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CAMOUFLAGE TOPIC OF PRESIDIO TALK: Commonest Instance Cited as Clove Eaten by Men Who Go Out Between Acts; MUD HANDIEST IN TRENCH; Captain Gillette Illustrates Fine Points for Student Officers Showing How Shading Is of Great Importance in The Sunday Oregonian (Portland), November 11, 1917, p. 3—
OFFICERS TRAINING CAMP, Presidio of San Francisco, Nov. 10: "Camouflage—a spice known as the clove, largely consumed by men who leave the theater between acts to go and use the telephone."
This is one domestic description of the word camouflage, but it isn't quite the camouflage that is taught for war purposes. The chief ingredients of the camouflage of war, with all due respect to the words of well-known war correspondents like Will Irwin and others, is not paint and artistic ability, but just plain, ordinary mud.
At least such is the declaration of Captain Douglas H. Gillette, Engineer Corps, who recently gave a lecture to the Presidio "officers-to-be" on the subject of camouflage.
Paint is a scarce commodity at the front, and the same is true of burlap and canvas, and when these ingredients are absent the soldier boys find it very easy to do a good camouflaging job by smearing the mud—same mud that is used on football fields in Oregon—over the spokes and caissons of artillery material and otherwise disguising military secrets from the enemy aircraft and other observers.
"It is important, remarked Captain Gillette, "to conceal the heads of the men firing from the trenches."
Trenches Are Obliterated
"There are two ways to conceal heads, and the one chiefly recommended is to obliterate the line of the trenches as much as possible. Daubing the head in mud or dust sounds better to a great many of the student officers, however, for once a man has lost his head his efficiency is greatly curtailed, whereas it is ofttimes possible to recuperate after the loss of a mere trench.
"All camouflage is based on the idea of fooling the enemy by making it appear that what is, is not, and what is not, is. It may apply to a single man or gun or to an entire position. The art is new, but It has been used so extensively that the supply of raffia, from which screens. were made, is exhausted, and they have to use shredded palmetto leaves and Florida moss.
Outlines Broken Up
"If it is sought to hide a battery, the best plan is to break up its outline so it cannot be recognized by enemy airplanes. If a scout is looking for a gun and sees something that looks like a cow he is not likely to boast that he has attained the object of his search. It is a fact that objects are recognized by their shape more than by anything else.
"Things should always be painted dark on top and light below; that is to make shadows look natural. For the same reason painted canvas is sloped at an angle of at least 30 degrees over raised objects. A painted pattern should never be stopped at an edge; it should extend around the corner. Dull colors are best, usually.
"One school of camouflage artists holds that the best way to reduce the visibility of material is by making it look like straw—if it happens to be in a locality where there is straw—or by disguising it as bushes. If there are three or four guns at regular intervals bushes should extend from one to the other; four piles of bushes 30 to 40 feet from each other might enable an airplane scout to penetrate the disguise.
Mud Used Profusely
"Spokes and rims of gun carriages should be spotted with mud. The spots should be irregular and large, as small spots are likely to attract attention. Positions or material may be concealed
by painted canvas or burlap, raffia or wire net, or canvas over wire net. With a bucket of paint and a brush the simplest form of camouflage, painting, may be achieved.
"The armies have taken full advantage of the qualities of wire net. Sometimes miles and miles of road leading to the rear are covered with the net, through which enemy airplanes can see nothing. At times the net extends along the sides of the road.
"When an airplane appears it is a matter of duty and policy for everyone to hide or remain perfectly still. Cartridge cases must never be placed in large piles in these days of scientific war, for the sunlight reflected from their surfaces gives the enemy a guide."
Four Thousand Germans Killed
Captain Gillette points out tho value of concealing even the frontline trenches by a story of a battalion that concealed its position, and, by waiting until the Germans had advanced to within 50 yards of its trench, killed 4000 of the enemy before retreat was possible. The exact line of the parapet should be confusing to the enemy. If it is not, the position may be sighted during the day and heavy damage may be inflicted at night.
Even the entanglements in No Man's Land feel the force of the camouflage idea. Captain Gillette can't understand why they use galvanized wire, which is highly visible and more ex- pensive than that which has not been galvanized. Because wood is more visible than iron, posts that support the wire are of iron.
