Unusual camouflage at Crewe works?
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Unusual camouflage at Crewe works?
At West Street in Crewe, the old LNWR works ends in a very long, high brick wall. During the war, this was camouflaged in an unusual way: It was disguised as streets and houses, that is, pictures of houses were painted onto the wall. If you drive past it now, it just looks like ordinary camouflage, because it’s so faded.
The disguise appeared to work because despite being a prime target, as far as I know, the Luftwaffe never hit the works. The Rolls-Royce factory over the road was not so lucky.
Was this method of camouflage unique? Does anyone know of any pictures of this, either at Crewe or anywhere else?
The disguise appeared to work because despite being a prime target, as far as I know, the Luftwaffe never hit the works. The Rolls-Royce factory over the road was not so lucky.
Was this method of camouflage unique? Does anyone know of any pictures of this, either at Crewe or anywhere else?
This was a fairly common method of camouflage where the potential target was close to an urban area. The hangars at Squires Gate and Northolt were examples and photos exist.
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During WW.II, the Lockheed factory at Burbank, California was covered and made to look like a rural subdivision from the air. Boeing's plants in Seattle, Washington, were covered in a similar way.
World War II-Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant Camouflage
World War II-Lockheed Burbank Aircraft Plant Camouflage
Most WW2 bombing took place at night when camoflage would be pretty ineffective. It was better concealing things from high altitude photo-surveillance. Furthermore the accuracy of bombs dropped from aircraft of the time was not sufficiently accurate to favour one side of an individual road over another. Finally, the longstanding LNWR locomotive works (actually wartime engineering works, i believe the foundry there actually made bomb shells) was well known from before the war; I am sure the German Embassy in early 1939 built up full stocks of Ordnance Survey maps.
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Here's some pics of the works from West St.
Apologies for the quality they were took on my phone.
Here's a pic I took from 2000 feet. I'm not sure how much could be seen from a German bomber in the dark !
Apologies for the quality they were took on my phone.
Here's a pic I took from 2000 feet. I'm not sure how much could be seen from a German bomber in the dark !
