On December 2, 1918, the ocean liner RMS Mauretania pulled into New York Harbor carrying American aviators and other troops returning from Europe after serving in World War One.

Apart from the joyful troops returning home at long last, you may notice something a little unusual about the ship. It has a rather interesting paint job known as dazzle camouflage.

LOC

I had to investigate dazzle camouflage, which was an idea that was put forward by the British marine artist Norman Wilkinson and later adopted by the U.S. Navy. According to Wikipedia, dazzle camouflage is a family of ship camouflage that was used extensively during the Great War, and sometimes afterwards. It consisted of complex patterns of geometric shapes in contrasting colors interrupting and intersecting each other. The intent of dazzle camouflage was not to conceal the ship but to make it harder for enemies to estimate a target’s range, speed, and heading.  Each ship had a unique dazzle pattern to avoid making ships recognizable to the enemy.

I was intrigued by the figure in white up front. At first I imaged it was a nun, but I blew up the photo and it seems to be a soldier though I couldn’t tell much more about him.

A row of ladies were waiting on Cunard Pier to shake hands with the returning soldiers.