So, the German painter has deceived and saved the British ships



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SOURCE: Tunisia – Taha Abdel Nasser Ramadan

During the First World War, the German submarine empire, known as the U-boat, terrorized the Atlantic Ocean, where these German seascapes disappeared under water before continuing on and off. target British merchant ships across the ocean with the help of their turbines. Throughout the First World War, German U-Boat submarines destroyed some 5,700 ships, killing at least 12,700 non-military casualties across the ocean.

A photo of a German submarine in World War I
Photo of a British ship after being the target of a German torpedo

In 1917, German Emperor Wilhelm II ordered an intensive campaign to target all ships sailing in the Atlantic. This military operation was a major success as civilian ships, freighters and hospitals were turned into easy targets for the German submarine due to its inability to hide in the ocean in the face of changing colors. the sea and sky and the huge amount of smoke emanating from the chimneys of these ships.

A fantasy illustrating the targeting of a transatlantic cargo ship during the First World War
Portrait of the German Emperor Wilhelm II

To counter the threat of the submarines of the Atlantic, the British painter and graphic designer Norman Wilkinson had the brilliant idea to adopt a sleight of hand to deceive the Germans and prevent them from determining their target.

Photo of the colorful british ship Mauritania during the First World War
A portrait of Norman Wilkinson in 1943

Instead of hiding the entire ship and adopting camouflage, Wilkinson preferred to hide the position and direction of the ship on the basis of colorful geometric patterns. He painted the hull with abstract lines and geometric shapes of contrasting colors, reminiscent of the cubist school of which Pablo Picasso and George Brack were considered the main astronauts, which made it difficult for periscope users on board German seamen. Due to the twisted lines, shapes and unusual colors, they had difficulty in determining the shape, size, location and direction of British ships and were unable to target them with pests.

Image of one of the ships painted by the British during the First World War

To ensure the effectiveness of his idea, Norman Wilkinson designed small ship designs with forms and lines of camouflage and observed them with a periscope, without specifying their location or size.

Thanks to Norman Wilkinson, the dazzling painting method has emerged, contributing to the creation of an optical illusion and saving thousands of ships. During an experiment, the British king George V was impressed in this way, the latter could not determine the direction of a ship after examining it by an underwater periscope.

Portrait of King George V

In May 1917, the British led the first experiments on these colored ships. The Industy HMS undertook a brief tour of the Atlantic Ocean before returning to the intact British ports to embark on the Royal Navy and later adopted this method to create an optical illusion to deal with submarines. German. According to some reports, the number of British ships painted in this way was 2,500 at the end of the First World War.

During the Second World War, this method reappeared when Americans painted the surface of a number of their ships to create a visual illusion and baffle Japanese pilots in the Pacific.

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