Camouflage artists turn Velie automobile into a fig tree

WWI military vehicle (not a Velie automobile)

ARTIST TURNS AUTO INTO A FIG TREE: Camouflage to save American lives, in The Los Angeles Times, September 2, 1917—

When the American boys get on the firing line in France they will be able, with the assistance of artists, to show the French and British soldiers that they have been studying the war game from many angles. For instance, they have lately taken up the subject of camouflage, and artists employed by Edwin H. Flagg Scenic Company have become so expert at disguising various kinds of equipment, including automobiles, that at a hundred yards or so it is impossible to distinguish a machine from a fig tree. [A] Velie [brand automobile was recently] “transformed into a fig tree,” and the work was done so well that at a short distance, if placed in a fig orchard, it could not be told from the trees. “Camouflage is the simplest sort of work, and stories of its use on the battlefronts show that it has already been the means of saving thousands of human lives,” said Arthur Hurtt, a local artist, yesterday. “The experiments conducted in Los Angeles have proved beyond a doubt that almost any object may be so completely hidden behind a coat of paint that it cannot be discerned from a distance of 100 or 200 yards, and an enemy might pass much closer than that without noticing it. It was shown in a most graphic way how an officers’ touring car, for instance, could be ‘erased’ by this process when the Velie was driven to a point on Long Beach Boulevard and in less than one hour so completely ‘camouflaged’ that it could not easily be discerned at a short distance, and was completely invisible at a distance equalling the width of ‘no man’s land.’”

Camouflage costume results in a periscope neck

Above Just found this. It's a hopelessly grainy news photograph from the Des Moines Daily News (Des Moines IA), April 29, 1919, p. 5. The caption reads as follows—

Despite this successful "camouflage costume," we rather suspect this is a girl and not a steamer: Miss Lurline de Marals, artist, wore it at a recent Mardi Gras festival in Oakland CA. Every man in the place had a periscope neck.

See also scandalous bathing attire.

Cartoonist Cliff Sterrett | Camouflage Catastrophe

Below This camouflage cartoon by American artist Cliff Sterrett (1883-1964) was featured in a comic strip series called Polly and Her Pals. It was published in the Bridgeport Telegram (Bridgeport CT) on September 26, 1918.

Camouflage Cartoon by Futurist Felix Del Marle 1919

Felix Del Marle (1919)

Above Felix Del Marle, cartoon titled "League of Nations" (predecessor to the United Nations), as published in Le Rire (April 19, 1919). An accompanying caption reads—

The President: No more wars! Those who want to provoke will have to dread the big cannon of the League.

A Voice in the Crowd: Yes, if it's not just camouflage. 

Felix Del Marle, Self Portrait (1913)

The Fashion of Military Camouflage—and Goldfish

Above Camouflage fashion image from En Vogue: The Fashion of Military Camouflage (including posted essay) at the website for Buy The Camo Blend Right Out.

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Sell Camouflaged Goldfish in The Aberdeen Weekly (Aberdeen MS), June 13, 1919, p. 3—

London—Camouflaged "goldfish" have been selling well in London. Common varieties of small fish are being dyed. In about three days the dye wears off.

Before the war England obtained virtually all its goldfish from Germany.

Sims' Circus | Checkerboards Meet Harlequins

Cover illustration by Gayle Porter Hoskins (1919)

Above Cover, The Ladies Home Journal (March 1919), with a stunning illustration by American artist Gayle Porter Hoskins (1887-1962). It depicts the dazzle-painted RMS Mauretania arriving in New York with the first returning American troops on December 1, 1918. It is evident why this checkerboard style of camouflage (mostly employed by the British) was compared to a harlequin's outfit. Public domain image.

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Herman Whitaker, SIMS' CIRCUS: A Cruise with Our Destroyers Over There in The Independent (June 1, 1918), pp. 358-359—

From the train window approaching the base I obtained my first view of "Sims' circus" [in reference to its commander, US Admiral William Sims], as the flotilla had been named by the irreverent ensign…

…A convoy was ready to sail, a dozen or so of our destroyers were to be seen nestling like speckled chickens under the wings of the mother repair ships.

I said "speckled." It is, however, too weak a term for the "dazzle" paint with which they were bedaubed. No wonder the irreverent ensign dubbed them "brick-yards."

Barred, striped, blotched, smudged, ring straked with vivid pinks, arsenic greens, blowsy reds, violent blues, they looked like—like nothing in the world unless it be that most poisonous of drinks, a 'Frisco pousse cafe. All of the giraffes, zebras, leopards and tigers ever assembled in the "World's Greatest Aggregation" exhibit conventional patterns in comparison with this destroyer camouflage. The exception to this blazing color scheme, a recent arrival from home, looked in her dull lead paint like a Puritan maiden that had fallen by accident into a blowsy company of painted Jezebels.

The object of this wanton display is, of course, to fool Fritz of the submarines. That is might do so by hurting his eyes or the shock of his artistic sensibilities none would deny; but I found it hard to believe that these rainbow colors make a difference in visibility. Yet they do. Whereas, at sea the following day, the "Puritan maiden" showed a clear black outline at four miles with every spar clearly defined, the "Jezebels" presented at the same distance a blurred, wavering mass of color. It was difficult to tell bow from stern or judge their direction. They presented about as fair a target as a darting hummingbird.

Hypothetical dazzle schemes © Roy R. Behrens 2018

More Horse Carcasses & Phony Observation Trees

Steel-Lined Dead Tree Observation Post

Above During the trench warfare of World War I, both sides of the conflict "test drove" the idea of clandestinely replacing familiar large dead tree trunks with steel-lined replicas of the same trees. Equipped inside with a ladder and a telephone, these were used as observation posts. Given the skill and effort required to construct one of these, not to mention the challenge of putting it in place (at night, in total darkness), there can only have been a few of these.

As noted in an earlier post, British painter Solomon J. Solomon (initially in charge of the Camouflage Section of the Royal Engineers) is thought to have been responsible for erecting the first British observation tree in March 1916, a task that he later depicted in a well-known painting.

In this wartime photograph, we see a British soldier apparently inspecting a faux tree made by German camoufleurs. There are a few eyewitness accounts of how these were constructed, and at least one British observation tree has survived and is in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.

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E. Alexander Powell, Italy at War and the Allies in the West. [The War on All Fronts series. Vol IV] New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919.

At a certain very important point on the French front there long stood, in an exposed and commanding position, a large and solitary tree, or rather the trunk of a tree, for it had been shorn of its branches by shell fire. A landmark in that flat and devastated region, every detail of this gaunt sentinel had long since become familiar to the keen eyed observers in the German trenches, a few hundred yards away. Were a man to climb to its top—and live—he would be able to command a comprehensive view of the surrounding terrain. The German sharpshooters saw to it, however, that no one climbed it. But one day the resourceful French took the measurements of that tree and photographed it. These measurements and photographs were sent to Paris. A few weeks later there arrived at the French front by railway an imitation tree, made of steel, which was an exact duplicate in every respect, even to the splintered branches and the bark, of the original. Under cover of darkness the real tree was cut down and the fake tree erected in its place, so that, when daylight came, there was no change in the landscape to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The lone tree-trunk to which they had grown so accustomed still reared itself skyward. But the "tree" at which the Germans were now looking was of hollow steel, and concealed in its interior in a sort of conning tower, forty feet above the ground, a French observing officer, field glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, was peering through a cleverly concealed peep-hole, spotting the bursts of the French shells and regulating the fire of the French batteries.

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Of course there were other kinds of battlefield observation posts as well, such as the supposed use of imitation horse carcasses as hiding places, as was featured earlier. My own suspicion is that few of these colorful camouflage ploys were actually used on the battlefield. But they proved immensely valuable as amusing illustrations for exaggerated news reports, which boosted recruiting and Liberty Loans. Below for example are photographs of the two sides of a roughed-out dead horse carcass trick, mocked-up in clay by camoufleurs at Camp Taylor KY (c1918).

Phony Horse Carcass Used as Observation Post

Making Faces | Masking Wartime Horrors

A delightful time was had yesterday while participating in an art and design conference at St Ambrose University in Davenport IA. Titled FAIR PLAY: Art and Social Justice, the two-day conference began Wednesday (April 6) and continued through the following day. Presenters came from various schools, among them Western Illinois University, St Ambrose, University of Iowa, Grinnell College, Augustana College, and the University of Northern Iowa. Above is the title slide from our own presentation titled MAKING FACES: Masking Wartime Horrors, about the work of Allied artists during World War I, in sculpting facial disfigurement masks for men whose identities had been ripped apart during trench warfare. Thumbnail views of other slides are shown below.

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US Major-General Smedley Butler (1881-1940) is a fabled hero, the most decorated US Marine in history. While courageous on the battlefield, he was wonderfully candid in public as well. As quoted by Studs Terkel in Touch and Go: A Memoir, this is how Butler summed up his military career in 1935, in an article in Common Sense magazine:

I spent 35 years and 4 months in active [duty] as a member of our country's most agile military force—the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from a second lieutenant to major-general. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism…Thus I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street…[and] I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1909-12.

In another context, Butler said—

War is a racket. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars, and the losses in lives.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

Duplicitous Roadsters Camouflaged and Otherwise

Advertising auto (c1919), Conover T. Silver

Above and below Views of World War I-era cleverly modified roadsters  designed by Conover T. Silver (C.T. Silver Motor Company, New York), for patriotic postcard use (below), and later, during Prohibition, as promotional advertising for “near beer” made by Anheuser-Busch (above).

Anon, AUTO THIEVES BUSY IN WEST: Iowa Suffering Worse Affliction Than in 1917 Through Camouflage Bandits, in The Standard (Springfield MO), July 6, 1918, p. 19—

Auto thieves are reaping a bountiful harvest all over the middle west this year. Over 2,000 cars were stolen in Iowa alone during 1917, and the operations of card bandits during the first half of this year indicate that their total steal for 1918 will far exceed last year’s record.…

According to the authorities, there are today half a dozen clever gangs operating in Iowa for the sole purpose of stealing autos. Their ingenuity in making away with machines, and then disguising them so that they cannot be recognized, is said to be almost beyond belief.

One pair of bandits, still at large, has a trick of getting away with a car that is real camouflage. The pair drive up in greasy mechanics' overalls, approach a car, parked in front of a building or garage, and commence to tinker with the engine. For several minutes they work industriously at their apparent task. Then they jump in the machine and ride away. Even the most suspicious person would mistake the pair for a couple of mechanics assigned to look over the auto in question.

…After the pair get out of town with the machine they usually take it some place to have it repainted. The license number is changed, and the stenciled number on the engine block ground off, and a new number put on.

Patriotic postcard (c1917), Conover T. Silver

Anon, AUTO THIEVES WORK BOLDLY, in Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita KS), December 9, 1918—

The up-to-date [auto] thieves operating in Rochester NY drive their loot out into unfrequented parts of the country, run the car in a field and camouflage it to resemble a broken down shed, hay stack or pile of brush. The police have recovered a number of these camouflaged cars since the scheme was discovered through a confession.…

John G. Williams, an Omaha NE pioneer, at a meeting of the Nebraska Roads Association, called to discuss the passage of the anti-auto-theft law, “with teeth in it,” recommended hanging as a punishment for auto stealing. “If we string up a few of them it will discourage the others,” he said. “It discouraged the horse thieves in the old days,” he said.

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson on Camouflage

Above Photograph of D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, and (to the left) cover of a recent edition of his famous book (originally published in 1917).

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From CAMOUFLAGED CRAB in Ashburton Guardian (Ashburton NZ), May 15, 1919, p. 5—

Professor D'Arcy [Wentworth] Thompson [Scottish mathematical biologist, and author of On Growth and Form] had some interesting things to say about crabs at his recent lecture at the Royal Institution, London.

There was one crab of the "spider" variety which, he said, turned the top of its shell into a sort of garden. He was often to be seen taking cuttings of marine vegetation and carefully planting them on his back, where they took root among the hairs, which meanwhile held them in position.

"This little [sic] creature," said Professor Thompson, "is a master, if not, indeed, the inventor, of what we have come to call camouflage."…

Give 'Em Hell | Billy Sunday Camouflaged

Billy Sunday (Wikipedia)

William Ashley Sunday (1862-1935), better known as Billy Sunday, was an Iowa-born fire and brimstone preacher, who played professional baseball in the National League for eight years. He left that profession in 1880 to become a popular, well-known evangelist, whose eccentric preaching style was outlandishly athletic (see photos above and below). He was in part the model for the preacher in Elmer Gantry by Sinclair Lewis, and in Lewis' novel Babbitt, he was the inspiration for the boxer turned evangelist named Mike Monday, described by Lewis as "the distinguished evangelist, the best-known Protestant pontiff in America...As a prize-fighter he gained nothing but his crooked nose, his celebrated vocabulary, and his stage-presence. The service of the Lord had been more profitable."

Of Billy Sunday, the poet Carl Sandburg wrote: "You come along squirting words at us, shaking your fist and calling us all damned fools so fierce the froth slobbers over your lips...always blabbing we’re all going to hell straight off and you know all about it...Go ahead and bust all the chairs you want to. Smash a whole wagon load of furniture at every performance. Turn sixty somersaults and stand on your nutty head. If it wasn’t for the way you scare the women and kids I’d feel sorry for you and pass the hat. I like to watch a good four-flusher work, but not when he starts people puking and calling for the doctors." 

Sunday also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, a newsprint homily of sorts, in one issue of which he warned about the evils of camouflage. It makes sense. What better practitioner of duplicitous sales and deception?

Billy Sunday, THE ART OF CAMOUFLAGE, in The Delphi Journal (Delphi IN), December 9, 1920—

There's a Lot of Chatter, these days, about Camouflage! When your Uncle Bill first Harkened to the Word, he thought it was a New French Dish, probably Cooked in a Casserole, and, being the Kind of Geezer who will Try Anything Once in the Line of Eats, he came Pretty near Ordering it from the Dinge in the Diner.

But Camouflage is not that Sort of Thing, it Seems.

It is the Military Art of Kidding the Enemy—of making things Look like What they Ain't, so to speak!

The French Rig Up an old Tree to Pass for a Cannon, and let Fritz waste his Ammunition on This, while a Little Way down the Line, the Real Seventy-five is Blazing Away from what Appears to be an Innocent Domicile.

They can even Paint a Dummy Bridge on Canvas and Stretch it Across the River, and Fake a Rippling Stream to cover the Real Bridge, and Bunk the Flyers who Lamp it from Above.

As a Military Art, Camouflage is a great  thing!

But there is altogether Too Much Camouflaging being done in Ordinary Life. The Dame that Sails down the Boulevard in a Get-up which is the Last Holler in Vogue—and at the Same Time is Skinning Down on the Old Man's Bats, at Home—is practicing Camouflage.

And the Young Buck who Dolls Up like a Million Dollars and has Little More than the Return Fare in his Jeans, he's Trying the Art, too.

But Worst of Them All is the Old Deacon who Sits in the First Pew on Sunday and Pipes Up Strong in the Hymns and on the Amen Stuff, and then spends the Rest of the Week in the Gentle Game of Nicking the Poor Widow for Twelve Per Cent, on the Loan.

There are Enough Experts on Camouflage of This Sort in the USA to equip a whole Army Corps on the Western Front.

But they don't Get Away with it for Very Long. The World gets their Numbers, and the Big Guns of Honesty and Common Sense soon Shoot them to Pieces.

Leave Camouflage to the Military Men, where it Belongs and Does Some Good!

If you're only an Old Log, don’t Pretend you're a Rapid-Fire Field Gun!

Develop yourself, and Maybe you'll Get to Be One. Don't put yourself Higher up the Tree than you Belong, for there's Bound to Be a Fall—and usually with an Awful Bump.

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. on God and Camouflage

Book Cover | dazzle camouflage

Above Book cover (including dazzle-camouflaged ship) for Robert Hudson, The Dazzle (UK: Jonathan Cape, 2013).

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Anon, EPIGRAMS BY ROCKEFELLER: Tells His Bible Class Camouflage Never Works With God, in New York Times, November 12, 1917, p. 15—

John D. Rockefeller, Jr., told the members of his Bible class at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church yesterday that "you can paint a railroad station and make it look like a farmhouse; you can put up a program that fools the public for a time, but camouflage never works with God."

Hunters Masquerade as Cow (1578)

US Patent No. 586,145 (1897)

Above Patent drawings for US Patent No. 586,145, titled "Hunting Decoy," as devised by J. Sievers, Jr. (1897). Not a bad idea, but apparently nothing new. As evidenced by two 1578 Dutch engravings by Philips Galle (shown below on this page), as early as the 16th century European deer hunters were camouflaging themselves by masquerading as cows. In both prints, notice the telltale human feet apparent beneath the cow costumes. Both prints (out of rights and in public domain) are in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.

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Anon, from the Humeston New Era (Humeston IA), Wednesday, December 21, 1921—

How to stop certain Iowa druggists from making bootleg whisky under the camouflage of cologne and similar euphonious preparations is the problem which Prohibition Enforcement Officer Bronson finds himself up against. Some druggists are getting alcohol ostensibly for legitimate purposes and converting it into bootleg whisky, Mr. Bronson told Commissioner Haynes, and it is difficult to detect them. Before departing for Iowa from Washington he urged the commissioner to allow him six more field men and two officers who are druggists. Indications are the added force will be granted.

Engravings by Philips Galle (1578)

Joseph Harker | Dracula Meets Camouflage

Portrait of Joseph Harker (n.d.)

In the San Francisco Chronicle, on Sunday, May 11, 1919, a full-page article appeared on various aspects of wartime camouflage. Titled TROOPSHIPS DAZZLE-PAINTED SO COMMANDERS OF U-BOATS CAN NOT TELL WHETHER THEY WERE COMING OR GOING, it was written by Burleigh Rushwood. Here's a brief excerpt (p. 10)—

[During World War I] One of the strokes of genius on the part of an [French] administrative department…was the selection of a famous scene painter for the work [of camouflage]. This was [Louis] Bérard, who painted the famous scene of the farmyard for [Edmond] Rostand's great sensational play Chantecler. Bérard put up all sorts of queer devices for the misleading of enemy observers. He created fake lakes where there was no water and he was the originator of the bright idea of designs for gun emplacements that changed color as the seasons of the year changed. The success of Bérard led the British Government to call in famous London scene painters like Joseph Harker, and at one time the scene decks in the great spaces of Drury Lane Theatre were filled with canvases in the course of preparation for the front.

We have easily determined that the French stage designer was Louis Bérard, perhaps best known as "le decorateur de Chantecler," a wonderfully zany satirical play by Edmund Rostand, in which all the actors were dressed in animal costumes (below, see program cover of the NYC production of the same play, starring Maude Adams •). In Cécile Coutin's Tromper l'ennemi (2012) Bérard is described as an accessoiriste de théatre (property man) who served in the Section de Camouflage (1914-15) as a camouflage instructor at the studio at Amiens. She includes a three-page section on "Louis Bérard and His Contribution to the Invention of Camouflage" (pp. 48-51). Regrettably, the text is completely and only in French.

Nor did it require much effort to find out more (if not very much) about Joseph Cunningham Harker (1855-1927), who was a well-known scenographer in the London theatre. Above is a painting of him, possibly a self-portrait. He was one of a long line of Harkers who were prominent in the theatre, including his actor father, William Pierpont Harker, and his own son, the character actor Gordon Harker. Today, two of Joseph Harker's great-great-granddaughters, Susannah Harker and Caroline Harker, are accomplished British actresses. During his lifetime, Harker was a scene painter for the Lyceum Theatre, which was managed by Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. In that book, one of the leading characters (called Jonathan Harker) is named after Stoker's friend.

• Views of the NYC production of Chantecler (with sets most likely not designed by Bérard) are available here.

Laura Levin on Camouflage & Performance Art

Above The dust jacket of a new important book: Laura Levin, Performing Ground: Space, Camouflage and the Art of Blending In. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. The following is an excerpt from its promotional text—

Performing Ground is the first book to explore camouflage as a performance practice, arguing that the act of blending into ones environment is central to the ways we negotiate our identities in and through space. Laura Levin tracks contemporary performances of camouflage through a variety of forms—performative photography; environmental, immersive, and site-specific performance; activist infiltration; and solo artworks—and rejects the conventional dismissal of blending in as an abdication of self. Instead, she contemplates the empowering political possibilities of "performing ground," of human bodies intermingling with the material world, while directly engaging with the reality that women and other marginalized persons are often relegated to the background and associated with the properties of space. Performing Ground engages these questions through the works of some of today's most exciting performance artists…
 

Bittern Camouflage

Above An American Bittern in camouflage stance in the Myaka River State Park, Florida, as photographed by Sabine Rodens (2006), from Wikipedia Commons.

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Frederick C. Gould, "Camouflage" in The Sydney Stock and Station Journal [quoted from The Westminster Gazette] on Friday, April 11, 1919, p. 2—

The Bittern took Camouflage lessons,
For he wanted to look like a stick,
And a Futurist artist in khaki
Taught him the vanishing trick;
He painted his feathers with markings,
And drilled him to stand like a log,
Till he looked not a bit like a Bittern
But just like a bit of the Bog.

Camouflage | Simulated Cuttlefish Skin

Article on John Rogers' research (2014)

In earlier posts, we've talked about the research of Woods Hole marine biologist Roger Hanlon, who for years has been researching the phenomenal ability of cuttlefish, and certain octopus and squid, to radically (and instantaneously) alter their surface color, texture and other visual attributes. A few years ago, this research was featured on PBS on NOVA in a terrific documentary called Kings of Camouflage (which is now on YouTube here).

The latest news is that John Rogers, a materials scientist and engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (working with Hanlon) has succeeded in developing a fabric that simulates cuttlefish skin—"a flexible material that also has the potential to change color in the blink of an eye."

Reproduced above is a title page clipping from a recent article titled "Quick Camo" by Steffie Drucker in Technograph (Student Engineeering Magazine at the University of Illinois) Vol 130 Fall 2014, pp. 8-11. What a wonderfully interesting breakthrough.

*Thanks to Rich McDonald for this.

Camera-flauge?

R.W. Eddy (1919)

Above Cartoon by R.W. Eddy from Cartoon Magazine (1919).

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Anon, "CAMERA GUN" IN FANTASTIC US SHOOTING CASE in Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, New South Wales), January 2, 1947, p. 3 [adapted]—

New York, January 1—New Year's Eve crowds, hurrying homeward, were spectators of a crime as fantastic as any mystery thriller when a woman pointed what she thought was a camouflaged camera at another women waiting for an underground train in Times Square.

When she pulled the "release" a sawed-off shotgun concealed inside went off, blasting Mrs. [Nancy Smith], age 28. With her left thigh shredded by pellets, Mrs. [Smith] fell screaming, while hundreds of startled spectators scattered and ran in all directions.

The police grabbed Miss [Pauline Jones], age 19, who still held the package. She hysterically told them she believed she was taking a picture of Mrs. [Smith] with a camera.

Between sobs she told her story. Several weeks ago, she said, she was employed by an insurance investigator, who told her to investigate a jewel robbery and wanted Mrs. [Smith] photographed. The investigator met her today in the underground station and handed her a package, which was about fourteen inches long with a small hole in it.

"This is a camouflaged camera," the man told her. Then he said, "Follow that woman and take a picture of her."

As the other woman walked in her direction she pulled what she thought was the camera shutter. There was an explosion and Mrs. [Smith] fell. A man rushed up to Mrs [Smith], spoke to her, and then fled.

A bystander rushed up to help the wounded woman, who said to him, "I am going to die. He threatened me before. This time he got me. He can have me now if he wants me. I am crippled. What happened to the police? I called them, but he was too smart for them."

Later, Mrs. [Smith], who is not expected to live, told the police that the man was her husband, [Gregorio Smith], age 30, who wounded her less than two months ago with a pistol.

Miss [Jones], almost hysterical, told the police that the investigator had given her packages supposed to contain a camera on previous occasions, and that she had taken "a picture" of Mrs. [Smith] a couple of weeks ago. The investigator told her that that picture was "no good."

Later, Miss [Jones] visited Mrs. [Smith] at the hospital and said to her, "I am awfully sorry I shot you. I thought I was merely taking a photograph."

Moonshine & Camouflaged Shenanigans

Will Vawter, "More Camouflage" (1918)

Above "More Camouflage" by John William (Will) Vawter, from Life magazine (1918).

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Earle Bowden, MOONSHINING IS PROFITABLE BUT DANGEROUS, in Panama City News-Herald (Panama City FL), July 11, 1950, p. 6—

Most moonshiners keep chickens, hogs and cattle nearby for camouflage reasons. They must have legitimate excuses for buying chicken feed, grain and scratch feed.

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M.F. Dacey, RUM RUNNERS IN MONTANA USING ARTIFICIAL CAMOUFLAGE TO GET BOOZE ACROSS BORDER, in El Paso Herald (El Paso TX), February 5, 1921—

Speed, daring, deception, invention, camouflage and cunning combined with nerve of a high order; utilization of every known means of transportation, from the Indian papoose's place on the back of a squaw and packets tied on drifting sheep to speedy scout planes designed for war, are devoted nowadays to delivering liquor purchased in Canada to cities hundreds of miles below the northern boundary of the United States.…

Funerals designed with the artistry of professional stagecraft, calling every member of a large cast to act with ability, were used successfully for a time. Spare tires of automobiles are chestnuts now, as are reserve tanks hidden within gasoline tanks.

•••

Anon, AUTO THIEVES WORK BOLDLY, in Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita KS), December 9, 1918—

Police in Petersburg VA captured a Haynes car loaded with fifty quarts of whiskey and drove the car to the police station garage, where they left it to go inside and make out their reports. When they returned to the garage the car was gone—whiskey and all. No clue.

…The up-to-date thieves operating in Rochester NY drive their loot out into unfrequented parts of the country, run the car in a field and camouflage it to resemble a broken down shed, hay stack or pile of brush. The police have recovered a number of these camouflaged cars since the scheme was discovered through a confession.

[John G. Williams, an old-timer from Omaha NE] recommended hanging as a punishment for auto stealing. "If we string up a few of them, it will discourage the others," he said. "It discouraged the horse thieves in the old days."…

•••

Anon, CAMOUFLAGE LATEST PROVIDENCE DRINK, in Huntington Herald (Huntington TX), June 21, 1918—

Providence RI, June 21—A drink called "camouflage," sold to soldiers and sailors in certain cafes here and calculated to intoxicate in jig time, is responsible for the closing of one hotel and several cafes are under suspicion. The agents of the department of justice says girls pilot the soldiers and sailors to the cafes, where the drink is sold without question.

Town & Country Car Camouflage

Town and country camouflage (1940)

The following news article, titled CAMOUFLAGE OF CARS: Must Be Different from Services, appeared in the Glasgow Herald (Scotland) on August 12, 1940—

The Minister of Transport has made an Order prohibiting as from August 25 the use on any highway by an unauthorized person of any vehicle so painted or otherwise treated as to cause it to resemble a camouflaged vehicle in the service of the Armed Forces.

The Ministry advise the use of any neutral color other than the grays and khaki adopted by the Services. Glossy surfaces and light colors should be avoided.

A method advocated by the British Industrial Design Group, which may appeal to car owners of an artistic temperament is that one half of the car, divided longitudinally, should be painted to harmonize with the country and the other half with the town.

In an air attack the car, if it is in the country, can then be driven up against a hedge or bushes with the town camouflage screened, or, if in town, close to a building or wall with the country background hidden.

A photograph of this town and country camouflage scheme (shown above) was published, with the headline TOWN AND COUNTRY CAMOUFLAGE FOR BRITISH AUTOS, in the Pittsburgh Press on September 15 of the same year. The caption for the photo reads—

As a war effort contribution the British industrial designers have worked out a method for camouflaging private autos. One side of the car is painted to blend with "town" backgrounds, the other with country. In the picture a "town" merges into a building background.

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Car camouflage has not always proven successful. The October 11, 1943 issue of the Deseret News (Salt Lake City UT) featured the following story, with the heading CAMOUFLAGE GOOD TO CERTAIN POINT—

DENVER— Pvt. [John Doe] was preparing today to return to the the army's camouflage school at Camp Maxey TX for some more lessons.

Pvt. [Doe], masquerading as a bed, was arrested in Denver for questioning in connection with the possession of a weirdly painted automobile, reported stolen from an officer at Camp Maxey.

Officers of the auto theft division said they trailed [Doe] to his room, but on searching the premises they could find no trace of the soldier. The police then sat down on a bed to ponder the whereabouts of [Doe], and suddenly the bed collapsed and out scrambled the soldier.

[Doe] said he had utilized his army training and "protective screened" himself when he heard them enter his room. 

Prior to the failure of his bed disguise, Pvt. [Doe] had had quite some success as a camouflage artist. He told police that he had "tired of army life" last August, stepped unnoticed into an army officer's car, and drove, still unnoticed, out the camp gates.

Hearing a radio broadcast, in Liberal KS, that he was wanted. [Doe] decided to paint his car according to army camouflage standards. However, the strangely painted car was noticed by police and led to his arrest.

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Here's yet another example, titled CAMOUFLAGE JAILS HIM, from the Milwaukee Sentinel on August 23, 1960—

NEW YORK—Police said a gunman who robbed two cars knew nothing about camouflage.

He had blond hair, wore a yellow shirt and drove away from the holdups in a bright yellow car. Two patrolmen spotted the car and arrested [John Hancock] 30, on charges of robbery and illegal possession of a weapon.