SUMMARY OF MIDDLE EAST

CAMOUFLAGE

Indroduction

In November 1942 Geoffrey Barkas, head of Middle East camouflage, published a technical report describing the introduction of a new disruptive paint scheme, which has since become widely known as the “El Alamein” scheme. In addition to describing his new paint scheme, Geoffrey reviewed camouflage painting in the Middle East prior to its introduction. The following section is a summary of the review given by Geoffrey, backed up where necessary by the relevant official orders. The complete report is available from The Tank Museum, Bovington or from the National Archives, United Kingdom as the document W0 201/2846.

1940-December 1941

In order to understand Middle East camouflage policy it is first necessary to recognize that in 1939 the Middle East was organized into three separate commands. These were:

• British Troops Egypt (B.T.E.)
• Troops in the Sudan
• British Forces Palestine & Transjordan (P&TJ)

Geoffrey refers to the British Troops Egypt command simply as the Western Desert command.

Due to the different terrain of each region, each command adopted its own set of camouflage colours. Geoffrey describes these colours, which are applicable from at least mid-1940 onwards, as:

“In January of 1941 a number of quite distinct schemes for painting vehicles were in force. There was a beige and red-brown scheme for the Sudan; a slate grey, silver grey and birch scheme for Western Desert, and another scheme for Palestine.”

The British Standard Colours (BSC) corresponding to the colours described by Geoffrey are given in General Order 63 of February 1941. (General Order 63 is a repeat of General Order 297 of November 1940). These colours are: light stone (BSC 61) and light purple brown (BSC 49) for the Sudan; slate grey (BSC 34), silver grey (BSC 28) and portland stone (BSC 64) for the Western Desert. We also know from an order issued on the 14th August 1941 by the commander of Palestine, Brigadier Shaw, that the colours for Palestine were in fact light stone and dark green.  Copies of both General Order 63 and Brigadier Shaw’s letter are available from the Australian War Memorial (AWM) archives. The three Middle East camouflage schemes using the BSC nomenclature are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 Camouflage Colours, 1940-December 1941.

Of these three camouflage schemes, the Western Desert scheme is by far the best known. In fact historians have since coined their own term “Caunter” scheme to describe it. Unfortunately the presence of vehicles in the Western Desert painted in the camouflage schemes for other commands, has led to the popular misconception that the Western Desert scheme, i.e. Caunter scheme, was dropped in early 1941. This is incorrect and in fact it continued in use throughout the whole of 1941 before being cancelled in December 1941 by General Order 1272. The reason cited by Geoffrey for canceling the Western Desert scheme was that its use of different basic colours was proving to be impracticable when vehicles were transferred between commands.

December 1941 – October 1942

From December 1941, General Order 1272 came into effect. The first three paragraphs of General Order 1272 state:

1.    In future, all vehicles, A.F.Vs., and Artillery equipment in the Middle East will be painted with a common basic colour. This will be either LIGHT STONE (British Standard Colour No. 61 – M.E. Standard Colour No. 23) or PORTLAND STONE (British Standard Colour No. 64 – M.E. Standard Colour No. 11), according to supplies available.

2.    One contrasting colour may be selected by Comdrs. to complete the camouflage scheme.

3.    Comdrs. will state what colour, if any, they wish to use in addition to the basic colour, so that a definite scale may be laid down.

Note the abbreviation “Comdrs”, which stands for commanders. Furthermore it is important to point out that the term “Comdrs” was intended to refer to those in charge of the Western Desert, Sudan and Palestine commands and not individual sub-formations and units as is often mistakenly believed.

Although General Order 1272 cancelled the two colour disruptive pattern for the Western Desert command (i.e. the Caunter scheme), it still allowed the Western Desert, Palestine and Sudan commands to apply a single disruptive colour if desired. It also requested input from commanders on their choice of colours. The colours actually chosen by the Western Desert and Palestine commands can be deduced from the Australian order, Mechanization Instruction 80, issued in January 1942. This instruction did not mention the Sudan so that it is not yet known whether the Sudan command continued to apply a disruptive pattern or not.

Mechanization Instruction 80, which is available from the National Archives of Australia in Melbourne, stated that no disruptive pattern was to be applied to vehicles in Egypt, i.e. in the Western Desert command. This is backed up by photographic evidence from early 1942 onwards, which shows the majority of vehicles in the Western Desert without any disruptive pattern. From the same Mechanization Instruction, the Palestine command was also without a disruptive pattern except for those vehicles stationed in Syria, which continued to use dark green as the disruptive colour.

The reason for not continuing to use a disruptive pattern in the Western Desert was most likely due to the difficulty in maintaining an effective contrast of colours in the desert because of the dust. In fact in Geofrey’s words:

“From experience in Western Desert there were arguments against any form disruption. Patterns, it was considered, would be wholly or partly obscured in dust within a few minutes of movement.”

Although the intention was that vehicles in the Western Desert command were not to have any disruptive pattern, from about March 1942 onwards some sub-formations of the Western Desert command began to apply a pattern anyway of their own design. A good example is the 22nd Armoured Brigade, which adopted a dazzle type of disruptive pattern that seems to have been inspired by the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Ajax. Geoffrey describes the situation as:

“At the time of the British withdrawal from Gazala in the early summer of 1942, however, this authority for commands to apply their own disruptive pattern had somehow spread into a state of affairs where sub-formations down to Brigades were designing and applying their own private patterns to their equipment and vehicles.

This was of course, most prejudicial to security. … . Its effect was to provide the enemy with a useful additional means of identifying units and piecing together our Order of Battle and the movements of Units and Formations.”

This was cited as the main reason by Geoffrey for the introduction of General Order 1650 in October 1942, just prior to the El-Alamein battle, which enforced his disruptive paint scheme for the whole of the Middle East region.