic observer had rotated the ship model to an angle that appeared correct, the person on the other side of the wall could easily tell the exact degree to which the observer’s adjustment was mistaken. The greater the error, the more effective the scheme would likely be in deceiving the periscope calculations of a U-boat gunner.

An especially clear, succinct account of the entire process (albeit, not every detail is fully correct) was published in the New Zealand Tablet, on January 29, 1920, including the following excerpt—

…a small wooden model of each ship was made to scale, on which was painted a dazzle design. This was carefully studied in a prepared theatre through a submarine periscope, and when the design had been so altered and arranged that it gave the maximum distortion, the model was handed over to a trained plan-maker, who fitted that design to scale for the particular ship it was intended. The plan was then dispatched to the port at which the particular ship was lying, and transferred to the vessel. Thus a model and plan were made for every ship. For each type a number of designs were made, so that on arrival at port any ship requiring a dazzle plan could be immediately camouflaged. Sometimes as many as 100 vessels were being painted at the same time in one port.

Not all WWI ship camouflage testing theatres were constructed just like this. Some were less elaborate, even makeshift, while others differed in other regards, but the overall principle was the same. 

SEE ALSO

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

1919 newsreel film on the design of ship camouflage

USS Sierra (1918)

Above US government photograph of the USS Sierra, 1918, port side, painted in dazzle camouflage plan Type N40 Design B. Digital coloring.

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The following is a paragraph from a film industry magazine, published near the end of World War I. It describes a "newsreel" segment that was filmed at a ship camouflage studio. We suspect that this film featured William Andrew Mackay, who oversaw the camouflage of merchant ships, and was probably filmed in his studio in New York. This seems probable in part because of the mention of the use of ship models made of plaster. Mackay is known to have used plaster models, while the US Navy Camouflage Design Subsection (which Everett Warner oversaw) seems to have used wooden models. It is unlikely that the film survived.

NEW SCREEN MAGAZINE FOR UNIVERSAL PROMISES MANY ATTRACTIVE FEATURES in Motion Picture Educator, February 22, 1919, p. 1—

[The first issue of New Screen Magazine, a non-print Hollywood periodical in the form of brief news stories on screen, includes] “How We Foiled the Huns” [which] gives an interesting illustration of how work was carried on at the Camouflage Department. It shows the making of plaster models of ships, the artists at work on these miniature pattern ships, and the inspection of the finished product through a periscope to test the quality of its deceptiveness. The exact theory on which the camouflaging of ships was carried out is fully explained.

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Note There are no full-color photographs of WWI ship camouflage. The original of the black and white image above (US government, public domain) has been digitally “colorized” using AI software. While its light / dark values are accurate, the choice and location of colors, even when plausible, may not be literally correct.

using a periscope to view camouflage-painted models

The US Secretary of the Navy during World War I was Josephus Daniels (1862-1948), a prominent North Carolina newspaper editor. He was appointed by President Woodrow Wilson, while Franklin D. Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

There are various photographs of Daniels in connection with his wartime duties, both army and navy. In the government photo above, for example, he is shown while on a visit to the US Navy’s Camouflage Section in Washington DC. He is peering through a submarine periscope (positioned upsidedown) to view dazzle-painted wooden ship models (like those on shelves behind him) that had been set up for testing in an adjoining room. 

In a second (poor quality) news photograph (above), he is in the same facility, probably on the same day, where (according to the caption) he is examining the model for the USS George Washington (as published in UNCLE SAM HAS CAMOUFLAGE FOR SHIPS IN PEACE in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (New York), on April 27, 1919, p. 9). According to Everett Warner (who oversaw the artists who designed ship camouflage) this was one of the largest ship models, measuring twenty-two and a half inches in length.

There is a surviving photograph of the camouflaged model for the same ship (below), but it shows only the opposite side (the port side), while the starboard side is visible in the photograph of Secretary Daniels.

It is of additional interest to note that this camouflage scheme was apparently never applied to the USS George Washington. According to an article by Robert Skerret (1919), at the close of the war, when that same vessel was selected to transport President Wilson to Europe, the ship and its fleet of escorts were not dazzle-painted, but instead were covered in “Omega Gray,” a monotone developed not by US Navy camoufleurs but by the Submarine Defense Association. 

[OOPS I seem to have made a mistake. I forgot that in an earlier post, I published photographs of the USS George Washington painted in this same dazzle camouflage scheme, and quoted from texts that described it. It appears to have been repainted at a later date in monotone gray.]

In a third photograph (below), Daniels is shown out of doors, presumably in an army training field, talking to an infantryman who is camouflaged to blend in with the surrounding foliage.

Daniels is commonly credited with being a supporter of women’s suffrage. And, while serving as Secretary of the Navy, it was he who first enabled women to be employed by and serve in the US Navy.

There is more information about his support of women's service in a news article in the Poughkeepsie Eagle News (LIFE HAD ITS PROBLEMS FOR SAILOR GIRLS OF 1917), on September 29, 1942—

"Is there any law that says a yeoman must be a man?" Secretary Daniels asked his legal advisors. The answer was no but only men had been enlisted up to then. The law did not say "male."

"Then enroll women in the Naval Reserve as Yeomen," Secretary Daniels said, "and we will have the best clerical assistance the country can provide."

The Navy got a total of 11,000 yeomen (F) by calling women to the Naval Reserve, mostly to take care of clerical work at the Navy Department in Washington. Some Yeomen (F) were translators, some were draughtsmen, fingerprinters, camouflage designers [assigned to the Camouflage Section], recruiting agents, or workers in the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery or in Naval Intelligence."

According to Aryeh Wetherhorn in The Easter Egg Fleet (2020), among the American women who held camouflage-related positions in the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) were Sara Elizabeth Carles [sister of artist Arthur Beecher Carles, who also worked as a ship camoufleur], Ruth Prentice Thompson, Lilian A. Jones, Jean Knox, Sara Scott, and Florence Dorothea Fischer.

•••

That given, there are deeply troubling aspects of Daniels’ actions and beliefs. He has been described as a “vehement white supremicist and segregationist,” and a supporter of the Ku Klux Klan. It is especially disturbing to read about his connection with the Wilmington Massacre of 1898, in Wilmington NC.

irrefutable confirmation that the artist can be practical

Lieutenant Warner at his residence

Washington Evening Star (Washington DC), March 17, 1918, p. 28—

Everett L. Warner of this city and New York has lately received a commission as a first lieutenant, senior grade, in the Navy, on account and for the continuation of his work in what is known as “marine camouflage.”

The particular branch of work that Lieutenant Warner has been conducting is, in point of fact, not camouflage along the lines understood by this term at present, but is, rather, what is known under the general name of “dazzle system.” Upon careful observation it has been found that there is no such thing as camouflage for ships, there being no single color which will make them invisible under all circumstances. The “dazzle system,” which distorts a boat’s shape and prevents accurate marksmanship on the part of the enemy, has, however, proved not only helpful, but a real protection. And it is this that is being followed out scientifically under the charge of Lieutenant Warner and other artists with the co-operation and approval of the United States Shipping Board and the Navy Department.

The theory was developed primarily and largely in England, and three-fourths of the mail streamers between the United States and England now make use of it.

This is an interesting use to make of art and one which has proved its value. It goes to show, moreover, that the artist can be practical as well as artistic and has his place in warfare as well as in days of peace.

•••

Postscript A day or two after we posted this, we happened to run across an online newspaper article about Everett Warner and camouflage, published in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on December 25, 2019. 

Everett Warner and WWII Disruptive Ship Camouflage

Reproduced below is an extremely rare photograph of a small team of US Navy ship camouflage artists during World War II. In the center foreground, holding a ship model, is Everett Longley Warner, who was the Chief Civilian Aid in charge of ship camouflage. Warner had served in a similar capacity during World War I. The person in the top left background is unidentified, but the remaining five staff members are (l to r) Bennet Buck, Sheffield Kagy, William Walters, Arthur Conrad, and Robert R. Hays. It was Hays who provided a scan of this photograph when we corresponded with him in the 1990s.

In researching naval camouflage, I have typically emphasized WWI, largely because, as an artist and designer, it is far more intriguing to me than WWII, and, more generally, because I am less interested in military technology than in parallel form developments in camouflage (natural and military) and Modern-era art and design.

Related to that, it has always puzzled me to find that, when I speak to audiences about WWI dazzle ship camouflage, a common response is for people to say that such “high difference” confusion patterns must only have been used in WWI, because (or so they assume) non-visual means of detection (such as radar) were predominant during WWII.

Yet, if I look through my archive of ship camouflage photographs (see examples of WWII below, c1944-45), I easily have as many or more examples of “disruptively patterned” ships from WWII as I have from WWI. An additional consideration is that the same person (Everett L. Warner, as noted above) was responsible for ship camouflage in both World Wars.

USS Passig

USS Lenoir

USS Breckenridge

This is not to say that pattern disruption in WWI and WWII were the same. They were not. As I tried to explain in an earlier published essay, titled Disruption versus Dazzle: Prevalent Misunderstandings about World War I Ship Camouflage (2018), disruptive patterns were still widely used in WWII, but with an important distinction. 

WWII ship camouflage was no longer addressed solely or primarily to the viewpoint of a U-boat periscope, but to multiple observation points, such as the view from the deck of a ship, or from an airplane’s overhead view. As a result, as shown by WWII ship camouflage plans, it became essential to apply disruptive patterns to the horizontal surfaces of a ship, surfaces that would not have been visible during WWI from the viewpoint of a German submarine.

Unless I’m mistaken, this issue has largely been ignored by others who research the subject. But there is at least one exception. It is discussed in an online paper titled Naval Camouflage and its Application on HMC Ships REGINA and MONCTON: A Brief History, published in March 2020. Its author, Timothy Choi, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Calgary’s Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies.

RELATED LINKS

Ship Shape: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

Khaki to Khaki (dust to dust): The ubiquity of camouflage in human experience

Chicanery and Conspicuousness: Social Repercussions of World War I Ship Camouflage 

British Steamer: Is she coming or going, which Is it?

FREIGHTER RAMS AND SINKS SUBMARINE  in The Austin American (Austin TX), May 3, 1918—

An Atlantic Port, May 2—A British freight steamer fresh from the yards of her builders celebrated her maiden trans-Atlantic voyage by running down and sinking a German U-boat off the Irish coast, her crew reported upon their arrival today.

USS Louisville in camouflage (1918)

The freighter was equipped with the latest anti-submarine devices, which proved very effective.

The submersible came to the surface suddenly a short distance off the ship’s bow and was caught by the British helmsman’s quick work almost before the U-boat commander could puzzle out through the steamer’s remarkable camouflage whether she was going or coming.

Dazzle-camouflaged USS Lake Clear (1918)

Fighting the U-Boat with Pattern, Disruption and Paint

Waldemar Kampffert, Fighting the U-Boat with Paint: How American and English artists taught sailors to dazzle the U-boat in Popular Science Monthly. Vol 94 No 4 (April 1919), p. 17ff—

When the German U-boats began their depredations, it became desperately necessary to provide some protective coloration for transports, food ships, and the hundreds of vessels that were carrying munitions to Europe.

Battleship gray having proved utterly useless, naval officers turned instinctively to artists for advice and assistance. If an artist, with his trained eye, knows how to apply color, knows how to trace lines on canvas so that they become the counterfeit presentment of the thing he sees, couldn’t he reverse the process and devise some way of blotting out the thing to be looked at?

Above Camouflage pattern applied to USS Chibiabos (c1918), US Shipping Board.

It so happened that American artists interested themselves in devising schemes of protective coloration as soon as the U-boat began to sink on sight. The pioneers among them were William Andrew Mackay, Maximilian Toch, Gerome Brush, Everett L. Warner, and Lewis Herzog.

Above Dazzle camouflage applied to USS Beaumont (c1918), US Shipping Board.

 

Lindell T. Bates, MARINE CAMOUFLAGE BROUGHT TO PERFECTION IN AMERICA: First Authentic Account of the Development of Illusion in Foiling Hun Pirates Written by Leader in the Work Here—Scientific Explanation of Colors, Curves and Lines Used. The New York Sun. January 19, 1919, p. 11—

In the course of the war several American artists, noting the rapid development of land camouflage, became interested in its marine possibilities. William A. Mackay and Lewis Herzog, both of New York, appear to have been the pioneers of elaborate camouflage both of this country and abroad, although in 1917 attention was beginning to focus on this question simultaneously in many quarters. Gerome Brush, Maximilian Toch and Everett L. Warner soon entered the new field. Mr. Mackay even established a marine camouflage school in New York City, the first of its kind.

Above Dazzle camouflage applied to USS La Forge (c1918), US Shipping Board.

• Note Restored black and white US Government photographs have been colorized using AI digital coloring (not literally accurate).

Stages in WWI Ship Camouflage Application | 1918

USS George Washington (1918)

The SS George Washington was an ocean liner that was actually built by the German government prior to World War I. They named it for the first US President, and it kept that name throughout the war, although in 1917 it was seized by the US and used to transport American troops. It could carry almost 3000 passengers. When it was used by the navy, it was officially known as the USS George Washington. When used to transport army troops, its designation was USAT for US Army Transport.

The ship was initially camouflaged for the first time in 1918, in dazzle style. That formidable task was accomplished, from beginning to end, in less than a couple of weeks. Lieutenant Harold Van Buskirk, who was the executive officer in charge of the two-pronged US Navy Camouflage Section, described how that was undertaken in an article titled “Camouflage,” published in Transactions of the Illuminating Engineering Society (Vol 14 No 5) on July 21, 1919, pp. 225-229. Here is a portion of what he wrote—

On April 21, [1918], I received a request for a design for the USS George Washington, due to arrive at New York, April 27, and due to sail May 2. The blueprints of this vessel were obtained at once and outboard profiles and fore and aft elevations of the main superstructure were drawn at 1/16 inch to the foot. At the same time construction was started on a wooden model of the vessel at a scale of 1/32 inch to the foot. As soon as the drawing was completed it was sent to the US Geological Survey for copies. The model on completion was turned over to the design room. Here a design for this particular vessel was considered, tried and finally developed, with the aid of a submarine periscope looking over a false sea towards changeable sky backgrounds, which were operated from the periscope. On the sea, at a distance representing 2,700 yards or 1 1/2 miles was a turntable that also operated from the periscope. In this way, the model placed on the turntable could be observed from the periscope at various angles with varying sky backgrounds and lighting conditions. In order to obtain a veiling glare such as exists at sea due to fog, mist, smoke, etc., a movable semi-transparent mirror was mounted between the observer and the model to reflect scattered light into the eye of the observer in a way entirely analogous to the condition existing in nature. Generally, the design had been approved by the time the printed forms had been returned from the Geological Survey. The model bearing the approved design was then turned over to the drafting room where it was transferred to the outboard prints. This entire process averaged four to five days so that in this case on the morning of April 26 the design of the George Washington was mailed to the Navy Yard, New York, by special delivery and there awaited her arrival.

In this case, there are surviving photographs of the ship's completed camouflage, as shown (above and below) on this post.

There is also a photograph of the wooden model of it that was used to test the camouflage in an observation theatre.

Van Buskirk (right) and Richardson with USS George Washington model

USS George Washington in harbor at Brest, France (1918)

There is even a wonderful photograph of Lieutenant Van Buskirk and (we think) Ensign Raymond J. Richardson, originally from Reading PA, who, prior to the war, had been an architect and, after it ended, taught architecture at the Carnegie Insitute of Technology in Pittsburgh. At the camouflage facility in Washington DC, Richardson was in charge of the drafting room, where the ship plans were prepared.

A few months after the publication of Van Buskirk's article, Lieutenant Everett L. Warner (who oversaw the artists in the design subsection) published a lengthy account of the steps in the process of ship camouflage. The article, titled “Fooling the Iron Fish: The Inside Story of Marine Camouflage,” appeared in a popular magazine called Everybody’s Magazine, November 1919, pp. 102-109. He mentions the USS George Washington, in describing how wooden ship models were made—

The work began in the model-making room, where about a half dozen skilled men under Ensign Kenneth Maclntire were kept constantly busy in the production of miniature wooden models, which were accurately made to a fixed scale from blueprints of the vessels required. The reader may get a general idea of the size of these models from the dimensions of the President’s ship, the USS George Washington. It was one of the largest of them and measured about twenty-two and a half inches in length.

Warner refers to it as “the President’s ship” because on two occasions (December 1918, and again in the following March) President Woodrow Wilson and his diplomatic entourage traveled to the Paris Peace Conference on this same ship. But for those two trips, the USS George Washington was apparently no longer painted in a dazzle camouflage design.

American Camouflage Artist | William Andrew Mackay

Full text online essay on William Andrew Mackay

Note: The essay and web page to which this blogpost links have been substantially revised (enlarged and refined) since they were initially posted.—RB

Above Earlier this morning, we posted an online essay on the contributions to World War I ship camouflage of American muralist William Andrew Mackay. He was one of the most prominent and prolific of the artist-camoufleurs of that era, but his involvement has never been fully explained.

His camouflage experiments should be of particular interest to vision scientists, since his methods were partly derived from the color vision research of physicists James Clerk Maxwell and Ogden Rood. But art historians should also find it of relevance, since his research was related to the development of Neo-Impressionism. More>>>

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SEE ALSO

Nature, Art, and Camouflage (35 min. video talk)

Art, Women’s Rights, and Camouflage (29 min. video talk)

Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage (26 min. video talk)

Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage (28 min. video talk)

Making Dazzle Ships at the Tishman Auditorium

Public talk on ship camouflage (2018)

Above A guest presentation I gave on Thursday evening (November 15) at the Tishman Auditorium at The New School in New York City. The event, titled Making Dazzle Ships: Art, History and Design from WWI to Today, was focused on WWI dazzle ship camouflage in relation to that war's centenary (1914-1919). Of particular note has been the recent dazzle-painting of an historic fireboat, the John J. Harvey, which can be seen in New York harbor through May 1919.

Following my historical overview was a panel discussion, with insightful observations about that project (called Flow Separation) by Tauba Auerbach (the artist), Emma Enderby (project curator), and Jesse Hamerman (exhibitions director for The Public Art Fund), shown below in front of a detail of the vessel's dazzle design. It was a fascinating discussion, with new behind-the-scenes information about the challenges of designing the pattern, and the process of actually painting the ship. It was a great pleasure to be included.

It was also so gratifying to look out into the audience, and to see in attendance one of my favorite former graphic design students (at the University of Northern Iowa), NYC designer Amanda Chan. Less encouraging was the weather outside, a sloppy mix of snow and rain.

For more information about the historic context of WWI ship camouflage, here are links to two recently published online booklets here and here, as well as a wonderfully edited radio interview on 99% Invisible.

Panel discussion on ship painting project

Assembly | The Work of Dazzle Camouflage

Above Details of the windows at the entrance of the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls IA. Translated into large-scale vinyl are schematic dazzle camouflage plans for the two sides of a World War I American merchant ship (c1918).

It's a street-side advertisement for the center's current exhibition, titled ASSEMBLY: The Work of Dazzle Camouflage, on view from October 5 through November 25, 2018. So-called dazzle camouflage was widely used during WWI in an effort to throw off the calculations of German submarines (called U-boats) in their efforts to torpedo ships. The process is described in detail here and here, as well as on this multi-page website.

Using historic photographs, dazzle ship plans, and other artifacts from the collection of author and graphic designer Roy R. Behrens (UNI professor of art and distinguished scholar), the exhibition provides a look behind the scenes at the diversity of the people who enabled this odd approach to succeed. The exhibit is free and open to the public.

Below During WWI, the Navy Reserve officer who oversaw the ship camouflage work of a team of artists, designers and architects in Washington DC was Everett L. Warner, an American Impressionist painter who was originally from Vinton IA.

Disruption Vs. Dazzle | Prevalent Misunderstandings

Above This essay has just been published privately as a full-color booklet. It discusses misunderstandings about the way in which World War I ship camouflage was intended to function. It also makes a distinction between figure disruption (as proposed in 1914 by Scottish zoologist John Graham Kerr, who called it "parti-coloring") and dazzle-painting (as proposed in 1917 by British artist Norman Wilkinson). more>>>

Lindell T. Bates | Ship Camouflage Behind the Scenes

An Incomplete Cast of Characters•

The US entered World War I in 1917, at which time it began to give serious consideration to ship camouflage, especially in relation to the threat of German submarines (called U-boats). For the remainder of the war, as narrated in the text below, there was confusion and disagreement about the "best practices" for ship camouflage, as distinct from land and aircraft camouflage.

The US Navy sought the advice of the British Admiralty, who had recently adopted an innovative system called dazzle-painting (as proposed by British artist Norman Wilkinson) in which a ship's appearance was broken up and made to look bewildering to the commander of a submerged U-boat, whose distant and brief observations were made through a periscope.

What kinds of professionals would be well-suited for ship camouflage design? Artists (who reliably fool the human eye), or zoologists (who study animal camouflage), or scientists (who conduct experiments with the physiology of vision, including light, color and optics)? 

In the US, most camouflage proposals were of two kinds: There were those who spoke in favor of disruptive ship camouflage (of which dazzle-painting was one example). To make a ship invisible in an ocean setting was simply not achievable, so instead it would be wiser to paint its surface in order to distort its shape. The goal of camouflaging ships, they argued, was not to make it hard to see, but to make it hard to hit. Advocates of this approach were primarily artists. 

There was a second and opposing side, which urged the government to adopt low visibility camouflage. Even if it were a challenge to make a ship invisible, they reasoned, it was still of considerable value to lessen its visibility, and to therefore afford it protection. This group, in which scientists predominated, devoted their efforts to testing low contrast, non-disruptive painting schemes, and assessing the discernability of various experimental ship models, for which they used such devices as a colorimeter and a visibility meter [see patent diagrams below]. Typically, in this approach, "dazzle-painted" camouflage schemes were assessed not just for distortion but for visibility as well. 

L.A. Jones Patent for Visibility Meter (1922)

In 1918, when the US Navy officially established a Camouflage Section, it was purposely made of two branches: The Design Subsection [pictured below], consisting of artists, was headquartered in Washington DC, while the Research Subsection, made up of scientists, conducted their experiments at the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester NY. The tandem sections were administrated by Harold Van Buskirk [Photo 1 above]. an architect and Olympic fencing champion. An American Impressionist artist, Everett L. Warner [Photo 3], was put in charge of the Design Subsection, while the leader of the research team at Eastman Kodak was that firm's leading scientist, Loyd A. Jones [Photo 2].

E.L. Warner and other artists at Design Subsection (c1917)•

Today, one hundred years later, most people react with surprise or disbelief when they see examples of WWI ship camouflage, especially dazzle-painting. It is commonly described as counter-intuitive because, off-hand, one might conclude that its heightened visibility would aid an attack by a U-boat, not deter it. But that conclusion is largely attributable to the lack of familiarity with the complexities of U-boat targeting at the time—conditions that are vastly different today. 

Those complexities were addressed in 1918 in a confidential report published by the Submarine Defense Association. The first part of that report, which was written by Lindell T. Bates (the association's secretary), was titled The Science of Low Visibility and Deception as an Aid to the Defense of Vessels Against Attack by Submarines. There is a second, less extensive part, written by Loyd A. Jones, on Protective Coloration as a Means of Defense Against Submarines.

The entire report, no longer confidential, can be accessed online through Hathi Trust Digital Library. But for the purposes of blogging, we are instead reprinting below a full-page newspaper article that was published  in The New York Sun in 1919. Even though Bates was clearly allied with the scientific (or low visibility) view of the debate about ship camouflage, his news article is one of the clearest accounts that we know of WWI-era U-boats attacks, and how best to survive them.

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Lindell T. Bates, MARINE CAMOUFLAGE BROUGHT TO PERFECTION IN AMERICA. First Authentic Account of the Development of Illusion in Foiling Hun Pirates Written by Leader in the Work Here—Scientific Explanation of Colors, Curves and Lines Used. The New York Sun. January 19, 1919, p. 11—

Camouflage has had almost as fascinating an evolution in marine as in land warfare. In many respects, however, it is the youngest science, and until March 1918, it might rather be called an art than a science.

The Germans were the first to apply the lessons of visual deception to the sea. Early in the U-boat campaign they began to paint their vessels in various designs to make them less conspicuous.

In the late nineteenth century British warships used to be black in color, and American white. In sea fights at fairly close range low visibility was not considered of great importance. In the 90’s the Germans changed from black to dark gray. Great Britain and the other Powers shortly thereafter followed suit, but different shades of gray were used by different nations. Dark gray, called “battleship gray,” was the prevailing color. At the outbreak of hostilities the French, Italian and Austrian fleets were of a color different from those of the British and Germans. The former favored a gray and khaki mixture. The Dutch ships were greenish brown in hue. In 1914 Austria adopted the German color for the sake of uniformity with her ally.

Prior to the entry of the United States into the war the Allies had made no notable effort to disguise their vessels as a help in the struggle against the U-boat. When American entered the only instruction to merchant vessels was to paint their white or light-colored upper works gray or dull stone color. Some vessels were decorated early with false painted bows and bow waves, or a silhouette of a destroyer, a submarine or a sinking ship.

Artists Took Up the Work
In the course of the war several American artists, noting the rapid development of land camouflage, became interested in its marine possibilities. William A. Mackay [Photo 4] and Lewis Herzog, both of New York, appear to have been the pioneers of elaborate camouflage both of this country and abroad, although in 1917 attention was beginning to focus on this question simultaneously in many quarters. Gerome Brush [Photo 5], Maximilian Toch [Photo 6] and Everett L. Warner soon entered the new field. Mr. Mackay even established a marine camouflage school in New York City, the first of its kind.

These artists were divided at the outset into two groups, those who favored painting for low visibility and those who favored a so-called “dazzle” system. Mr. Mackay’s original system was for low visibility, as was that of Mr. Brush. Mr. Warner considered deception of major and low visibility of minor importance. Messrs. Herzog and Toch sought to reconcile both aims.

The United States Shipping Board took interest in the possibility of camouflage as a defensive measure for American merchant ships. On October 1, 1917, the Treasury Department through the Bureau of War Risk Insurance issued an order requiring under penalty of one-half per cent increase in war risk premium the painting of vessels for protective purpose. Ship owners were at liberty to select either of five systems mentioned. Should an owner wish to try his own or a different scheme, the order required him to obtain for it the prior approval of William L. Saunders, chairman of the naval consulting board.

Little experimental work was conducted with reference to marine camouflage prior to the adoption of the five systems. Mr. Mackay had painted some submarine chasers at the navy yard, and Mr. Herzog had conducted visibility experiments on the northeast coast of the United States. The other artists had not enjoyed suitable experimental opportunities.

In July 1917, the Submarine Defense Association was organized by the shipping and insurance interests in New York in an effort to see that all measure were duly taken to safeguard vessels. Nearly a hundred leading American and British companies joined, and all the leading marine insurance concerns. Lucius H. Beers, counsel for the Cunard company, was elected chairman. J.A.H. Hopkins of Johnson and Higgins was chosen vice-chairman, and Lindon W. Bates chairman of the engineering committee. Admiral William S. Benson assigned a naval vessel to the association for experimental purposes and the new organization, although entirely independent, enjoyed the closest and most cordial relations with the American and foreign authorities.

The association’s technical staff soon set about ascertaining which, if any, of the five systems was the best, and if none was satisfactory, then to devise one that would be more acceptable. It proposed to approach the subject from a scientific, rather than an artistic, standpoint, so the chairman of the engineering committee, Lindon W. Bates, enlisted the active cooperation of George Eastman and the facilities of the great research laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company of Rochester. Lloyd[sic] A. Jones of the research staff was assigned to collaborate with the writer and others of the association’s organization. From the summer of 1917 to March 1918, exhaustive investigations were conducted at Rochester, on Lake Ontario and at sea upon the vessel assigned by the Navy Department under Mr. Bate’s directions.

Testing apparatus on the shore of Lake Ontario (1917)

[Editor's note The physical outdoor apparatus (referred to as a "model rack") used by the Eastman Kodak scientists on the lake shore to test the effectiveness of camouflaged wooden ship silhouettes is shown above in a drawing that Bates included in his report. At least six of those wooden cut-outs have apparently survived. Three of them are housed in the collection of the National Archives and Records Administration, as reported in an earlier blog post. More recently, three more were discovered and photographed by James Dodge (as shown below), and are now in the collection of the Hoover Institute. In a future post, we will be sharing his memories of the involvement of the Bates family in ship camouflage and other wartime defense measures.]

Ship cut-outs used in testing. Photo courtesy James Dodge.

British Use “Dazzle” System
During the time in which these research labors were being conducted the British and French navies began to look seriously into the camouflage question. Early in 1918 the British adopted a “dazzle” system devised by Lieutenant Norman Wilkinson, RNVR, a London artist.

In February 1918, it was learned in this country that Lieutenant Wilkinson was to be sent to the United States to initiate our navy into the mysteries of the new art. Ninety “dazzle” patterns preceded. Prior to his arrival the United States Navy Department decided to establish a camouflage section of its own and authorized the adoption of a “dazzle” system. Whatever system, therefore, was adopted had, perforce, to be called a “dazzle,” and as the meaning of that term was still uncertain, practically any type of camouflage was authorized.

As the navy authorities were familiar with the scientific research work which the Submarine Defense Association was conducting, the chairman of the engineering committee was consulted regarding the proposed navy organization. For scientific questions in connection with the subject it was obvious that Mr. Jones was the best equipped person in this country. For the executive direction under the higher naval officers, Harold Van Buskirk was designated because he was the most available, and he had shown tact and ability and could be released from duty with the association to go to the navy. These men were made Senior Lieutenants and they were the nucleus of the new Navy Camouflage System.

Of the five American camouflage artists, Everett L. Warner was chosen for a post with them, but Mr. Mackay remained in New York as a local executive of the Shipping Board of ship painting from designs supplied by the navy. While these developments were taking place, Lieutenant Wilkinson arrived, bringing with him ninety more “dazzle” patterns. The previous ninety were already considered obsolete.

Norman Wilkinson camouflage plan Type 8 Design BX (1917)

In March the Submarine Defense Association terminated its research work and published two marine camouflage reports entitled The Science of Low Visibility and Deception Against Attack by Submarines by Lindell T. Bates, and Protective Coloration as a Means of Defense Against Submarines by Lloyd[sic] A. Jones.

Difference of the Reports
The writer’s report gave the history of camouflage, discussed the question of reduction of superstructure, the means of smoke elimination and of making smoke screens as well as deceptive coloration. Mr. Jones limited his study to low visibility coloration and how to reconcile deception coloration with low visibility at the blending distance.

Submarine Defense Association low visibility schemes (1917)

The association advocated a system combining low visibility and deception, recommended the abolition of the five earlier systems and considered that the British “dazzle” system was subject to criticism largely because of its total neglect of low visibility. The navy thereupon adopted for certain war vessels a low visibility color only, and for destroyers and merchant ships a materially modified British “dazzle,” changed so as to give it a low visibility feature.

The Shipping Board organized also a camouflage section and applied the designs received from the navy to the merchant vessels under its jurisdiction.

The results of the research work of the association, the adoption by the United States Navy of a low visibility, deception system, and the practical experience at sea led the British in the late summer of 1918 practically to abandon their own ‘dazzle,” which disregarded the low visibility factor. Camouflage based on more scientific principles then began to take the place of the original English system. Checkerboard bow and funnel patterns and perspective distortion bands began to appear.

Lieutenant Jones has perfected a colorimeter [see patent diagram below] to measure the weather coefficient and two expeditions left in December 1918 to measure this factor in various seas. Protective coloration for American submarines has been investigated and a special color determined. Navigation signs of a particular variety and clever navigation light schemes also been evolved.

L.A. Jones Patent for Colorimeter (1924)

The geographical position of a vessel at sea and the circumstances under which she is seen have an important bearing upon her visibility. The submarine danger zone included all the Mediterranean, North Sea, and Atlantic beyond even the Azores, Cape Verde and Canary Islands. The approaches to the Irish Coast were particularly hazardous as were the other places where trade routes intersect or converge such as the Strait of Gibraltar.

Hostile U-boats were most likely to be met in the Irish Sea and English Channel. They were frequently encountered anywhere in the Mediterranean and North Sea, and in the Atlantic as far as longitude 25 degrees west, and as far south as latitude 30 degrees north. They were also encountered near Madeira and the Azores. Thirty per cent of the shipping losses, according to Sir Eric Geddes, occurred in the Mediterranean.

The visibility problem is affected also by the manner in which ships voyage, whether alone or in a group. Prior to the entry of the United States into the war the escort and convoy systems did not extend to many vessels other than transports. In 1917 and 1918, however, large convoys of from twenty to forty ships proceeded from American and Canadian ports to Europe. Merchant vessels proceeding to the Mediterranean occasionally so voyaged, as well as ships coming back from Europe to America. Convoys sometimes split up on the journey and single vessels proceeded to other ports than that of the convoy.

An effort was made to group vessels according to speed. It happened, however, that vessels of less than a certain minimum rate hamper a convoy overmuch and were not included in it. Fast vessels were also excluded, as with their speed and maneuvering ability they were about as safe alone. There were numerous vessels which were not given he protection of convoy. Such are, for example, ships about 16 and below 6 knots in speed, European coastwise vessels and ships proceeding to certain Mediterranean ports. Sometimes therefore victims were alone on the sea, sometimes they were escorted or convoyed.

The visibility problem in further complicated by certain war emergency navigation rules. The instructions to American and allied vessels called for precautionary zigzag maneuvers while the danger zone was being traversed. Frequently ships proceeded three miles to port or starboard of their normal course, sometimes five miles. These measures meant that a wide belt was navigated through the submarine infested area.

Smoke a Dangerous Factor
Fueling practice is also a factor in the visibility study. American vessels were required by the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, under penalty of increased premium, to burn smokeless fuel or anthracite in the danger zone. Inasmuch as other ships were not always similarly regulated and convoys were composed of foreign as well as American vessels, smoke clouds always formed above convoys. It was not possible either in all cases to obtain smokeless fuel or to use it the full time necessary. Telltale plumes therefore issued from the funnels of vessels traveling alone or in company through the danger zone.

The most important of all visibility factors is weather. The yearly “proportion of sky covered with clouds” for the North Atlantic is from 60 to 70 per cent, for the ocean off the south English and French coasts 60 per cent, off the Azores 50 per cent, off the Canaries 40 per cent and off the Cape Verde Islands 40 per cent. In the Mediterranean it is from 30 to 40 percent, while in the waters off Greece it is 50 per cent.

The hours of sunshine a year total 1,300 off the north coast of Ireland and Scotland, 1.500 off England, 1,700 off the southern coast of Ireland, 2,500 in the Mediterranean. These are out of a total of 8,760 hours of day and night a year. In the English Channel westerly gales are prevalent in the winter months from October to March, inclusive. They are rare from May to July, inclusive, and seldom last long. During twilight hours in the morning and evening there is generally a haze over the sea. In the danger zone near the British Isles daylight is frequently modified by more or less heavy sea fogs. Haze on the water is almost constant from October to April.

In the sections of the danger zone near the Azores, Canaries and in the Mediterranean the percentage of clear days is much greater; there are fewer storms, even in winter, and the atmosphere is freer.

Visibility is also concerned with the question of the distance from which the observation of the U-boat is taken. The distance at which a ship is potentially visible at sea depends upon the height of the point of observation, the height of the vessel and the curvature of the earth’s surface.

Submarines are able to receive and send wireless messages carrying maritime information such as the location of Allied war craft. Sound signals may be used also for signaling between U-boats. They are now provided with hydrophones able to detect the presence of other craft several miles off. If the vessel or convoy is found to be passing at some distance, necessitating considerable running on the surface at high speed to bring the U-boat within attacking distance the attempt will not be made unless the ship or group is known to be an important one. If the earliest observations give encouragement the submarine, unless already ahead of the vessel on her course, takes a direction at 90 degrees to the line of first observation and toward the vessel’s route.

If the ship is alone and it is decided to use the naval gun, the U-boat approaches to a range of from four to eight thousand yards and opens fire. The caliber of the submarine’s deck guns was in 1914 3.5 inches; at the close of the war it was 5.9 inches or 6 inches on most submarines. The guns on merchant vessels were often out-ranged. The latest U-boats even dared to attack an Allied cruiser.

If, on the other hand, for tactical reasons the torpedo is selected as the best weapon to use, the submarine submerges while still out of sight and proceeds to the firing position. This is abreast or slight ahead of the victim and about 1000 yards off. German U-boats have endeavored to come as close as 300 yards before launching the torpedo. If the ship is part of a convoy the U-boat will either attack the convoy flank or seek to rise in the center. In case of such attack no particular ship is selected during the early approach.

While submerged the submarine commander takes from six to eight periscopic observations in order to obtain the course, range and speed of the merchantman or convoy. These data enable him to calculate where the firing position will be against a single vessel or where to attack a convoy. The duration of the periscopic sights is from thirty seconds to five seconds. In ordinary periscopes, all but about a third of the light is lost by reflection or absorption. If there be dust or moisture on the lenses the loss of light is even greater. This defect in the instruments is largely compensated among other ways, however, by the natural dilation of the pupil of the eye to admit more light.

Normally the vessel’s image is enlarged from 1.2 to 1.5 times, but magnification three to six times is not unusual. To ascertain range from periscopic observations there are only two available methods. Telemeter scales or cross hairs graduated vertically and horizontally in hundredths are generally used. The other method is the double image micrometer. Two images of the same object are made to cut each other in the lens, and are shifted with reference to one another until the masts, funnels or other high parts of the vessel under observation are on a level with the water line or deck line of the second images. The angle of shift determines the distance.

Harold Van Buskirk assessing ship camouflage model (1918)•

The range of a vessel as the various times that she is observed will give an idea of her course unless she is zigzagging. At close range the apparent perspective of the ship, her bow position and alignment of masts are the course indices used. Speed calculation is also approximate only. It should be emphasized that course, range and speed estimated from periscopic observation is by no means an exact science. The human eye may be deceived when its view is so limited and brief.

With respect to protective camouflage there are two purposes which may be subserved—namely, a reduction in the visibility of vessels in order that they may traverse the danger zone unobserved or less well observed by submarines, and a change in the appearance of a vessel so that if observed the calculation of her course, speed and range may be thereby rendered in accurate. While U-boats are equipped with sound detection apparatus of considerable hearing radius, the low visibility purpose if well worth securing, because the hearing radius of sound detectors does not in every case extend as far as vision at sea. Sound, furthermore, does not give the precise direction, distance and course of a vessel which are necessary for an approach to torpedo firing position.

Hard to See, Hard to Hit
A ship that is hard to see is hard to hit. It is still, therefore, a real advantage for a ship to be as nearly invisible as possible. This is especially true from the point of view of naval strategy. The area that a U-boat can patrol and still be sure of meeting ships of low visibility is much smaller than it can patrol and be sure of meeting vessels more readily seen.

Were low visibility secured, to cover the same sea area with a submarine cordon would require more submarines. If it were possible so to “dazzle” the eye as to render it incapable or partly incapable of observing the image of the target, this “dazzle” effect would be desirable. As, however, in taking the most important periscopic observations, the vessel’s outline, masts and funnels are chiefly noticed, the program of low visibility and of disturbing range, speed and course estimate is preferred.

It is a serious matter to decide the nature of the deception to be sought. Deception as to range can affect gunfire less than torpedo fire, as when the former “spot firing” is resorted to. In the case of torpedo attack, which is nearly always at close range, deception may, however, have a decided influence. Should one make the vessel’s course as seen from a submarine seem directed away from the U-boat or toward it? Each has its advantages and disadvantages, depending upon the respective position, speed and other characteristics of the submarine and target vessel.

If the ship is made to appear as coming toward the submarine, the latter may be cause to maneuver to a torpedo firing position at a range further than, and astern of, the normal one. On the other hand, if the course is made to appear as away from the U-boat, the latter may submerge and rise at a point where the vessel could run it down.

Should an attempt be made to give an aspect of speed faster or slower than the actual? A slower apparent speed may cause the U-boat, to its cost, to take leisure in approaching the firing position. An illusion of faster speed may induce the submarine to overrun the firing position.

Should an effort be made to give the range a longer or shorter appearance? If the vessel seems to be closer to the U-boat then she really is, the torpedo fire will be actually at longer range than the submarine captain anticipates. If, on the other hand, the ship is made to appear more distant than she really is, then the torpedo maybe be aimed to pass actually ahead of the vessel.

A choice cannot be arbitrarily made between the alternatives cited, but that there should be deception in relation to the three factors is clear. The extent of the deception desired cannot be precisely prescribed. It would be well not to seek too much. An error of 15 degrees in course of two knots of speed or of two to three hundred yards in range is sufficient to add materially to the safety of a vessel against a torpedo attack. Any illusion, even a slight one, along these lines will be an advantage, since accuracy in gun and especially in torpedo fire as well as the maneuver of approach depends intimately upon exactness in the estimates of the target’s range, course and speed.

The bearings of vessels are first taken by a U-boat from observation of smoke or superstructure. While for ships in convoy the smoke, noise and breadth of area covered lessen the utility of superstructure reduction to lower visibility, it remains of value as an aid to the defense of the solitary ship.

The safety of a ship subject to attack may be said to vary inversely as the area over which she is visible to the submarine.

On sailing ships all superstructure is usually needed, but on steamers considerable reduction is possible. Masts on modern vessels serve little purpose save for the wireless antennae, the crow’s nest and the light. One mast, in many cases, will suffice. The Marconi Company informed the International Mercantile Marine Company that the aerial of the wireless on their vessels could be fun from one mast to the funnel and still meet the requirements of service.

Scenic Artist’s Effort
Homer F. Emens, the well-known scenic expert, devoted considerable attention to the problem of distorting the apparent perspective of the upper works of a vessel. He prepared a model in which a large triangular screen was placed below the bridge, extending from side to side, the point of the triangle facing the bow of the vessel. On each side of this triangular screen he painted a perspective view of the normal structure which actually faced the base of the triangle. The effect os this was to make the ship when seen from the side appear nearly bow on, provided the error was not corrected by a normal view of other portions of the ship.

Homer F. Emens camouflage model (1917)

The new ships for the Emergency Fleet Corporation have been designed with low superstructure. A notable example of a vessel with superstructure reduced is the steamship Valeria. The vessel was a Cunarder supplied to Thomas A. Edison by the Submarine Defense Association for this experimental purpose. The funnels and masts were cut short and character deception was sought by Mr. Edison by means of canvas screens strung between the funnels and certain other parts of the superstructure. They were blown off, however, a short time after the vessel left New York. As the vessel thereafter traveled in convoy no conclusive data have become available. Owing to the inherent difficulty of screening, it seems hardly practical to radically change the character of a vessel.

The field of protective coloration is an important one, but on which is limited. Vessels in convoy or with escort can hardly hope to be invisible whatever paint is used. But paint may render even a convoyed or escorted vessel less liable to torpedo attack, as low visibility and deception are possible. Vessels proceeding alone cannot expect often to be invisible to ordinary vision within about 5,000 yards, unless there is a haze or a fog or it is night, as their bulk distinguishes them from the sky. For ranges beyond about 5,000 yards, in such a case, low visibility and even invisibility is frequently possible.

But, if a vessel lies between the U-boat and the sun, no amount of paint will render her invisible, since the side of the ship seen will be in the shadow and the background will be illuminated. Deception to ordinary vision is possible, on the other hand, within approximately 5,000 yards, or a greater distance if the periscope used magnifies to several times normal. It is difficult so paint a large warship as to cause real deception, because her naval masts and upper works give away her character and heading. On the other hand low visibility for all ships is possible.

The System Analyzed
One may now analyze the respective merits of five American systems, the British “dazzle"
 and the navy camouflage, for these represent the systems of camouflage practiced during the European war. The Naval Consulting Board recorded on July 9, 1917, regarding the Mackay system:

“Fundamentally it is based on mottling the surface with the three primary colors which at a distance blend to produce a gray having the quality of a gray light. He also proposes to shade the tints so as to lower highlights and raise the low areas of illumination.”

This was classed as a system for vessels “which is our opinion will lower their visibility.” The theory of Mr. Mackay’s low visibility system is given by him in the following language:

“The proportion of constituent colors to give white are: Violet 44, red 36, green 20. Therefore areas covered with these three colors in this proportion would give a general over-all gray. With the colors in this proportion the ground color would be violet.”

William Andrew Mackay camouflage system (1917)

It is not clear how three different color effects can be produced by the same formula. At a subsequent date Mr. Mackay supplemented his “low visibility” object with a “dazzle” purpose and produced a system which he calls one of “disruptive coloration.”

The Warner system aims primarily to “dazzle” rather than to reduce visibility. Various irregular patterns are carried out in the shades red, blue, pink green and white. Particular stress is laid by the artist upon the value of strong contrasts with a view to giving a deceptive appearance to familiar parts of the vessel. But Mr. Warner regards the question of pattern as of paramount importance. He does not ask to give low visibility within five miles of a vessel.

Everett Longley Warner camouflage system (1917)

The Toch camouflage system applies four color, a very light blue gray, a dark blue gray, a dark green and a light pink purple. The colors are said to have been selected for their so-called “vibrating” qualities. The dark colors predominate in the lower part of the hull and the lighter in the upper part along the skyline and on the extremities. All lines, both vertical and horizontal, are broken by the alternation of colors.

Maximilian Toch camouflage system (1917)

The superstructure, masts and funnels are painted mainly in a very light blue gray irregularly splotched with a dark gray and a light pink purple. The green does not appear in the superstructure. The colors are intended to blend and fade out in long distances into the general tone of sky and water, which are assumed to b the same. Low visibility is sought by the use of colors of alleged low visibility qualities and a “dazzle” effect by placing them in strong contrast and in large splotches.

The Brush system [based on countershading] seeks low visibility by rendering uniform the illumination of the vessel. Dark areas are raised by light paint and light areas are darkened. Black and white is occasionally used, or a dark gray. The resulting shade upon blending is a gray somewhat lighter than battleship gray, but resembling it.

Gerome Brush camouflage system (1917)

Short Ray Colors Used
Lewis Herzog devised a system which uses the short ray colors—that is, those from the lower side of the spectrum—avoiding the use of red, yellow and orange. He remarks concerning this system:

“Interference of light rays setting up vibrations is sought by means of more or less concentric sets of panels of blue, green and violet as a gray base, which at a distance takes on a tone scintillating with the atmosphere and blending into it, and thereby lowering the visibility of the ship. The lines of color application are broken as much as possible and change frequently in direction. All color bands are applied in arcs of circles each of considerable radius. Straight lines are avoided on the principle that the eye is more confused by the use of circular forms.”

Lewis Herzog camouflage system (1917)

The effect which it is desired to produce on the sight by this system is best described as a “shimmer” or “scintillation” very similar to that produced by heat waves over the surface of land or water.

The British “dazzle” is made up of such colors as black, dark blue, scarlet, dark red, olive green, yellow, gray and white. These colors are laid in large patches of contrasting colors. In some of the patterns the light colors are concentrated at one end of the vessel and the dark colors at the other in order to distort the apparent heading and view of the vessel.

This scheme is based upon the idea that invisibility at sea being unattainable, some protection may be afforded by painting ships in such a way as to confuse the enemy and by causing some doubt as to the course, speed and distance.

It may be seen from this brief review upon how fragile a base the early systems rested. They were impressionistic systems devised by artists, and not scientific systems devised by light and color experts. Their sponsors deserve, however, the greatest credit for introducing the subject and for opening a new field for research.

In his elaborate technical report upon Protective Coloration as a Means of Defense Against Submarines, Lloyd[sic] A. Jones expressed the physical laws and factors which govern visibility. For special research he determined that low visibility is attainable and that a particular shade of gray which he calls omega gray is best suited for vessels navigating the northern portion of the danger zone, where the average weather is 70 per cent cloudy, and below that line where there is frequent haze. For the southern portion of the danger zone a bluer tone of gray called psi gray was found the best. Latitude 45 degrees north is a suitable dividing line of the areas in which a ship should appear omega and psi gray, respectively.

It is of supreme interest to note the sacrifice of low visibility by the various camouflage systems heretofore presented. This is shown by Mr. Jones in a scientific and convincing manner with the aid of a “visibility meter” invented by him in the course of experiments. The British “dazzle” system, with its large masses of black and dark colors, is particularly vulnerable in this respect. No one of these systems produces the least visibility attainable. Omega and psi gray alone comply in their respective fields with low visibility requirements.

The USS [Gem], the naval experiment ship of the association, has shown as law as 0.2 in clear weather at 1,500 yards and invisibility at 3,000 yards and in foggy weather 0.1 at 800 yards. The average weather coefficient for the northern, most hazardous portion of the danger zone, is calculated as .43.

…

The great superiority of omega gray for low visibility may be deduced from this table. Under average weather conditions a ship so painted is forty-six times less visible than one painted according to the British “dazzle.” On one of the tests off New London several persons on shore could not pick up the USS [Gem] at 3,000 yards distance, even with binoculars. There was a slight mist over the water, such as is frequently noted in the northern portion of the danger zone. But other vessels, painted battleship gray, were visible at a greater distance than 3,000 yards.

False bows, sterns and bow waves have frequently been painted on vessels and are of value. It is of little use to try to reverse the apparent direction the ship is taking or to paint another ship on her, as such deception attempts too much to accomplish anything. But by a false painted bow and stern placed so as to distort the apparent perspective the course may be made to appear somewhat other than it is.

Checkerboard patterns blur outline. In art and architectural drawing the principles of perspective representation have been scientifically studied for centuries. It is quite feasible to paint a vessel in such a fashion as that the apparent perspective is different from the real. This will induce an error in course estimate. A vessel painted with converging bands of colors properly contrasted will offer a deceptive appearance as to course. It is possible also to distort perspective by curves or by vertical bands closer together at the bow or stern of the vessel than at the opposite end.

Must Break the Water Line
Inasmuch as the water line of a ship is known to be horizontal the bands should break the water line. This point is of great moment. No two ships should be painted exactly alike in regard to pattern and convergence of lines. Perspective deception patterns should blend at a distance where deception is no longer possible but low visibility is possible.

It should be carefully borne in mind that the blending distances of bands and patterns are based upon the hypothesis that the periscope does not enlarge the image much above normal vision. If magnification of three to six times normal should be resorted to the blending distances should be reduced in order that low visibility is not sacrificed. It may also be necessary to modify the blending distances of the bands and patterns to meet a possible attempt to nullify by light filters and deceptive effects.

Deception is a matter of psychology and is less susceptible than visibility of scientific determination. What will deceive on submarine observer will not delude another. The Submarine Defense Association has experimented with perspective distortion bands and checkerboard outline blurring patterns. Officers who viewed the USS [Gem] as she entered New Haven harbor said the diamond pattern on her bow gave her a scow bow. The British toward the end of the war came to favor also such checkerboard patterns for certain portions of the ship.

“Dazzle” patterns have been tried on American warships, but so long as the upper works and masts are of their special character no radical deception is possible. Experiments have been made with squares, rectangles, patches, band and other designs to overcome this handicap, but without success so far. It is for this reason that the low visibility object alone is favored for the larger warships.

Tests were also made in July 1918, off Fort X to determine the effect of a low visibility‚ deceptive coloration—upon the ability of coast defenses to follow a vessel with searchlights at night. The USS [Gem] proceeded between Point Y and Island Z at 8,000 yards mean range, steering a sinuous course until opposite the end of the latter, and then went straight through a channel at a distance of about 3,000 yard from the nearest searchlight.

Although the approximate time of her departure was known she passed through all five searchlights wholly undetected and picked up only when, after passing through the channel she turned on her own lights. This was repeated on another occasion with a modification in program. She left a known point at a known time on a known base course. The vessel was located for only three minutes out of forty.

Report of the Fort Test
While a considerable part of her ability to avoid searchlights was attributed to the “S” course the following remarks were made concerning the camouflage effect:

“At the range (9,000 yards) she gave the appearance of a bright streak of silver recognizable as the [USS Gem] only when in the leading edge of the beam. Her starboard camouflage was such that as soon as she got well back in the the beam she was of the same gray-blue-white color as the beam itself. Of course it is well known that a searchlight beam blankets a target in the center or rear edge thereof, but this was more pronounced in the case of the [USS Gem].”

The United States Navy Department had the benefit of much prior experience when it came to adopt a navy system. It made use to a large extent of the data previously obtained. The dreadnoughts and submarine chasers were duly painted with low visibility gray. For merchant vessels, contrasting masses and bands of black, blue, gray and white have chiefly been used.

In regard to the success of camouflage there is practically no data available, save in German hands, because it is hard to determine to what cause escape from a submarine has been due. It is largely a matter of guesswork how much marine camouflage has added too a vessel’s safety, but that it had a substantial effect is not open to question.

Ships in convoy or passing each other at sea have been deceived as to the course of the camouflaged vessel. We do know, however, that of about 1,300 American vessels painted with the navy system, only eleven have been lost since March 1918. The convoy system, zigzagging and improved armament have, no doubt, contributed materially to the result and probably all of them much more than has protective coloration.

Should the writer hazard an estimate he would say that the systems of camouflage, heretofore used, have increased the chances of safety between 3 and 15 per cent.

Just as the submarine has come into the world to stay, so too has marine camouflage. It has developed during the great war from a crude fantasy into science. Practical application always follows some distance behind the advances of abstract knowledge and research, so that marine protective coloration did not reach a final form in the great war.

The low visibility color is now determined, but the means of reconciling deceptive painting with it requires further transformation in practice. Science has pointed out the directions which must be taken. The importance of defensive coloration is not so great as many believe, and new ways may be found to counteract its effect, but marine camouflage will in years to come play a notable role in naval warfare.

• Photographs marked by raised dot have been digitally colorized. All others are original WWI-era coloring.