The Camoufleurs

The U.S. entered upon World War II with many a war plant that needed careful defense. Among the most vulnerable were the flimsily protected airplane plants along the eastern and western coasts. They were unexpendable and immovable; their nakedness demanded some sort of wrapping. So the Corps of Engineers put to work a motley legion of industrial designers, billboard painters, crack Hollywood illusionists and serious artists.

By last week workmen were yanking the wire trees and make-believe houses off many camouflaged war plants. The makeup job had been costly: full-blown protective concealment of 37 vital plants had cost $22,319,274. Other money went for simpler tone-down work or "disruptive painting" at smaller plants, antiaircraft posts, airfields. In the heat of its enthusiasm for plenty of camouflage, the Corps of Engineers gave out contracts for disguising fields hundreds of miles inland.

Double Trouble. Famed Industrial Designer Raymond Loewy (ink bottles, Studebakers, etc.) turned camoufleur to plan the $2 million "passive protection" of Baltimore's Glenn Martin bomber factory.

Warner Bros. technicians had to protect the big Douglas plant at Santa Monica against twin risks. Within easy periscope sight from the Pacific, it was vulnerable to shells as well as bombs. Forehanded Douglas architects had their camouflage plan ready before Pearl Harbor. The moviemen made miniatures, photographed them from simulated bombing altitudes. Building a dummy airport, phony plant and fake residential subdivision (complete with washing on the clothes lines) took 2 1/2 years, $2 1/2 million. It was duplicated on the plant when war came.

Masking the Consolidated plant at San Diego called for great nets draped over the Pacific Highway.

At Seattle the task was difficult. Boeing's Flying Fortress plant was sandwiched between busy Boeing Field and a natural landmark, the Duwamish River. Camoufleurs hid the field so trickily that veteran pilots had to ask the way in. Atop the Boeing plant went a 26-acre village made of chicken wire, canvas, lumber, painted chicken feathers. The town had 53 houses, stores, a gas station. Some of its streets crossed the field, went up Beacon Hill. The camoufleurs skipped the river.

But landmarks like the Duwamish and San Diego's harbor outline were perfect reference points for a bombing run. They canceled out much of the safety gained by all the elaborate concealment. What was left, the engineers hoped, was enough to confuse a bombardier for a few critical seconds, spoil his aim. If it had done that, camouflage would have been cheap at any price.

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