Dazzle Camouflage - Camoufleurs

Camoufleurs

In 1914, British scientist John Graham Kerr persuaded Winston Churchill to adopt a form of disruptive camouflage which he called "parti-colouring". A general order to the British fleet issued on November 10, 1914 advocated use of Kerr's principle. It was applied in various ways to British warships such as HMS Implacable where officers noted that the pattern "increased difficulty of accurate range finding". However following Churchill's departure from the Admiralty, the Royal Navy reverted to plain grey paint schemes.

The British Army inaugurated its Camouflage Section for land use at the end of 1916. At sea in 1917, heavy losses of merchant ships to Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare campaign led to new desire for camouflage. The marine painter Norman Wilkinson promoted a system of stripes and disrupted lines "to distort the external shape by violent color contrasts" and confuse the enemy about the speed and dimensions of a ship. Wilkinson, then a lieutenant commander on Royal Navy patrol duty, implemented the precursor of "dazzle" beginning with merchant ship SS Industry. Wilkinson was put in charge of a camouflage unit which used the technique on large groups of merchant ships. Over 4000 British merchant ships were painted in what came to be known as "dazzle camouflage" and the use spread to 400 naval vessels. HMS Alsatian became the first Royal Navy to be dazzle painted in August 1917.

All British patterns were different, first tested on small wooden models viewed through a periscope in a studio. Most of the model designs were painted by women from London's Royal Academy of Arts. A foreman then scaled up their designs for the real thing. Painters, however, were not alone in the project. Creative people including sculptors, artists, and set designers designed camouflage.

The Vorticist artist Edward Wadsworth supervised the camouflage of over two thousand warships, and his post-war canvases celebrated his dazzling ships.