Masquerade

To a cozy office in St. Martin's Lane, London, once saucy Nell Gwynn's bedroom, trooped sober-faced British corporation executives last week. Anxious to comply with the forthcoming Civil Defense Bill, which will require camouflage for factories and public utility works, they came to consult Mr. Frederic Stafford, art director of Stoll Theatres Corp., Ltd. Mr. Stafford heads a group of noted stage designers whose new business is to fool enemy bombers into thinking that a power plant is a church, or an airfield a picturesque village.

Two years ago Designer Stafford tried to interest the Defense Ministry in civilian camouflage but met indifference. Later, the Government perked up its ears. Since September Mr. Stafford and his artists have busied themselves developing techniques for "painting out" vulnerable buildings. Their first step is to obtain aerial photographs of all aspects of a building and to study the surrounding countryside. Then the expert camouflagers build and camouflage a scale model before the actual building is tackled.

A specially developed sand paint prevents reflection of sunlight from windows (which would catch the eye of an enemy aviator), but permits light to pass through them. The paint jobs are executed by C. & T. Painters, Ltd., who have circulated a handsome brochure with "before and after" color photographs. The price: around 18-c- per square yard of masquerade (but the British Government foots half the bill).

Early inquirers of the Stafford camouflaging method were executives of Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. Biggest recent job is the great Short Bros. aircraft works, 30 miles east of London, where Imperial Airways flying boats are built. London's $25,000,000 drainage plant will soon look like a village of criss-crossed highways, farm buildings, fields and forests. Easiest to camouflage, says Mr. Stafford, is a flat-roofed building in wooded countryside, over which a continuation of the woods may be painted; hardest is a tall building by a river, especially one with a big smokestack. Impossible to make look like something else are the Gothic-towered Houses of Parliament.

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