Battleships are very large, belch smoke and move pretty slowly. If you were tasked with hiding one out on the open water, how would you go about doing it?
This has been a long-standing challenge and the military’s best attempts were all pretty average. Low visibility grey was their answer. Not a great answer, but an answer.
In April 1917, German U-boats were sinking 8 battleships a day! Grey battleships were not cutting it.
The person who came forward with a solution was no less than an artist from the British Army, Norman Wilkinson. His brilliant idea? It’s impossible to camouflage ships, so let’s do the total opposite.
Wilkinson’s aim was not to conceal the battleships but to confuse the enemy. He developed a radical camouflage scheme that used bold shapes and violent contrasts of colour and coined it dazzle camouflage.
These ships look like floating cubist paintings. They are entirely ridiculous. You can probably guess the army’s reaction. For an institution that prided itself on being sneaky and subtle, this was far too radical and bright.
During a demonstration of dazzle, it’s said that a confused U.S. admiral went off, yelling, “How the hell do you expect me to estimate the course of a God-damn thing all painted up like that?”.
Wilkinson was subsequently asked to help set up an American dazzle department under the Navy’s Bureau of Construction and Repair.
But it turns out that the history of dazzle camouflage is not such a simple story.
Wilkinson claimed the idea. But, aside from nature having perfected dazzle camouflage over millennia (hello zebras on the savanna), quite a few other chaps came up with pretty much the exact same strategy.
While it’s entertaining to try and untangle who deserves the ultimate dazzle crown, there’s another question that really needs answering: did dazzle camouflage actually work?
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Will 00:00
It's a question that animals and soldiers have asked for forever. How do you hide? It's not so hard if you're tiny like a chameleon or medium like a sniper. But what if you're a honking great ship? Enjoy
Rod 00:21
Hugh Bamford Cott was born in July of 1900. He thought and entered the priesthood. So he went to Cambridge and started a theology degree, obviously. But after his first year, he went on a field trip to Eastern Brazil.
Will 00:35
I think things turned off. I had some I didn't feel like the priesthood anymore.
Rod 00:41
I didn't feel as priesty. So he liked that. And he became fascinated by natural history.
Will 00:47
What bit of Brazil?
Rod 00:47
Did he like? Eastern, the more accessible bit.
Will 00:51
I was wondering if there was a thing that made him drop out of priesthood in particular?
Rod 00:54
natural history.So what would they call it? 1900 Natural History so I don't know. birds and frogs and stuff. Yeah. He liked them. He liked the Brazilian frogs.
Will 01:04
You still could probably do that as a priest if you want.
Rod 01:06
Well I think in the past, they were the only people who did indeed at some stage. Yeah. The gentleman priest, natural historian. So he gets back to his university Cambridge.
Will 01:16
And he swaps into ology, okay, no more theology. Now zoology
Rod 01:19
Nah, zoology. And look basically 98% of x theology students end up there anyway, we know that that's, that's, that's a stat. So he went on a bunch of exotic expeditions. He went to the Amazon. Yes. Lower. I think he went on trips to the Zambezi River. He hung out in like, like Mozambique, Zambia and Lunz roti, which I don't know what that is. Now, it's probably something else come to this guy for geography, geography, or has been a genius, a geography I'm good with maps and I'm good to be placed and look it up. Busy Man, Lanza? rotti. It sounds exotic, right? Maybe it features the whole way through No, it doesn't. So eventually ended up moving to Glasgow uni, which is pretty much like Mozambique, I've been told. Both got people and restaurants. He did his thesis, I think it was his doctoral thesis on adaptive coloration. So this was both camouflage and warning coloration in the new era. Frog. Okay. 1938 He gets a Doctor of Science at Glasgow and he becomes the ology guy at Cambridge, and the Strickland, a curator of birds at the university's Museum of zoology, which is a one way from a church
Will 02:27
He's still looking at God's creature
Rod 02:31
if you're into that kind of thing, looking at them guessing them pulling them apart, splaying them out for display
Will 02:35
No that is what God said God was God was like, look at them. And then if you want to catch them in a net and and pin them down on paper, that's pretty cool to study them as their study is to me, check out what I made and see see if you can see the tricks. Yeah, look, put some cool tricks and easter eggs inside the tricks to look inside. Inside each bird is an Easter egg. You gotta find it
Rod 02:55
They're in rabbits. Well, so before you knew though, he was in the British Army, and he was a camouflage expert.
Will 03:02
He went from frog camouflage to British Army camouflage
Rod 03:05
kind of both ways he was before he got so we're gonna need his 100 Frogskins Yeah, and we're gonna make him into a kind of a jerk and kind of yourself in chameleons and then you can put your mind behind enemy lines no matter where you are. Stuff you bring gun down the front of your Gerken your frog skin a note of frog skin. So in a world war two he hung out with the Royal Engineers and he was a camouflage instructor services gig. He wrote a book called adaptive coloration in animals 1940s 500 Page textbook with pictures the worst
Will 03:33
of course, it's got pictures but if it did, like I mean, I know that in the olden days, you couldn't always put pictures in as much but you know the description of why this frog did some cool stuff with its colours will blow your mind just not the same if only you could see one. You just need like a spot the difference or can you find this frog sort of thing and you're like there's no frog and there's a frog in each picture every picture in the book has a frog it's like Where's Wally for scientists and
Rod 03:55
Except that one no frog site. So this book which became apparently quite popular, adaptive coloration and animals It had three main categories of coloration concealment yeah disguise and advertisement
Will 04:08
right slow down concealment and disguise as different categories
Rod 04:12
Yeah and advertisement
Will 04:14
I get advertisement that's like here check my feathers. And also that means my ovaries are great all my mammaries are great or whatever it is. Yep. Or my my cloaca is a great cloaca. Yep, that's correlated with my feathers. I get that Yes. Or back off fucker. I'm so tough with my feathers. Yeah, we come near me no cool I get it. What are we got can
Rod 04:36
disguise the same thing? You're no expert. I have you read adaptive coloration in animals? You haven't had any? No, but I guess I seen the pictures. So tell me what's the difference? It keeps going though. So there's there's subcategories like diverse camouflage effects in God's Animal Kingdom like obliterative shading of literal shading, differential blending. Coincident disruption,
Will 04:58
what are they?
Rod 04:59
Contour obliteration they're kinds of camouflage
Will 05:03
I know they are.
Rod 05:04
That doesn't matter. Who cares about careful. Now what really caught my eye he gave camouflage focus lectures at Farnham Castle. So this is wartime talking about camouflage
Will 05:14
Is the castle actually used for military purpose or
Rod 05:17
camouflage lectures. And he had a nine categories
Will 05:20
All of the best lectures were down at foreign Castle
Rod 05:23
you want to learn about militarising Go and see Cott. So nine categories nine categories of visual deception, so merging which is like blending into look at the background okay to look like the background look at the background grim frog on a green background. Yes, completely invisible disruption so you breaking up the edges and stuff. Yeah. Disguise so like a stick insect looking like a stick? Cool, which they do. It's quite a crazy nonstick insects anymore. They were in 1900
Will 05:55
Yeah, they called something different now consistency stars or something like that. Or orcas? I think.
Rod 06:01
I think it's been repurposed or reporposed misdirection. It's kind of like confusing people. I think misdirection is hard like
Will 06:08
something else happening over there.
Rod 06:10
Oh, yeah. Like projectile stuffing spilling some colour over the decoy. So that's like an angler fish. You know, they've got the bright thing that hangs off the top of the heads in the deep dark depths. Yeah, people got what is that
Will 06:22
You have a little drone behind you?
Rod 06:23
You have a fish drone. Decoded smokescreen so like ink screen, you know, like a squid going? Yes. Beautiful lovin. Yeah. And for some reason people put it on pasture. screeding pasture and I get it. I love it. Just different colour. Now it feels exotic, but doesn't taste different.
Will 06:38
I don't care. Okay, now I feel like I'm eating something more more more refined. More. More of the world's more inky. Exactly. It's beautiful.
Rod 06:45
The pores don't understand ink flavours. Exactly,
Will 06:48
exactly. I love it. Like if they go to if I'm at an Italian restaurant, and then they've got my bowl of pasta, and they bring a squid over. And then they squeeze it and milk that burger right in front. And they milk the ink out of it right in front of me all over my pasture. I'm like 10 stars. This is this is great.
Rod 07:04
I love this stuff. 10 for the experience zero for the taste. Not on 10 for the taste as well. Yeah, care what it tastes like though. Now you're dazzled. I'm so dazzled that it's going to taste great. And being affected by camouflage is the dummy, which is like flies and ants. So I think they look like something else or fake bits of them. Probably that could be tail dropping to dummying fake bits of them.
Will 07:24
Maybe you didn't look it up.
Rod 07:25
I looked up a lot of these and some of them are very dumb. Maybe or close to all of them
Will 07:30
come to this podcast for that I looked up a lot of these.
Rod 07:33
Nine out of 10 things definitely investigated.
Will 07:35
This is like the spider ants or something like that. Or ants spiders that look like the opposite. But like the species
Rod 07:42
Look it may well be because the only other there's another one's called false displays of strength. So looking bigger, meaner, coloured red. But there's one left isn't ninth one. That's a standout category I haven't mentioned oh my god, perfect for camouflage. And it's the only one that really matters here. It's called dazzle camouflage.
Will 08:19
Welcome to Tthe Wholesome Show, the podcast that will not rest until it has been dazzled the whole of science.
Rod 08:27
So you clean there's nothing dirty about that.
Will 08:29
I'm Will Grant.
Rod 08:30
I'm Rod Lamberts, but you can't see me dazzling you. So you'll you'll be astounded to hear this quite a long history to military camouflage. I know you're shocked.
Will 08:40
I kind of feel like they invented it. And they went wild. Damn, it was so weird in the past when we when we wore like red coats to be as obvious as possible. It was really weird when we went through the war as obvious as possible to being as hidden as possible. Yeah. And I feel like, why didn't we think of that like 200 years earlier?
Rod 08:56
I think we probably did. I mean, it's fair to say there's a sort of a Western bias here. Oh my god. Hard to believe, you know, and spoiler, there may be a little sexism in here as well. Hard to believe. So camouflage as we know it today is rooted in as one source puts it an eclectic blend of artists and naturalists and military strategist. It makes sense. You got people who check out animals who do it you got artists to make.
Will 09:17
So this is military camouflage, the people that are working on it this
Rod 09:21
Artists, naturalists and the strategists. Awesome. Yeah, it seems pretty cool. There's a lot going on in the camouflage world I discovered. Yeah. And look at its origins again, at least in the West seem to be very ham fisted and macho, which as you kind of mentioned. So you talked about the red coat so like Napoleonic wars, it was popular to wear these red tunics but part of the reason was then the enemy coincidence bleeding
Will 09:42
Yeah, really.That's your you keep marching even though you bleed and then we could still be...
Rod 09:49
Now they're terrified because they can't tell if you have staggering or not. Because we we brought red jacket
Will 09:55
over that a jacket that covered up you know when they blown off your leg or something like yeah,
Rod 09:59
a fake leg.
Will 10:00
pops down out of the trails and don't worry, I'm sorry to keep going my clothes make it look like I haven't perfect still. Oh my god.
Rod 10:07
So this kind of camouflage camouflaging in the blood.
Will 10:09
Ah, Jesus not great. No, it's not great at all.
Rod 10:13
There's better but yeah, so it really didn't hide the soldiers
Will 10:15
so why did the Navy have like blue coats
Rod 10:17
well so they couldn't see if you were so advanced a lot from the Red Coats hiding the blood so like mimicking animals and often literally like using animals, skinning the frogs or whatever it is. And so they started to like let's adopt to the patterns in nature cover ourselves hide a little bit blend in etc. Even though caught talked a lot about this dazzle in a military camouflage setting is dazzle camouflage, which we will get to he is not remembered as the guy who brought desert camouflage to the wall. Okay, so time to talk about Abbot Henderson. Fayer not Anderson. Anderson. So he's born in 1849 American artists naturalist and a teacher. He used to do portraits, figures, animals landscapes, and as one source puts it, he enjoyed a certain prominence during his lifetime. So a certain prominence pretty good. Yeah. I mean, it's also referred to by some sources as the father of camouflage. Okay. So that's something again, this is the Western camouflage to be clear. I'm not because he invented it, just because he was one of the first to write about and talk about the person that invented it. Yeah, yeah. Then he called his kid camouflage.
Will 11:22
That would be that would be why you would be called the father of camouflage.
Rod 11:25
Yeah, this is cam, my child. Oh, flowers. Yeah, he wrote about, you know, masquerading as other things. Techniques taken from nature. Disruptive marketing
Will 11:35
Be like stick insects.
Rod 11:37
Yep. You could look like a fish. No one's gonna shoot at a fish. You're on land. They'll feel sorry for you too, because you're on land. You terrible Don't shoot him. I don't want to be in this suffering enough. You don't get a choice. You're in the fish brigade son. So he first got into Thayer this guy. Sorry, Abbott Handerson Thayer first got involved in military camouflage in 1898. And this was a time again, great quote. I will get to the main source. But of course there in the shownotes the quote was military camera fleurs that's what you call a camouflage camouflage camouflage. Only a male one.
Will 12:11
Like a flaneur, a camoufleurs
Rod 12:13
females we find out later are called camoufleuses. Yep. So military camouflage, have adopted a strategically tedious palette of khaki and grey. Oh, a tactic today termed as low contrast camouflage. So that's what was going on in 1898.
Will 12:30
So people were doing khaki and grey. Yeah. If you're putting on your khaki trousers and your grey t shirt, you are blending into the background. Like you are invisible. At a party.
Rod 12:40
Not if you got a bazooka as well.
Will 12:42
Yeah. Okay, that makes you stand out. Yeah. Hide that behind you. Like no one's gonna know.
Rod 12:46
His research. I was quite different. He's all about counter shading, disruptive patterns, patterns, really high contrast. Okay. And of course, the ideas were seen as basically wackadoodle Yeah, the camo fetishist. So like your bird watchers, your hunters, and your scientists were like, this is stupid, because we can see you. That's idiotic. What stuff was he doing? There? You are. So he demonstrated the efficacy of this, you know, disruptive patenting and stuff according to this. This is a source that came up a lot. Emily James, she writes Kemah flus the dazzling of Women at War and she writes quite a long treaties on stuff so it's not only about Women at War, it's a whole bunch of stuff and she says he thought he demonstrated the efficacy of his system with an eclectic and by all accounts bizarre mix of stencils, taxidermy, photo montages. Animals he showed how animals could elude there predators with strong contrast and dramatic patterns that disrupt contours and muddy outlines so animals can do it so we can too so that we should do it to boats. Ah, and people stuff taxidermy, taxidermy a lion on top of a stick a stuffed frog on your boat, no one on that invisible No, no, although it likes to be confused.
Will 13:56
Or taxidermied a whole zoo on top of our boat. Yeah, and it'll blend into the background. It's an Orca. How could you even tell?
Rod 14:03
It's pretty much what it was like so the idea was, look how wacky they are out there and these animals seem to have continued to be alive. So their contracts don't just necessarily hide they get really strong contrast and like like what what is an example is like multicoloured and bright coloured creatures that kind of mess with the mind or creatures
Will 14:19
like a zebra is high contrast. Yeah.
Rod 14:22
Yeah, okay. Because that's not really the Serengeti is not covered in black and one No, it's no shades of beige not like that would be good for hiding in a jail or something like it would but apparently confuses people. Okay, well, other predators. So instead of the creature trying to hide they want it like confound. I want to like bloat the creatures mind can't handle even looking at me. What is that? What is that food or is that a spaceship? I don't know. Um, so 1909 He wrote a book concealing coloration in the animal kingdom. This apparently, again Now Emily James quite stirred the ornithological community and infuriated former president and avid hunter Theodore Roosevelt in fear or hated him? Yeah. Because he's like this is outrageous is stupid like doesn't make any sense. Look at these outrageous colours these strange patterns. They're not invisible. I can see them. Yeah, what a dumb idea. So the idea that that gives you that shits is quite remarkable, but apparently it did. Thayer had a buddy George de Forest Brush. I know de forest Brush. George de Forest Brush George de forest Brush so the forest was his middle name is a good middle name was good. It was good enough. What's his name from Star Trek? DeForest Kelley he was really like he was the engineer, Scotty C engineer. Anyway, here's just DeForest Kelley I think his surname was first name to forest. So they said look American ships should have counter shading. So counter shading is like animals that are you know, light on the bottom and dark on top like fish and stuff. So when you look up you see light, like the sky and when you look down you see dark, like the ocean.
Will 15:52
Oh, nice. I get it, I get it I guess I do that to ships. So if any, any like sharks are looking at our ships, yeah. Then we paint them like the sky underneath.
Rod 15:59
And they're like that's the sky.
Will 16:00
Yeah, esactly got a delicious ship. Yeah, exactly. Looking down eating our ships again. Yeah, and those are like the ocean from above. Exactly.
Rod 16:08
And so the 1909 helicopters won't descend and eat the ships good. Or the cormorants. Ship catching cormorants are quite a problem, at least in 1909. So that's what they were suggesting. And in 1902, they got a patent called "Process of treating the outside of ships, etc, for making them less visible." I do like etc. And a patent kind of covers a lot of boxes
Will 16:30
and related ideas, and any other ideas people might have that I want
Rod 16:33
that I would like to get the money from yet. So the method basically said, we've described this idea as modelled on the coloration of a seagull. Okay, paint ship like a seagull. Yeah, with an orange beak than a craving for chips. It would be nice. For some reason Seagull I would have thought almost any fish would have been better. Most sharks. Anyway, so they hidden fire and brush would experiment with camouflage well into World War One, both together and apart. So brush, at one point developed an idea for a transparent aeroplane.
Will 17:01
Yes, like Wonder Woman.
Rod 17:03
I know. I know.
Will 17:04
How is that not happen if you developed an idea? Yeah, I know that all science starts with an idea does that is true? But then you hit the Okay. How do we do it? What year were you talking here? Early World War One. Okay, so we're still at the
Rod 17:18
They're not great with planes in general really.
Will 17:20
This is the Red Baron sort of, and to go. Okay, but what if it's transparent?
Rod 17:24
What if the canvas thing was invisible?
Will 17:25
I don't think anyone is saying that's a scientific idea. That is a stoned idea.
Rod 17:30
I've got balsa wood that you can see right through. And these propellers
Will 17:34
if it was like, clouds or something like that. Yeah, that Okay, so that's, that's a different camoflauge
Rod 17:39
Yeah. But that's not transparent plane. And then you'd see the dude.
Will 17:45
It is like your mate in grade three, that invents something. It's like, No, you haven't invented that. You've just said the word
Rod 17:52
I invented. And about that age, the battlefield laser for soldiers. Yeah. And I was you had the power was in a backpack? Yeah. Cool. Cool. So I fixed that.
Will 18:01
I invented a tunnel for cars that that changed all the time to go exactly where you want it to go. And it's a good idea. Yeah, it was it was perfect. So the tunnel just went way but it hasn't been fully realised yet.
Rod 18:12
But that's because you were ahead of your time.
Will 18:14
I know. Or maybe there's other reasons.
Rod 18:17
on the edge. SoThayer kept on going on his own plugging, right. There's disruptive or high difference camouflage, which he at least at one point when he talked about in nature, he described as razzle dazzle. Yeah, that sounds nice. Razzle dazzle them. He also got into human camouflage. Well, that's an obvious one you skin a person put them on and no one knows it's you. That's not what I was thinking. No, you shouldn't. That's a terrible idea. It's great. So he had he designed a prototype sniper suit, which is cool. It was an array of bright colours designed to it was inspired by hunting coat he inherited, which he subsequently enhanced with scraps, snippets and shreds of painted fabric.
Will 18:52
Okay, okay. What what is he blending into here? I don't know, a fabric shop.
Rod 18:56
It's not clear. Garbage tip face or something?
Will 18:59
Yeah, something like that might work. Well. Yeah. But I see most snipers want to blend into like either the woods. Yeah, or like an urban landscape
Rod 19:06
The place from whence they are sniping. Anyway, he presented this as it was put Harlequin s costume to the British War Office, hoping Winston Churchill would go great idea. And a painter friend of his said, look, he described this as some drawings and an old spot a brown jacket with rags pinned to it. Dr. Winston,
Will 19:26
look, I think a lot of the British military at the time was shoestring. And let's see what will happen. So you know, someone comes up with a coat and they've they've pinned some stuff.
Rod 19:35
Check this shit out. Have you ever thought of hanging bits of fabric off?
Will 19:38
It couldn't be worse than not.
Rod 19:40
It could be okay. I think if you're hiding in a swamp or the Serengeti, indeed, and you're wearing bright fluorescent colours, and you're trying to take your firing position
Will 19:50
but in fairness, if I'm an enemy soldier here Yeah, and I'm like, What the fuck is that pile of rags couldn't be a sniper. I would not jump to sniper you understand Dazzle. I would be exactly what the hell is that some sort of birdie slug rag thing?
Rod 20:06
And it certainly doesn't look dangerous.
Will 20:07
Yeah exactly. I'll go and have a look at the fruity cargo and give it a kiss looks like
Rod 20:12
Sniper nine miles away. So apparently his efforts with this sort of stuff were described as eccentric and ineffective. So it didn't go well, but he kept going. So he writes to Churchill in 1950 and says, Look, you should camouflage submarines, by counter shading them like fish
Will 20:27
just just just a second year. Submarines are somewhat camouflaged already. Yeah, they're underwater by being underwater.
Rod 20:33
Yeah, but work with I am like a fish.
Will 20:38
Okay, then the more fish like you don't see submarines when they're underwater.
Rod 20:43
When you do if you open your eyes, you open your eyes underwater
Will 20:45
and your fish painted submarine was pretty cool. It'd be fun is this like when they painted sharks mouths on planes and stuff like that? So it's like
Rod 20:52
I love that. I'm a marauder said you should paint also ships white to make them invisible against the white sky and the white water and the white clouds and white. And the Admiralty said, look, okay, we're going to look into it. Okay, we did know, they criticise the idea very eloquently, the camouflage would have to vary depending on the light, the changing colours of the sea and the sky, the time of the day and the angle of the sun changing camouflage. Yeah, and that's not easy. That's not easy. And they concluded this is my favourite bit. His freak methods of painting ships might be of academic interest, but really not a practical advantage. So thanks, egghead. What the fuck are we going to do with this?
Will 21:30
Is such a dismissal isn't the glorious professional of academia?
Rod 21:34
Yeah, I know, the practical professional as well. practical ideas us. So he keeps hassling the Brits. Keep saying Come on, come on. Come on. Come on. Come on. So he's American member. So he goes to England in the towards the end of 1915 November where he started to give demonstrations around the country of all these razzle dazzle, etc. But before we actually got to the war office itself, he was apparently warmly welcomed by a British sociologist called John Graham Kerr, who was so enthused, he was so excited by the support that Kurt gave him that he didn't bother meeting with the War Office. He went home again, and kept on writing letters instead.
Will 22:07
Doesn't sound good. No, like, I know going to your job interview and meeting someone cool outside the building is still follow through and get a job.
Rod 22:16
No, go home and write letters. So despite all this effort, Thayer is not remembered as the desert either. No, no,
Will 22:24
Who's the dazzle guy?
Rod 22:25
So we get to John Graham Kerr, the guy who's very enthusiastic British fella. It turns out in 1914, before they had been haranguing Winston COE had already written a letter to the old bulldog and said, British warships should be camouflaged. And he said, This is the principles of disruptive camouflage. The idea is to confuse not conceal disrupt the ship's outline. Okay, so not hide it. Mess it up. So we put in some trees on it or something. Yep, exactly. Outlines of this ship has been drawn like a harp. Yeah. The giant harp ship pig's head, and so the enemy will go I don't even know what I'm looking at.
Will 22:57
Yeah, I'm the giant pig. See, we put something I'm not scared of that.
Rod 23:01
No, it can't be dangerous in a state of wonder, but I am hungry. So he said that the point of this is to greatly disrupt difficulties of accurate range finding of ships so if they look confusing, it's harder to judge how far away they are.
Will 23:13
Right? I get it. If it looks like you don't pick up like you can't shoot a giant pig on the water because that doesn't matter. Like could it be it's obviously if it's that big, it must be closer or further away,
Rod 23:21
or is it a real pig? Can't be. it's too big unless it is a real pig. So it messes with the mind you're barely coping. And you also suggested things like this, the ship's Marsh should be disrupted with regular white bands. So you kind of you counter shade them so you pay the guns grey on top and then you grade them down to white so that kind of disappear against the background. Okay, and you take the dark parts of the ship and paint them white and the delight parts of the ship and paint them dark. Up is down black is so confused the sausage I could I couldn't see any of this. I don't even know what a ship is anymore. No. So both of these were supposed to make them sort of pseudo invisible but also again difficult to arrange find. Yes, which is great idea. So nine and 15 the Admiralty said we conducted some various trials on this and we decided to paint our ships monotone grey.
Will 24:07
I wouldn't call that really a trial on the test what you've just said.
Rod 24:10
So we stick with grey, because it's ship colour. Okay. They've made up their mind curse. Subsequent letters apparently did nothing. And he was the guy who ended up actually he supervised caught from the very beginning. So okay, it's getting a little incestuous with dazzle stickers, obviously the desert guy. No, he's not. He's not remembered for it even Oh my god. I know, who knew was so intricate into William Andrew McKay. So he's an American muralist,
Will 24:36
a muralist, journalist, a military muralist,
Rod 24:39
just a muralist. Okay, how dare you enlist him? You conscripted him
Will 24:43
I wanted him to use his power of mural for war
Rod 24:46
That's his superpower so he argued early in World War One that an optical mixture of grey would be more effective than battleship grey because low visibility are a couple of Gray's yeah grey such tombstone grey Yeah, yeah. Show Greg. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Caterpillar great dress Great. Yep, and ice cream grey. You blend them together optically,
Will 25:07
I think we've lost the red on grey there.
Rod 25:09
So because battleship grey gives us his standard reflective colour, it's not anything like the waves in the shade around it, but if you use this magical stuff, it will be more confusing. So the horizon background behind it, on the other hand is kinetic it's so its effect upon the optic nerve is kind of more active. Okay, moving. Okay, let's just throw me out. So the paint somehow moves, but it doesn't but it seems to Alright, just by having a few different colours there. Yeah, a few different kinds of grey. We've all dressed that way. 50 shades. Yeah, so there's a guy called Roy Behrens, who's a camouflage expert. He's got a camo pedia and there's a lot on it. And a lot of people right from it don't doubt it. And this description, it was just worth reading because it's dreadful. Talking about McKay he analysed the horizon light itself into its primary colours and propose to mingle these colours in a painted pattern the component colours of which would merge in the distance and become themselves a kinetic source of radiation and the desired shade. He declared that a ship so painted painted with pigment light, as it were tend to merge completely into the Marine background. Okay, yes, but what does pigment light letting go into that?
Will 26:13
If you paint your ship like it's the horizons optical, I mean, this sounds like your invisible plane. Again, it doesn't like I've invented painting your ship, like the horizon, I'm sure I can't see it anymore. That is that is...
Rod 26:23
Not quite not quite there. Because if you kind of do this optical effect thing, apparently it appears to change a little bit or it reflects differently.
Will 26:29
Cool. Tell me how to do it with paint brush, 50 Shades of paint brush
Rod 26:33
rollers. So this is my case system such that it was was actually applied to a bunch of chips, okay, they gave it a crack. And it morphed into something quite different, became mainly blocked patterns or primary colours, sharp outlines and things basically red, blue, and yellow, you name it like like hardcore primary colours. And they basically said, it's called like cubist art that was pretty big at the time now, like on the Navy ships, they weren't Navy anymore. So it usually would divide a vessel into large masses of contrasting colours and tones. And so it would basically mess you up. Yeah, you're looking at going with the fucking stereo. I'll show you a picture in a moment of one version. They did a few tests, actually did some tests. So there's many examples. I'll just give you one. So like 1917 There was a troop transport ship the President Grant, they saw a cargo ship at sea that was camouflaged with this system this primary block colours it's nice that they tried it on the cargo ship. Yeah, fuck em.
Will 27:26
If this really doesn't work,
Rod 27:27
so we lose a few fridges and stuffed toys
Will 27:27
Who cares and the crew running them? Yeah, whatever, they can take a risk
Rod 27:32
But luckily he was you know, friendly ship saw them and the commander of the troop ship said look later on. He could not see the cargo ship at all until it was only a mile away. And then it looked like a moving bit of horizon and the masts kind of were the only thing that gave it away. Wow. Okay, so otherwise, like, what am I even looking at? So it was confusing, and the consensus was at the Mackay chips merged with the background at relatively short distances, even though there are these wacky colours. I don't know how that works very hard to find out without going to a whole bunch of optics and I'm not qualified. Okay. So the Navy said let's do a bunch of government ships that colour but McKay isn't remembered as the desert guy either. Norman Wilkinson? Is he the dazzle guy? Yes, he's a the dazzle guy.
Will 28:14
Oh, finally
Rod 28:15
British artist born in 1878 he usually worked in oils watercolours and dry point which as we all know is not wet point. He was predominately a marine painter so he used to paint water is really into boats in the seas I can love it seen it Yeah, it's pretty been by the ocean is nice and if you can take a shot he's also an illustrator and a poster artist and apparently he was a revolutionary poster artist. That's what he was remembered
Will 28:41
as in like supporting the revolution. Pictures of Stalin and...
Rod 28:46
Che Guevara before he was born and stuff like that, you know, okay, Santos that we'll be talking about or Revolution like he like posted his the way he did posters and what he did with them and stuff is apparently quite remarkable. So I became well known for this. I never thought of posters as a thing but I suppose in like 1900 is a
Will 29:01
huge huge I've heard before that there's poster greats. I don't know if you but like Hollywood movies and stuff like that. And they will seek out people that have you know, enormous chops in the industry just to make the poster. I don't think it's as big now that now that trailers are much bigger, but it also all electronics and stuff. Yeah. But getting the person to do the Star Wars poster or something like that. It was it was a big deal.
Rod 29:23
Yeah, look, I love a cool poster. I still do. It's just sticking, putting Bluetec all over my walls now matters now that I don't rent the house I have to actually pay for thank not the former landlords that I would ever do that to you. So in 1898 he starts contributing to the Illustrated London News and The Illustrated mail and he had long relationships with these two publications. They were a big deal for him. A year after this. He's 21 goes to Paris to learn academic figure painting, which corrected to finger painting about 18 times as I was writing this
Will 29:50
that's not your fault. No, but I think it's funny. Academic finger painting. That's that's what the world thinks we do anyway,
Rod 29:57
Oh they really do. They don't think we use paint now. But he was already he was already really into maritime stuff so he really had salt water in his veins much like you and me. With my finger painting I want to do the ocean on a fingerpaint the ocean so war breaks out 1915 He signs up to the Royal Naval volunteer reserve because it was boats hates the Hon. Yeah, okay, the swimming did he volunteer
Will 30:20
his his painting skills or just just his fighting skills,
Rod 30:23
His boat skills. His interest in water. So he was assigned immediately to submarine patrols around the data and health. Okay. No, thanks. Thanks. It's war. You're told where to go. I know of a cross that would not be relaxing.
Will 30:38
I thought if he volunteered to be the painter for the army that would have been done
Rod 30:42
Excuse me. I returned I could I paint your portrait
Will 30:45
I suggest that I'd be the portrait painter of the army. I'll do a lot of portraits like yeah, all day, every day, every painting portraits. I'll go and like generals in cool situations. Everyone, I'll do them all. Like, I don't need to. I don't need to go submarine patrol.
Rod 31:00
And he's, they say yes. After two years looking for view boats. And I think it was less than two years. But he said while he was on a mind sweeping, he's sorry. He came back. My apologies. He came back to Britain. So he lived through that. And he lives for quite a bit longer. And he is not surprisingly usually aware of German U boats. Okay, so it's pretty serious. Like so. 1917 u boats. were sinking something like eight British ships a day.
Will 31:23
Wow. Eight a day. Yeah. How many ships can you make?
Rod 31:27
Nine a day? Quite a few. Wow.
Will 31:31
Eight a day.
Rod 31:32
It seems pretty rough. So then he was on a mind sweeping patrol around UK because that's what he got to do next.
Will 31:38
Again, not painting. I just think painting for war would be ready to be it'd be it'd be a better job in wartime. I would prefer it I think I'll take that one
Rod 31:48
Cruising around, like on a boat looking for mines around Britain. Yeah, it doesn't sound great. Not terrible. But at the time he had a brainwave he realised it was impossible to camouflage a ship to hide it from the sight of a U boat gunner. You could not hide it. But you could do the extreme opposite
Will 32:06
Which is like everything else so visible.
Rod 32:09
Yeah, kind of he said basically because it's impossible to hide it you know the smokestacks even if you hit it, well would still give it away the smoke and stuff. So alright, how can we make it more difficult to target with a periscope? Okay, so we fuck with their minds we fuck with the visuals. So he said a ship should not be painted for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up the form and confuse the submarine gunner. So he couldn't necessarily tell which way it was heading. Even how big it is. Put the back on the front literally in some side on the top paint bow waves in the wrong place. So they think it's going in the opposite direction
Will 32:41
Paint some waves. Yeah. Waves on Yeah,
Rod 32:44
I know. Like I love this. And so he agreed with Kerr that guy who you thought was going to be dazzle guy that confusion was better than concealment. But he thought the idea of the way you did this confusion would be a little different. So dazzle was the GO FOR BOTH Yeah, you got this radical theme that again it uses bold shapes violent contrast of colour, like insane strokes and stuff. Can't find any original colour photos but even even a black and white ones are remarkable show him just to take just a take you
Will 33:13
give me the photo now
Rod 33:14
you're gonna you're about to get it but you need you need some information first. So it's supposed to basically stun confusing blind the enemy how would it work? Let's take a moment and be a U boat torpedo twist. Okay, so for the German terrified state of mind,
Will 33:28
yes. Yeah, no. loving their job. Surely Fuck no wishing they were doing portraiture back in the Rhineland.
Rod 33:34
The idea of being in a submarine that has as its goal to shoot and be shot at. Sounds great. I'm against it. I'm anti I'm on Twitter to do loving the job. So the u-boat torpedoes guy gunner was a guy that to fire and hit a target from as far as about two K's away. I couldn't get close to 300 metres because the torpedo needs to arm Oh, so you can't get him
Will 33:57
fired too close. Because others don't want to arm it like
Rod 34:01
I don't know apparently they need to I don't know wind up. But to do this to actually do this job you have to accurately predict where the target will be by the time the torpedo reaches
Will 34:11
Yeah, exactly. Because boats are so fast moving
Rod 34:13
Oh yeah, they're like quick plant and we call it hydrofoils. So typically you when you pop up you have 30 seconds to cite the ship and target it before we pull this Periscope down here because otherwise the ship will see the wake of the periscope. Yeah, and go that's a blow them up. That's Jetty so they don't have long they've got a look up have a look at the thing. How big is it? How far is it? Which way is it going? How fast is it going? 30 seconds under a little bit of pressure. And also the typical use I would carry maybe 12 super expensive very slow torpedoes.
Will 34:43
Super expensive very slow. Yeah. Why don't they get cheaper and faster ones
Rod 34:48
I know are you poor? Get a better job.
Will 34:50
I just don't understand why they don't get better ones.
Rod 34:53
Well, it took time very slow took time.
Will 34:56
What are we talking very slow. I like you can swim faster
Rod 34:59
Yeah So as the thorpedo would go faster than the torpedo. So Wilkinson says, Okay, let's dazzle the gunner. So we'll make it difficult for them to estimate the ship's type, their size, their speed and their heading. So even if they get a shot off, it's probably going to be a shit shot. Okay. He said, Look, you only have to be eight or 10 degrees off for the torpedo to miss. Not a lot.
Will 35:19
Ok, a couple of kilometres off.
Rod 35:21
Do you want to see a picture. Okay, here's two things when you need some pizza here are two one is about how you take the firing position that top one. And so where you think the ship is going to be with a dazzle versus where it actually is.
Will 35:31
Oh, look how wrong he is. He's so so
Rod 35:33
He's miles out.
Will 35:34
It's gonna get that I don't understand this.
Rod 35:36
Better is the mock up. Oh, look did a periscope.
Will 35:39
I couldn't target that at all. I wouldn't know what direction.
Rod 35:41
How do you know there's that there. But it looks quite different like the ship certainly looks different. This is a mock up though. Not an actual I believe. I'll show you a picture of the actual ship you can't see it yet. Basically, he goes I'm going to tell the old fogies about this at the War Office etc. And a lot of people weren't well they weren't certainly gets about kind of rattled. This is weird. And again from Emily James dazzles. Aesthetic drama is plainly at odds with our sense of wars, banality or the uniformity of military culture. Yeah, looks a bit pop. Because it doesn't doesn't look
Will 36:11
Bit noisy. When not normally in military, you want everything squared away. Yeah.
Rod 36:14
And you want it to look, you know, death ish, not jaunty. We're happy. So, yeah,
Will 36:18
I don't know, there is a tradition. All the militaries have, you know, like, like the Roman centurions with a big punk Hall, Austria, or something like that. And there's clearly a lot of other places. So, you know,
Rod 36:30
well, they weren't entirely against it. So but she goes on to say even the term is bewilderingly dissonant. So you when you say dazzle camouflage you thinking that sounds opposite. Yeah, what's going on? They also called it things like baffle camouflage and jazz painting,
Will 36:43
jazz painting,
Rod 36:45
jazz paint our ships cool. So it seems counterintuitive, like kind of, you know, paradoxical. So it kind of confused people. But it was now officially born and Wilkinson was the guy. Okay, you have the guy. All right. So how did they sell it? First, May 1917, Wilkinson did a test. So they painted a ship like dazzled it, or bedazzled it, a small store ship like a fridge ship called HMS industry. And it was launched. And the Coast Guard and other sailing ships was told keep an eye out. Yep, it's even said. So enough observers apparently were sufficiently confused. Within a couple of months. They said look, they don't know what they're seeing, or they're not quite sure what to look at. So I my iPad keeps moving on its own, which is very exciting. And so they reported back and said, this is probably good. So not October 1917. The Admiralty said do 50 ships force trip ships, they go 50 trips. So the problems were solved. There's good reason they got to the point when 1918 So we're talking a year later 2300 British ships were dazzled. Wow. So they went all in on this. I went all in. And then that grid more than 4000 By the end of the war. So 1000s of ships were dazzled how many how many people are painting a ship? I mean, I It's look, it's a lot more than two. It's a big job. Yeah, they're not small ships a big troupe ships.
Will 38:02
I guess it's a better job ship painter than the U boat.
Rod 38:06
You got to you got to paint them anyway. I mean, ships need to be painted for their their health. So that kind of comes into it. Fair enough. Yep. So what about the US with us into it? So there'd been some, you know, excitements and stuff. And a lot of the people doing this, we're Americans. So the US joined the war in April 1917. And apparently at the time, they had six different systems of camouflage floating around, which they would basically sell the offer to private ship owners, not the military, private ships, all of them were basically low visibility or invisibility, kind of the idea. So the US themselves out the Navy weren't that convinced they thought? We don't think this really works. This diminished visibility. Not that great sell it to the private sector. Okay. But they're also nervous because many of their ships were originally German ships. So they already the Germans knew, specs couldn't work on a German ship couldn't work on a German ship. Exactly. It's just different different accent.
Will 38:56
They'd get the feel of that ship anyway, like, so doesn't matter what you paint, it will feel to them like a ship.
Rod 39:01
This is Dutch, though, but it's also the kind of oh, that's the if through nine blog posts, because they recognise the outlines and stuff of the ships.
Will 39:09
Yeah. I think the point was to not recognise the outline. I mean, how are they how are they looking at this and going,
Rod 39:14
Oh, this is pre-dazzler. This is when they're talking them into it. So the guys would though saying this invisibility, shit doesn't really work. So the ground is ripe. Because they're going it doesn't really work anyway, they know what our ships are going to do. They know what they're capable of, because most of them are German. So they know the speed. They know the vulnerabilities, ya know, the manoeuvrability like this isn't great. And then it turns out there was a useful Assistant to the Secretary of the Navy in the US at the time, Franklin Roosevelt. Okay, and he heard about the decimal system and thought sounds pretty good. I'm gonna have a chat with Wilkinson. And so there was some demonstrations including one where a confused us Admiral went off saying How the hell do you expect me to estimate the course of the goddamn thing all painted up like that? That's like, that's the point champ.
Will 39:53
Yeah. I need to know as well. Yeah. Like I if your ships hiding from me, how can I plan where they're going?
Rod 40:00
He doesn't need to be tells them what to do they go do it. So Wilkinson was asked to help set up the American Dazzle Department, under the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair. What are you in charge of dazzle department? This sounds wonderful. Sounds like it's showtunes and it's great fancy costumes. Now of course, it's a part of how it was sold and no story about wars and men fighting and bright shining colours would be complete without a little sexism desert got excited. You got civilians excited, and provoked apparently a series of intriguing comparisons to women's dress and makeup. Okay, like oh, so there's a 1917 cartoon which have a look at if you want next next peak. And it says things like Why don't some of the Army's high women has camera flares? Anyhow, they've been doing it all their lives I think of the routers the switches in the powderpuff why as we gather it, half the art of being an up to date young woman is camouflage. Okay, and on and on it goes and there's speculation therefore what would it mean if the military started doing this sort of stuff? So yeah, that previous photo should have shown you earlier but that's what a full on the desert ship look like. That's awesome. A black and white photo is so cool. And that is hard to look at right like you're looking at going I'm not quite sure which is the plane do we know they are black and white. A lot of them are multicoloured. Apparently like like Harlequin esque. But even in black and white. It's difficult to kind of make sense of quite what angles you're looking at.
Will 41:17
Yeah, no, totally. I don't know. I don't know where the pointy bit of the ship, the bow stern or the starboard or the can't tell anything.
Rod 41:26
I think that's kind of cool. So it has an effect. So the US at least women were already being used for camouflage, etc. And they are the core of the camouflage core, which is kind of was related to the American Red Cross. They were described as a group of artists, writers, stenographers, school teachers, debutantes, and many sorts of women. So these camera fuses, and there's quite a lot on that. And this main source I've been mentioning before, is all about these camera fuses. They were engaged for a bunch of publicity efforts to sell things like Dazzle, who to the people, get people excited, because you know, you're trying to recruit people and you're getting people excited about
Will 42:05
I'm still I'm still not sure why you need to get the people riled up to paint our ships in Dazzle, you can just
Rod 42:11
They just thought it was exciting. I think, you know, just to get that actually, they built a mock up battleship called the recruit coincidence, in Union Square in New York City, like a full mock up of and then and that was this normal grade boat. And so that was weird. People wander off, they come back, there's a fine battleship. But then in 1918, as it was put one day at sundown, New Yorker saw a shipping team neutral grey, the next morning, it was a Dazzle. Hey, wow, overnight, they went in the dazzle the shit out of it. So there's a picture of that as well. Like there's a few shots all black and white. And this is is this in the middle of the streets? Yeah, it's it's in Union Square, like New York City boom. So people walking around or leaving train stations and stuff would see this. That's awesome. Full size boat. So that's supposed to, you know, get people excited about you know, clashing with Jerry and all that stuff. So did it work, though?
Will 43:01
Yes. It did. Of course it did. Because ships look like this right now.
Rod 43:07
They do all of them. There's no boat that isn't dedazzled. So the Admiralty they commissioned a report came out in end of 19/81. Quarter of 1918. It said 72% of dazzled ships that were attacked with sunk or damaged.
Will 43:19
Well, yeah, but what percent of other ships
Rod 43:22
62. I know disappointing. That is really sad it's a bummer. So like all it does is not great. Second quarter of 1980 60% of attacks on dazzled ships ended in sinking or damage 68% of non dazzled
Will 43:37
Oh, okay, so starts to flip. Yeah. Or it just did flip. Tell me that trajectory after you've given me a few quarters.
Rod 43:44
Yeah. Well, I've only got two more dazzled? Because that's what they offered.
Will 43:48
So one bit of evidence says yes. And one bit of evidence says no.
Rod 43:50
Science eh? It's great. They also there's more bits and pieces are more dazzled than non dazzled ships were being attacked in the same period, but few of them sunk when they were hit. So okay, that argues sounds good. They're getting shots off. But the worst shot?
Will 44:05
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, the dazzle pilots. Just a bit more showy and out there. You know, they're true. They're coming close to the U boats. They're like you can't frickin do. Yeah. So I assume there's a bit of flamboyance in driving a ship like that.
Rod 44:19
Most large ships, you can drive quite flamboyantly, I think flamboyance is is how they choose their Navy pilots. And they tend to turn on a dime and they can stop really quickly. The Admiralty at least said the devil probably doesn't hurt, but it's probably not helping that much either. Thanks for that, but the US so that's just the palms. So they had about 250 ships that not just Navy ships were painted in dazzle between March 19 18th and 11th of November, which is when the war ended so number of months. Amongst the American Merchantman ships, two and a half 1000 tonnes and over big ships 78 and dazzled ships were sunk and only 18 dazzled ships. The age difference of the 1811 was sunk by torpedoes. Foreign collisions Okay, and three blind minds. So, you know, but no US Navy ships that were camouflage was sunk in that period. Okay, now we're going, Oh, that seems to work again. Yeah. But there are of course suggesting that saying, well, they're sailing in different areas, they're not in the same places, the Ponte boats, etc. So not really clear. Also, the dazzle ships were larger than the camouflage ships. So that can make an effect or a difference.
Will 45:27
This is ridiculous that they're not doing a proper scientific investigation. Like they really should have got identical ships, and Salem in identical waters and make sure to you minimise the variables. Yeah, exactly. In fact, probably, you probably step out of the war a little bit and just say, hey, Germany, you drive some u boats just here. And check if you can see us like, this doesn't count. This doesn't count
Rod 45:46
Pretend it's Christmas on the Western Front Row being cool. We're playing soccer. Exactly.
Will 45:50
You find some dummy torpedoes at us. And we'll work out which one works better. And you can do some science as well. If you like,
Rod 45:56
Whatever, you look like, dazzle to Let's have a competition. At the end of the war, we see who's more Desley there are a number so 5000 tonnes, ships 38% went down compared to 13% of the camouflage ships. So again, we're getting different numbers. It's not easy to compare. But of course, there's a bunch of anecdotes and stuff, observations, caveats, anecdotes. So one source is about the pommy figures before camouflaged as always put on the boats. Germans got about 50 boats a week, different kinds of boats, not just warships. Afterwards, they reckon the average is about 10 That's a big jump death was also so effective that at times led to ships crashing into each other. And my friend was a testimony of a U boat captain. He says it was not until she was within half a mile that I could make out that she was one ship not several steering a course at right angles so he thought it might have been a bunch of ships going in different directions crossing from starboard to port so he's really confused by it. Yeah, like what the fuck there's so many photos in the sources there's one that made a boat look like was like three boats end to end just because it was all weirdly striped. That's not that one. That's just said look, the dark painted stripes on her after party made her stern appear her bail. And a broad cut of green paint and midships made it look like a patch of water. And this was in good weather bright. And he goes on to say was the best camouflage he's ever seen.
Will 47:20
Yeah, all right, fair enough.
Rod 47:21
So that's from the U boat.
Will 47:23
Is there some sort of effect where the boats have to go in closer to these boats so they're more likely to get a better shot? That's because they're you know, it changes how they behave.
Rod 47:32
Yeah, because they're looking at it going I don't know the further out obviously you got less to work with and then when you mess it up as well you'll I don't quite know what I'm looking at. According to this Roy Barron's fell again who writes the camera pedia and is quite an expert in this stuff he's written a few books he goes on to say look, it's difficult to retroactively determine whether desert was a truly success and he notes I don't think will ever be clear which is great. But also what wasn't clear was who should be credited with dazzle camouflage. Well, there's obviously those guys who've got a got nasty really after the fact he got they got they got catty So should it be cuts the original guy who said it should it be fair and his buddy brush with invisible plane because they talked about the stuff they said razzle dazzle release cuts did? Should it be Mackey or Mackay he put block patents on ships seems like a pretty good contender. The biggest one was John Kerr who pushed for the disruptive patenting, etc. And said it would make rangefinding difficult. So there are a lot of contenders. And after World War One, there was a little bit of argie bargie, really come on there. So we're concerned applies for credit for this to the Royal Commission on awards to inventors. He was challenged by a bunch of other people, but particularly by Kirk who went This is outrageous. By November 1918. The battle was really heating up between Wilkinson and Kurt, they were getting really grouchy. So Kurt argued he introduced to the Admiralty in 1914. And he said, so you should be listening to me. Finally, 1919 the end of 1919 a committee was formed, of course, to determine who gets the credit. Yeah, who gets the credit? Oh my god, it took a year. So they asked things like this, what are they gonna get for it? This money, okay, at the end this money. Alright. So Kurt was asked whether he thought Wilkinson had benefited from anything that Kurt had written. And his response was, look, I make no claim to invented the principle of party colouring party with an eye. The principle was, of course invented in nature. So that's not an answer. Yeah, you can't claim this. God did it and shit. He also agreed that he had not suggested anywhere in his letters that the system he created an illusion as to the course of the vessel that was painted. So I never said it would make it looks like it's going. Alright, so what are you talking about? In 1920? So a year later the Admiralty said not It's not UK, it's Wilkinson. Two years after that Wilkinson was awarded 2000 pounds to score you're the inventor 1920 to 2000 pounds about 40 billion euro That's not so clear apparently never gave up, got the sheets. He was basically grumpy with Wilkinson forever. And a day afterwards, they just sniped that. I invented dazzle ships, you got to do so. But anyway, that kind of blew over because people stopped giving a shit. ships had to get painted really regularly because you know, maintenance and the dazzling kind of just.
Will 50:23
That was kind of hard to do?
Rod 50:24
Yeah, I think they just started especially if you're between wars. Yeah. So going back to grey. So there was a little bit of dazzling in World War Two but kind of wore off. Yeah, it seems pretty white. They're not many modern ships is one American ship that's kind of dazzle painted, but there's very few, which surprises me. Modern tech maybe doesn't matter. So Wilkinson. Finally he went on to organise the celebrated commissioning of poster designs for members of the Royal Academy of the London Midland and Scottish Railway Company, very famous. So as through the posters that he became most well known artist, et cetera, et cetera. He was president of the Royal Institute of Painters in Watercolours, and was also a member of the Royal Institute of oil painters. Not President though. No, just a member
Will 51:07
Why join both? Aren't they rivals.
Rod 51:09
He fucking walks with
Will 51:11
Jesus side watercolours. Little little watercolour watercolours. What are you afraid
Rod 51:14
you get oil on your pants and you can't clean it like Yeah,
Will 51:17
Watercolours are nice.
Rod 51:18
I like them both. I'm imagining the war. But was it some oil, he was elected honourable marine painter to the royal yacht squadron. Oh, nice. knighted 1948. And then a CBE, which is, I don't know, bigger knight. And the interesting thing that last picture I showed you, he painted this picture called the approach to Plymouth harbour for the smoking room on the on the Titanic. Okay, and it went down with the ship. But that's a mock up of that. So that was one of his famous things got stuck with the Titanic. It's very sad. And apparently, he lived a prolific and long life adventurous and active until he died in 1971. I think he was in his 90s Like he honked along for a long time. So become an artist, camouflage boats. And I mentioned that main source by Emily James. And there are a few other sources in our show notes, but many of them come from the the camopedia website.
Will 52:07
You mentioned jazz. I came to the story once I was like, Oh, that's awesome. I love this concept. And it was talking about it came from the other side. It was like where black and white patterns and dazzling emerged in jazz and you can see it like Beetlejuice, the movie, you know, the 80s movie where he's like, remember? Yeah, he's all black and white. And they were drawing a cultural history going back from these kinds of things that are different. Definitely a bunch of people in the jazz era, wearing really high contrast black and white stripes, sort of things on their suits and things. Yeah, zoot suits and things like that. And saying they came from this era of painting ships. I was like, Oh, I came from the other end of the ships that they painted like that.
Rod 52:52
They look crazy. Like that one's a good example. That one I showed you will post those pictures, but the one that was much worse wouldn't have reproduced well, it literally looks like this really long boat, it looks like the boats got because Taiwan or something? Yeah. Because it's got all these little sort of contrasting different written lines on it.
Will 53:07
It just looks fascinating to just think that's a great way of approaching the world as both of military technology but also, I can absolutely understand people in the jazz era going that looks wild. I'm gonna wear that.
Rod 53:17
Yeah I agree, I love the crazy.
