Guest Papav66 Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 Lottery chiefs have given nearly £50,000 to investigate the role of a World War II team which helped camouflage buildings from the enemy. The camouflage directorate, originally based in my home town of Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, helped design disguises for factories, ships, dockyards, power stations and airports. The group included up to 250 artists, designers and draughtsmen. They created fake buildings to fool bombers from the sky and divert them from genuine targets. Camouflage clothing They also covered rivers and canals with sheeting, to make them supposedly disappear to those flying overhead. The group also helped design camouflage clothing for the Armed Forces. The Heritage Lottery Fund money will be used by the Sez-U Community Theatre and the Leamington Studio Artists to document, record and archive the work that was carried out by the camouflage directorate. Exhibitions, workshops and a play will also be put on to explain some of the research findings. So if you can help or have any info then please post here. thanks Paul (& no I haven't got the money) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeEnfield Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 Sounds interesting. Looking forward to reading/hearing more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 It's still possible to see feint traces of the cammo on the former Stoke Newington Town Hall (now plain old assembly rooms since Hackney expanded in 1965). MB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick W Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 The railway works in Wolverton had a massive camo paint scheme along its walls, trying to get pics from local archive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Papav66 Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 Based at the Regent Hotel during the Second World War, the artists, designers and technicians worked in secret on aspects of military and civilian camouflage. Surveying factories and installations from the ground and air, the unit created models and designs that could be viewed in all weather and light conditions. The men and women used a large turntable with viewing platforms and giant water tanks constructed in the building that is now the old art gallery and museum in York Road. Project leader Fergus Durrant said: "Can you imagine trying to camouflage a building on the scale of the Ford factory now? That was the enormity of their task. "On top of that, resources were so tight - they just did not have the materials to spread the camouflage." Mr Durrant said: "We have found the blueprints for the original design of the turntable, so we're going to reconstruct it as a theatre set and perform a production based around the work of the camouflage unit and the people involved." Big name artists - including Christopher Ironside, who later designed the decimal coinage, and Wilfred Shingleton, who later won a 1946 Oscar for his work on Great Expectations - worked at the Leamington directorate. And Charles Darwin's grandson Robert Darwin was also involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick W Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 All good stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snapper Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 The railway works in Wolverton had a massive camo paint scheme along its walls, trying to get pics from local archive. As that still there? Famous for the sixteen year old killed in 1915 and buried at Berkshire Corner on the Armentieres-Ypres road. Sorry, I digress and the poor kid is so famous I've forgotten his name. :coffee: what happened to the Off Topic smiley. I've been off topic since the wife banned me from eating chocolate. Barnes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted April 17, 2008 Share Posted April 17, 2008 The St Helier hospital north london. It was prominent white building above Bentley priory, that still had traces of camoflage on it inthe 1990's . i was working at empress state building at West Brompton, next to earls Court. Used to nip up the roof and had a superb view of London. the hospital stood out like a beacon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Papav66 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 just came across these chaps: Stephen Bone 1904-1958 Artist, critic, journalist, broadcaster & author of childrens books enlisted as a Camouflage Officer, in Leamington 1939-42 Colin Moss 1914-2005 Painter,draughtsman, printmaker & teacher, Camouflage Designer. Leon Underwood 1890-1975 worked at the Civil Defence Camouflage Unit 1939-1942 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Papav66 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 examples of Colin's work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adam Elsdon Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Alot of RAF stations still have buildings that show signs of camouflage painting from WW2, i always wondered about the effectiveness and what else they done to them other than paint them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Papav66 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Colin worked alongside artists such as Leon Underwood, Richard Carline and Edwin LaDell and the stage designer Paul Shelving. Their acute visual awareness, creativity and technical skills made them ideally suited for this work. In 1943 the Ministry of Home Security gave all its artists (including Colin who was by then a serving member of the Life Guards - part of the Household Cavalry) a month's paid leave to produce paintings of the camouflage jobs they had worked on. The artists were paid £2 for each painting they produced. Colin later made a submission to the War Artists Advisory Committee of some of these works which are now in the Imperial War Museum. Extract from "Colin Moss: Life Observed" (Chloe Bennett, Malthouse Press) "We worked in regions, I was in the London region, and it was all power stations and factories (we only did civilian camouflage)," Colin recalls. "We used to fly over the building and write a lot of notes about the surroundings and take photographs, and then we went back to the studio and they used to have scale models made". [The scale they used was one sixteenth of an inch to a foot.] "You worked on a scale model and painted it in a certain range of colours, which was used on all camouflage work. There was a turntable which you put it on and a moving light, which represented the sun, and you got up on a platform, which was about the height that a bombing pilot would come in at, and turned this thing around to see how it reacted to different times of day." [They assumed that the bombers would be flying at 1500 feet as this was the optimum bombing height.] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest catweazle (Banned Member) Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Thats fascinating,you think someone was sent up the ladder and told try and hide it.great stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Farrant Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 Does anyone remember the old Dennis vehicle factory just off the main road at Guildford? It was demolished to make way for a new industrial estate in recent years, but up until its end, the walls were still painted in camouflage pattern. Richard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Papav66 Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 I don't know that particular building but going off tangent a little, the Government today still has a pot of money sitting in an account to restore/re-paint buildings that were camouflaged so that they can be returned to their pre-war appearance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest catweazle (Banned Member) Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 What this one Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Farrant Posted April 18, 2008 Share Posted April 18, 2008 What this one That is the location, not sure when that photo was taken but they look like the original buildings. I think a lot of it has been knocked down and new buildings put up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 What about the use of natural materials to camoflage installations? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest catweazle (Banned Member) Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 bikes can be military vehicles to Does that include ww2 butchers bike on warden patrol only i am about to restore one?:-D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeEnfield Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 Does that include ww2 butchers bike on warden patrol only i am about to restore one?:-D Oh gawd,..........another one, :whistle: but, I guess, YES, ........just call it 'reqresitioned',........... Where and what was that building, Tony ?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted April 19, 2008 Share Posted April 19, 2008 That's a twin machine gun post covering the approaches to Kemp tower strong point and the slip where the CI Military Museum are on St Quen's bay Jersey. Some of the bunkers were painted up as house. this one was built with false chimmney pots and had a window with a flower pot painted on the side, now long worn of i'm afraid. it is the jersy Fortress commander's signal bunker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
N.O.S. Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 When we put up the first T2 hangar slap bang in the middle of a very white chalk pit, the planners insisted we paint the galvanised sheeting (why?). We asked what colour?, they asked what colour the buildings were during the war, we said either camouflage or plain black, they said paint it black, we did, it still looks awful......What's the opposite of Camouflage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony B Posted April 20, 2008 Share Posted April 20, 2008 Some colour blind T*T from council planning by the sound of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ashley Posted April 23, 2008 Share Posted April 23, 2008 Here`s a section of camoflauged bunker, thiough camoed on the inside !more to follow in another posting, bet Jack knows where it is Ashley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kfz70 Posted April 26, 2008 Share Posted April 26, 2008 Here`s a section of camoflauged bunker, thiough camoed on the inside !more to follow in another posting, bet Jack knows where it is Ashley Fort Henry, Studland Bay. Right hand side of the emplacement in front of the door leading down to the ammunition storage area I think... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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