After WWI, the application of dazzle painting for non-military purposes enjoyed great popularity, especially in England, where mobile cafés like this one above (staffed by unemployed war veterans) were painted in a dazzle scheme. Below is a British news photograph from the same period showing women bathers dressed in dazzle swimsuits. At left is a magazine article on the Chelsea Arts Club Dazzle Ball, from the Illustrated London News (March 1919).
Reproduced on this page are assorted drawings, paintings, and vintage photographs pertaining to dazzle-painted ships (British and American), during World Wars I and II. For background information, and a large collection of related images, go to the beginning page (called dazzle camouflage) of a series of web pages having to do with this fascinating historic phenomenon.
A gallery of dazzle-painted ships
People have often said to me, “Well, why didn’t you make the ships invisible? Why the crazy patterns, which only make it more noticeable?” We didn’t make them invisible largely because we couldn’t. Early experiments were all directed toward that end. But a vessel less visible on one day would be more visible on another. To achieve success, the paint would to be as changeable as the weather.
Everett Warner [paraphrased from his lecture notes]
US Secretary of the Navy during WWI, Josephus Daniels (right), looking through a periscope at dazzle-painted ship models like those shown here. And below the same periscope testing device as viewed from a different angle.
Above It’s conceivable, perhaps even likely, that the two American testing theatres (one in Washington DC, and the other in Rochester NY) were more or less identical. We do know that the one pictured here is the viewing theatre at Rochester, as designed by Loyd A. Jones.
Ship dazzle-painting plans by British artist Norman Wilkinson (above) and Everett Warner (above right). Ship models by Warner are shown below.
After studying their dazzle-painted models in the testing theatre, the camouflage artists drew up detailed plans (such as those shown above), that served as literal blueprints for the painting of the actual ships. These plans, accompanied by exact color swatches, that were then turned over to dock officers, who supervised the ship painting. One of those officers, for the British Navy, was a now famous painter, the Vorticist Edward Wadsworth, who later produced some remarkable artwork in which various ships are shown being dazzle-painted.
Above The USS Sarah Thompson, just as the plan for its dazzle design had been marked on it, but before the painting had begun. And below that is the same ship, after the completion of its camouflage. However, the second view shows the opposite side of the ship, with different patterns purposely applied to each.
Right To provide some sense of how the styles of camouflage differed from one country to another, here are three photographs of the same dazzle-painted British ship, HMS Furious (c1918). Unfortunately, in this case all three views are of only one side of the ship, with a design that was surely influenced (perhaps unconsciously) by the British flag, the Union Jack.
Above are two photographs from the WWI period, showing dazzle being applied.
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Reversed perspective was the most important aid to deception which we used at first, and perhaps in the larger sense it may be said to have governed all our patterns…our development of design in that direction constitutes, in my opinion, the American contribution to the dazzle system.
From a magazine article on dazzle painting by Everett Warner in 1919
Those who were not fortunate enough to see the docks at one of our great ports during the war may imagine the arrival of a convoy—or, as frequently occurred, two at a time—of these painted ships, and the many miles of docks crowded with vessels of all sorts, from the stately Atlantic liner to the humbler craft bearing its cargo of coal or palm oil, each resplendent with a variety of bright-hued patterns, up-to-date designs of stripes in black and whit or pale blue and deep ultramarine, and earlier designs of curves, patches, and semicircles. Take all these, huddle them together in what appears to be hopeless confusion, but what in reality is perfect order, bow and stern pointing all directions, mix a little sunshine, add the varied and sparkling reflections, stir the hotchpotch up with smoke, life, and incessant movement, and it can safely be said that the word “dazzle” is not far from the mark.
Hugh Hurst in “Dazzle-Painting in War-Time” in International Studio (September 1919).
Above Double-page pictorial article on dazzle-painting in the Illustrated London News, January 4, 1919. Right To have stood in the presence of one of these dazzle-painted ships (or a whole harbor of them) must have been quite an experience. Shown is a photograph of the all time most spectacular of dazzle-painting schemes, this one designed by British artists for the passenger ship Mauretania, which had on its other side a sort of diagonal checkerboard pattern. You can see that pattern below, in a series of paintings of dazzle-painted ships that were used as illustrations in Hugh Hurst’s article on “Dazzle-Painting In War-Time.”
L. Campbell Taylor
L. Campbell Taylor
L. Campbell Taylor
Guy Kortright
Guy Kortright
Guy Kortright
