by Mary Horlock
Of course, such ingenious distractions were nothing if the true build-up of troops wasn’t kept under cover, and all the time this was going on in the west and south-west of England, with camps and tanks dispersed in wooded areas or under static covers, tracks and tents constantly darkened, and smokeless cookers recommended. (So conscious was Major Seago about the need to conceal the build-up of troops in Southern Command that he even vetoed the playing of football matches.)
A real fuel pipeline with pumping stations was also going to be needed, something steel wool proved key to hiding. Pluto (‘Pipeline Under The Ocean’) was intended to ensure a supply of petroleum as soon after D-Day as possible. This took the form of a complex system of pipes and terminals, with pumping stations at Dungeness in Kent (codenamed ‘Dumbo’) and Shanklin and Sandown on the Isle of Wight (codenamed ‘Bambi’). One pipeline ran from the Isle of Wight to Cherbourg, the other from Dungeness to Boulogne.
Ashley Havinden, a camouflage adviser for Southern Command, was placed in charge of ‘Bambi’, and later ‘Dumbo’. A protégé of the sculptor Henry Moore, Havinden was a hugely successful art director at the advertising agency W. S. Crawford. Once recruited into camouflage he had paid close attention to the deceptions at Tobruk and applied its many lessons to his new project. Hiding sites of this scale was no simple task – ‘Dumbo’ alone consisted of thirty storage tanks thirty feet long served by thirty diesel pumps – and Havinden not only had to camouflage the huge concrete tanks, but also the pipelines and any evidence of the works in progress. Large-scale netting covers were first installed to allow men to work underneath – which were later replaced by steel wool covers. Another solution was to retain the exterior of abandoned holiday homes and garages but transform their interiors completely.
‘Captain Ashley Havinden and his camouflage officers did an outstanding job here. Behind the unchanged smiling façades of “Mon Repos”, “Happy-Go-Lucky”, “Sea Breezes”, “Sans Souci” and a host of others were massive pumps and engines, and the owners would indeed have been surprised had they been able to walk into their erstwhile carefree resorts.’5 Extending the pipeline down to the coast, steel wool came into its own, creating a seamless cover over which shingle could be piled.
Eugene Mollo was drafted in to work with Havinden on the Isle of Wight, responding to a need for static covers. Steel wool covered parts of the cross-Solent pipe (‘Solo’) that ran from Thorness on one side of the Isle of Wight, through the Pankhurst Forest to a 62,000-gallon reservoir tank that sat on high ground by Shanklin. The bomb-scarred appearance of Shanklin’s seafront was then adapted: ‘Amongst these ruins we built our pump-houses and laid our lines, simulating on a new elevation twelve feet higher up the debris and wrecked dwelling rooms . . . and hiding our mechanisms beneath this false floor.’6
At Sandown, a little north of Shanklin, a partly demolished granite fort hid pumping machinery. The mound of the fort was partially excavated to accommodate the pumps and a switch house was covered in painted steel wool.
Camouflage discipline was also crucial. Men worked under steel-wool covers, which could be painted any colour to blend with the setting and season, but even if work went on under cover and at night, any sign of activity – tracks, tyre marks, moved shingle – had to be carefully restored by first light. Fortnightly inspections by RAF aerial photographers made sure there was no visible irregularity that might give German Intelligence pause for thought. Men of the Pioneer Corps recalled: ‘Camouflage to us pioneers was a source of great annoyance, arguments, cursing and extra work, but as the days passed, and after the attempted bombings of Jerry had failed at both sites, we fully realised the importance of first-class camouflage.’7
In August 1943 a memorandum stated that the manufacture of steel wool would cease. All camouflage officers were ordered to take care that ‘existing stocks are only used on work of high priority’.8 Havinden marked it with an ‘X’.
Early in 1944 he called together Lieutenant Mollo, Captain Dalgliesh and Peregrine Churchill to discuss the overhead covers for Pluto’s bulk storage tanks (so all men who had had a close association with Joe, if not Joe himself). Air reconnaissance reports revealed that covers of green steel wool and natural coir merged well into surrounding grass and shingle. It was noted the steel wool should be added to, since it was better than coir, which produced shine. It was also recommended that the flatness of steel wool could be broken up with false clumps of scrub, composed of green steel wool attached to built-up clumps of Dannert wire.
Michael Farrar Bell, fresh back from Northern Ireland, joined the newly created 21st Army Group, which controlled all ground forces in Overlord. He was initially attached to No. 1 Oil Construction Group in the Isle of Wight. ‘My work was to develop a large cover two acres in area, under which the construction of petrol storage tanks had to proceed unseen by enemy air observation.’9 He credited Joe as his adviser, and Camouflage and Air Defence a treasured resource. Unsurprisingly, Farrar Bell made use of steel wool for these covers, and ‘within three weeks of the D-Day landing I had erected seventeen more covers at Port en Bessin and subsequently put up over a hundred of them in France, Belgium, and Holland’.10
Joe’s precious material had really come into its own, and there was a legitimate fear that there would be insufficient stocks. A War Office notice ordered that all remaining supplies were reserved for Overlord, and the minute the underwater pipeline emerged in Cherbourg it was cloaked in steel wool, with brush and salvaged German material laid over the top.
But if Joe’s material was everywhere in evidence, where then was Joe? He was now spending long hours in the office, writing reports and attending meetings, and advising on the ‘winding down’ of the camouflage schemes he had once started in earnest. Mary had found them a little house in Marlow, and he was eager to get back there every night. Younger officers were attached to the 21st Army Group Camouflage Service and from December 1943 began to leave England to report for camouflage duties on the beaches of Normandy. Joe wasn’t considered fit enough for such a role, and for once he didn’t mind. He dispensed notes (‘little masterpieces’) to those who were going, offering advice about the use of multiple decoys and dummy positions, or having several different plans ‘ready-made’ for different phases of the operation.
There were five beach areas – Utah, Omaha, Juno, Gold and Sword – and a staff captain was assigned early on to each so they could become accustomed to the terrain. The camouflage officers who had learned on the job were now able to hit the ground running, and this was as well since they faced a huge task – concealing stores, equipment and, of course, men.
Operation Neptune, launched on the night of 5 June 1944, saw thousands of troops, weapons and equipment set sail for Normandy flanked by a vast squadron of fighter planes and destroyers. As part of the deception plan Lancaster bombers flew in a ship’s convoy formation north of the armada to drop ‘chaff’ (strips of aluminium foil) that would create an echo in enemy receivers and imply that there was a large flotilla heading for the Pas de Calais. Balloons and radar reflectors operated by the Navy also helped the illusion to succeed. With enemy air and sea forces sent to interrupt an imaginary fleet, the real force was left free from attack. So began the fabled Normandy landings.
Surprise was achieved but there was still much fighting to be done. Back from the desert, Steven Sykes was attached to No. 5 Group at Sword Beach and set to work concealing stores against German shelling. As Allied troops advanced he began making sniper hoods and painting yards of hessian for screening, in what seemed like a throwback to the last war. Basil Spence, now responsible for Sword Beach, employed various camouflage tactics including smoke screens. All officers stressed the importance of keeping up camouflage discipline.
The Normandy campaign was the first in which large numbers of troops wore camouflage uniforms. Up until then this had mostly been reserved for the elite troops. In Britain paratroopers were given the Denison smock (a disruptive leaf-like patterned outfit), whils
t the US Army favoured a dappled green design with a darker variation on the reverse. This had started being produced and distributed to GIs in 1942. Germany was the most prolific developer and user of camouflage uniforms, however, with both the Army and the Waffen-SS being issued with various designs. The trouble was, all camouflage uniforms shared certain characteristics and it proved hard to distinguish between Allied and enemy units. After many outbreaks of ‘friendly fire’, soldiers on both sides didn’t see them as quite such a protective coating.
D-Day marked both an end and a beginning. Some of the Farnham camoufleurs felt nostalgic already. ‘I am sorry in some ways that I can no longer count myself amongst the exclusive band of happy and ubiquitous camoufleurs!’ wrote Havinden, when his project had reached completion.11 But in Normandy, the fighting was drawn out. Spence was horrified to watch British tanks destroy two beautiful churches at Ouistreham and Hermanville. In his dugout that night, when he was asked about his ambitions after the war, Spence expressed a desire to build a cathedral. He would later design and build the new cathedral in Coventry, linking it to the bombed-out ruins of the old one. Two former comrades – John Hutton and Steven Sykes – would contribute different aspects to the interior design. Camouflage had brought together artists, designers and architects, and in years to come they wouldn’t be easily parted. Many would collaborate on exhibitions like Britain Can Make It in 1946 and the Festival of Britain in 1951, and they positively colonised departments of the Royal College of Art.
Everyone was making plans for a future they now felt they deserved, although Eugene Mollo felt it bordered on an obsession. He was ultimately relieved to spend less time with the ‘rarefied’ group at Farnham. ‘His main complaint about them,’ reported his son, ‘was that they spent too much time planning what they were going to do after the war.’
And what was that? I asked.
‘Oh,’ he replied. ‘To set up something called the “Arts Council”.’12
Notes
CAB = Cabinet Papers
CD, TC, CDTC = Camouglage Development and Training Centre
HO= Home Office
IWM = Imperial War Museum
PREM = Prime Minister’s Office Records
TNA = The National Archives
WO = War Office
Jack Sayer, ‘The Camouflage Game’, refers to his unpublished, hand-written memoir, courtesy of Gillian Ward.
To avoid repetition, the majority of quotes from Joseph’s letters to Mary are not noted. Unless stated otherwise, they form part of the Barclay family archive. Similarly, images reproduced form part of this archive, except where credited otherwise.
1 Adrian Searle, PLUTO: Pipe-line Under the Ocean, Shanklin Chine, 1995, p. 41
2 Rankin, Churchill’s Wizards, p. 394
3 Camouflage Report – Overlord, TNA WO199/1314
4 Lt. Col. White, quoted in Juliet Gardiner, D-Day: Those Who Were There, Collins & Brown, London, 1994, pp. 75–6
5 Sir Donald Banks, Flame Over Britain – A Personal Narrative of Petroleum Warfare, Sampson Low, Marston & Co. Ltd, London, 1946, p. 187
6 Ibid., p. 183
7 R. Parker and B. Scothen quoted in Searle, PLUTO, p. 48
8 C.D. & T.C. memo, 27 August 1943, IWM Archive Havinden Documents.7762
9 M. Farrar Bell in a letter, 1 December 1947, Barclay Archive
10 Ibid.
11 A. Havinden in an undated letter to R. Buckley, IWM Archive Havinden Documents.7762
12 John Mollo in a letter to the author, 30 June 2010
is for Extras, there will always be some, But think economically to get the job done
Joe and Mary, finally married, settled down to life in Marlow. They rented out the larger part of their new home, leaving themselves a small annexe with a studio. Joe commuted into London and on the nights when he worked late or had appointments he stayed at the Constitutional Club, ‘a very Colonel Blimp sort of place’ that Dalgliesh had got him to join. He wrote long letters home. It was just like before, only now he had somewhere to return to, a secure place in the world. He was still pinching himself to be sure.
Tuesday, Oct ’44
My dear P.F.
It is now 11.30pm – which doesn’t mean I have just come in! I have spent about two hours writing to old M . . . I think I know exactly what he wants and I am sure Jagger – whose paintings I dislike – will be able to give him exactly what he wants.
Before the war Joe had wanted to make his name as a portrait painter, but now he was passing over work, directing commissions to the prolific portraitist David Jagger instead. It seemed rather odd. ‘I dare not do it!’ he told Mary. ‘The results would be ultimately disastrous.’ He was too long out of practice.
But if he wasn’t going to take commissions, how would they live?
Of course, Joe had a plan. Joe always had a plan.
Owing to various misunderstandings I didn’t meet Cecil until late. He was slightly tight. He refused to discuss such sordid things as pounds but was wide awake on facts and business. His attitude was: “We owe everything to you, as long as we have any money – just say what you want.” So I said: “What about £25 to start with?” and it was immediately handed over. I believe Cecil is perfectly sincere, ie: that everything he has got is at our disposal.
But what about if he loses everything?!!
Cecil Schofield was not the best man to pin one’s hopes to. The longed-for and talked-about future had arrived. This was real life, not some fantasy. Joe had to get back to painting and yet he faltered. His easels and paintbrushes were waiting, a studio was ready. He was scared.
Before the war he had had such big ambitions for his painting, and all of them had come to nothing. How many times had he tried and failed to sell a picture, or gone begging to his bank manager? Those memories hadn’t gone away. He had no ‘good old days’ to return to. Camouflage had become much more than a stop-gap, and now it wasn’t needed. Did that mean he wasn’t needed? He wasn’t sure how to cope. Yes, he was once the man who could catch a perfect likeness, but he had spent the last five years doing the opposite. It was a world of twists and turns, and he couldn’t keep up.
Everyone at the Board had a job to go back to, and the army men like Wyatt were happy to retire. Joe fell somewhere inbetween. Wyatt encouraged him to apply for an award for steel wool. It was, after all, his invention.
‘What is safe and appears to be is the fact that I will get £500 or £600 gratuity when the War finishes. Secondly, I should get some thousands from the steel wool award.’
There was plenty of proof it had been widely used and to great effect. Joe wasn’t greedy, but it was nice to think that he’d get something back. Joseph Gray: war artist, etcher, portrait painter, camouflage officer, inventor.
It had a nice ring to it.
Schofield was already busy on other schemes. A man with an eye for opportunities, he and Peregrine were already developing new projects, inluding a design for liquid-soap dispensers. Steel wool was consigned to history as far as he was concerned. But not for Joe. Camouflage was the world he knew, a world of shadow and greyscale, full of rich textures. The art world, by contrast, looked hard and impenetrable. He wasn’t sure of his audience, what they wanted and whether he could deliver it. It was all slightly terrifying.
So Joe had another idea. He was going to publish Camouflage and Air Defence with an updated introduction, explaining about steel wool and its part in the war effort. ‘The idea now is that the book shall be published as a classical work under my name – M&E not mentioned at all – or if mentioned only indirectly.’ How about that? Joseph Gray: war artist, etcher, painter, camouflage officer, inventor and author.
Except his publishers’ enthusiasm was short-lived. There were animated discussions, first impressions looked good, but the finished manuscript was judged overly technical and too specialist for a wide readership. Joe’s theories and ideas were interesting, but there was some uncertainty over whether the moment had passed.
&nbs
p; How quickly Joe Gray had gone out of fashion all over again.
He had finally married the woman he loved, but he was not allowed to settle. It was rather like being up in a plane again, looking down on the world, seeing endless possibilities but all of them out of reach. His colleagues were encouraging him in various directions. ‘Your etchings are superb,’ they told him. ‘Your draughtsmanship first-class.’ He was very good at listening to other people’s advice; he’d smile and nod wisely like the Grumble they all knew. Sayer sketched him time and again as a sleepy-eyed owl, but Joe only ever drew himself as a stout and scruffy colonel. It was unanimously agreed that his cartoons were the best. ‘Joe would seize upon some small incident or remark that had amused him and grabbing a piece of scrap paper would produce a side-splitting and outrageous drawing in about three minutes. His favourite target was Dalgliesh, always shown with a wildly waving empty sleeve and an exaggeratedly red nose.’1
Could that even be made into a profession?
I went in with my air reports and found [Wyatt] chuckling over Dalgliesh’s scrapbook of my drawings. He said – ‘What are you going to do after the War, Gray?’ I said – ‘I thought I would finish the War first, Sir, and then think about it!’ He said ‘My dear boy you are quite obviously a tremendous draughtsman and certainly the greatest humorous draughtsman in the country – nobody can touch you. Your style is absolutely unique – and people understand that sort of drawing nowadays.’ Very ’ot. That’s what Beddington always said.
