Joseph Gray's Camouflage

by Mary Horlock

  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  Jack Sayer, ‘The Camouflage Game’, refers to his unpublished, hand-written memoir, courtesy of Gillian Ward.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 About 600 went to Basingstoke from Dieppe, according to Larry Heide, The Mennonite Saga: With Medics in World War II, ebook, 2014.

  2 The Times, 1 February 1939, p. 19

  3 J. Gray, draft lecture notes, Barclay Archive

  is the Use you make of dummies So the enemy can never trust what he sees

  By July 1942 Rommel’s men had been brought to a standstill in the desert, but the Allied Forces of the Eighth Army were in disarray and their position perilously weak. Auchinleck had kept the Axis at bay but the prime minister, obsessed with a further offensive and frustrated that it hadn’t yet happened, replaced him with General Harold Alexander.

  Alexander had commanded the vital rearguard during the retreat from Dunkirk before succeeding Auchinleck at Southern Command, where he too had been close to Edward Seago, with the two enjoying painting trips together. Unsurprisingly, Seago concluded that all generals were ‘frustrated artists’ at heart.1 If regular soldiers remained sceptical about camouflage, the higher ranks were becoming more receptive. General Bernard Montgomery took control of the Eighth Army under Alexander, and although he professed no artistic ability, he had cultivated his own image expertly. ‘Monty’ well appreciated the need ‘to mystify the enemy’2 and brought in Geoffrey Barkas early on.

  ‘They told me about concentration areas and enough about scale, about periods involved, about axis tracks, about the main cover plan . . . I was asked what Camouflage could do and what it could not do – in short I was asked to produce a plan. You can imagine my delight. This was what we had all been working for. It was pie!’3

  Plenty has been written about El Alamein, this crucial battle in the war, and opinions vary wildly as to the significance of the part played by camouflage, yet there’s no doubt the impact of the initial attack was stronger thanks to an elaborate deceptive cover plan.

  Using all their knowledge and resources, the desert camoufleurs did everything to hide the build-up of troops and artillery in the north, and instead gave the impression that an attack was being mounted in the south, and at a later date. They first had to hide 2,000 tonnes of fuel in the north that would be required by Monty’s troops by laying the fuel cans along the inner walls of existing slit trenches. This could be done at night and in daylight the trench looked exactly the same with no discernible thickening of shadow. The next challenge was to hide food, ammunition and other stores, but this was done in a brilliantly roundabout way. The camoufleurs first dumped waste materials (discarded packing cases and such) under camouflage nets, making them appear to be ammunition or ration dumps. The Axis noticed these but, as no offensive action immediately followed and the ‘dumps’ did not change in appearance, they were subsequently ignored. This allowed the Eighth Army to start building up supplies in the forward area unnoticed, by slowly replacing the rubbish with ammunition and rations, again under cover of night.

  It was also vital to give a false impression of the actual timing of the assault. Barkas was asked if he could create something like Steven Sykes’s dummy railhead at Misheifa. He came up with the plan to build a dummy water pipeline leading south, which would clearly not be ready at the time of the assault. This made German reconnaissance think that the attack would occur much later than planned, and much further south. Peter Proud organised the digging of the pipeline (essentially a line of empty oil drums that were repeatedly laid in a ditch, then at night the trench was filled in, and the same fake pipe was advanced). The staging of dummy pump houses, filling stations, artillery and equipment manned by straw men further reinforced the illusion.

  The job of hiding the real artillery and creating a false show of them was woven into one, in a sense. Wavell’s ‘Sunshield’ covers for tanks were still very much in use. A similar idea was adapted for field guns: a fabric and wood cover called a ‘Cannibal’ literally hid the gun to make it resemble a more innocuous truck. There were to be 722 Sunshields and 360 Cannibals used in the campaign, along with 500 dummy tanks, 150 dummy guns and 2,000 dummy transport vehicles, swapped around like pieces in a game of chess. In the north, the build-up was concealed by first erecting empty sunshields. Then real tanks were moved and installed under the sunshields at night. Where the tanks had been resting, a battalion of dummy tanks replaced them.

  Although there’s evidence that the Axis had discovered this new method of disguising tanks, the element of uncertainty kept Rommel at a disadvantage. He couldn’t be sure what was real and what was fake and didn’t want to make a serious mistake, so divided his already depleted armies accordingly.

  Montgomery’s Eighth Army moved into attack position on 23 October 1942, the night of the full moon. The battle lasted twenty days and there were serious casualties on both sides, but it was the first great offensive against the Germans in which the Allies were victorious. Evidence gathered later from enemy documents and prisoners of war showed that the camoufleurs’ schemes had worked – it was only in the very last moments before the attack that the Germans grew suspicious of activity in the north.

  Churchill was jubilant and quick to claim the victory as one for camouflage: ‘By a marvellous system of camouflage, complete tactical surprise was achieved in the desert. The enemy suspected – indeed, knew – that an attack was impending, but when and where and how it was coming was hidden from him.’4

  Churchill’s championing of camouflage in itself subtly camouflaged the fact that El Alamein was a tough, bloody, prolonged battle with mistakes on both sides. But he had the success he wanted: a sign that the tide was turning in his favour.

  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 Goodman, Edward Seago, p. 158

  2 Lieut-General Bernard Montgomery, Legion Magazine Archives, on August 1942

  3 Sykes, Deceivers Ever, p. 97

  4 Hansard, Winston Churchill, House of Commons Debate, 11/11/42, vol. 385, cc37

  is for Vision, this means more than sight, Use a strategy to keep your scheme tight

  It is often only from a distance that patterns can become visible. When Maureen married John, nobody approved. They said it wouldn’t last. When my mother married my father, she’d known him a matter of weeks. It created quite a scandal. Patricia Barclay introduced Philip Horlock to her parents just days before their wedding. She was using what General Alexander called ‘the battle-winning factor’: surprise.1

  The hasty marriage came about as Philip had already accepted a job in Australia. He was training to be an accountant, just as John Barclay had been when he first met Maureen. Patricia would not endure any kind of separation and was determined to go with him. If two people loved each other, then why shouldn’t they be together? She didn’t see how everything was repeating. John and Maureen had moved to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) after the war, wanting to make a better life for themselves and their daughters.

  Patricia and Philip were married in Ndola in 1962. There is a poignant Polaroid of the two of them, taken just days bef
ore their marriage. They look young and terrified, sitting close on a sofa but fighting to stay separate, hands held captive in laps. Above them looms a vivid churning seascape that almost expresses the whirlwind of emotions. It is of course a Joseph Gray.

  Maureen loved her years in Africa but with hindsight she worries that the move made the rift with Joe permanent. She feels guilty that her daughters didn’t get to know their grandfather. She never spoke to them about him, filling her house with his pictures instead. She didn’t know what to say, how to explain him, and so she stopped trying.

  ‘I just thought: what you don’t know, you will not miss.’

  She regrets that now, not trying harder to stay in contact, but she felt it was what he had willed.

  Patricia was the only granddaughter Joe ever met. When she was born on 25 October 1942, the war in North Africa was but a few days old. Maureen was still in Paisley with her in-laws. Joe remained in London and heard news of the arrival of Patricia Maureen Barclay via telegram. He didn’t mention this momentous event in his letters to Mary. It was slightly jarring to consider himself a grandfather. He had no savings, no security, very little in the way of possessions. He didn’t even have a home. He had been forced to move out of Bayswater Road after falling out with the landlady over rent. She had asked him either to take a larger room or rent two rooms, in light of the fact that ‘his wife’ was spending so much time there. Angered and embarrassed, Joe had declared his hatred for the area, scattered crumbs ‘in every damn mousehole’, hastily packed and left.

  So 1943 would be the year of fresh starts.

  Again.

  Early in the year John, Maureen and baby Patricia settled into a flat on Elm Grove in Wimbledon. Nancy, who had been in touch sporadically, chose this as the moment to visit. She arrived one February morning, her manner as brisk as the weather. She had not come directly from Bedford, having spent a day in London already, but these details were swept aside whilst she inspected her charming new grandchild.

  She apologised for not coming sooner and expressed her relief at finding everybody well. Maureen was struck by how young her mother looked. She was glowing, and moved with a new lightness, fussing happily around the kitchen as if it were her own.

  It was later, when they sat together – mother, daughter and granddaughter – that Nancy delivered her news.

  ‘I have been up to the courts.’ She rested a hand lightly on Maureen’s knee. ‘To see about divorcing your father.’

  The irony was that Maureen didn’t hear – her deafness had become quite chronic during the pregnancy and she was distracted by the baby. Nancy repeated the words slowly.

  ‘I am divorcing your father.’

  Maureen, pale and tired, turned towards her mother.

  ‘Divorce?’

  The word sounded strange, almost foreign.

  Looking Nancy in the eye, holding her new baby in her arms, she didn’t understand.

  ‘But why?’

  Nancy lifted her chin and glanced towards the window, showing off that fine and ageless profile.

  ‘Ah well,’ she said.

  She could have given any kind of answer: she could have blamed it on the war, their changing circumstances, growing older. She kept her head held high.

  ‘The thing is. He wants to marry Mary Meade.’

  To Nancy this was the best explanation, and so it would become the only one. She hoped to dispose of the business quickly, without further discussion, and perhaps shock Maureen into silence. At first it worked, but how quickly shock turned to horror.

  ‘Mary Meade?’ Maureen was blinking fast. ‘Mary Meade from The Needlewoman?’

  Nancy gave a little sigh. ‘That’s the one.’

  Mary Meade. Miss Mary Meade. Maureen’s mind tumbled back to 1938 – four years, five years, how long had it been? ‘Oh please do call me Mary.’ Joe had sent her there. ‘Are you at all artistic?’ The woman she had worked for. It was incomprehensible. How could she have missed it? How? Questions crowded into her mind as she watched her mother, now leaning back, relieved to have got it off her chest.

  ‘Come now. We have been living apart for some time.’ Nancy absently stroked her daughter’s arm, turning back, managing a slight smile. ‘You knew that.’

  Maureen stared down at her baby and slowly shook her head.

  ‘I thought that was because of the war.’

  ‘And it was. But your father has made his choice.’

  His choice. Such careful wording. Little Patricia, sensing the sudden change in atmosphere, began to fret, and Maureen pulled her baby closer. To comfort the child was a consolation, just when she herself was feeling so small and helpless.

  ‘Please don’t be upset.’ Nancy had a knack for shutting conversation down. ‘And you must not worry about me. You have your own family now.’

  But Maureen was reeling. Yes, she had her own family now, yet the foundations on which that family was based had vanished. She felt terrible. Mary Meade.

  If Maureen wanted to ask her mother more questions, this wasn’t the time. It was over. It was done.

  But it wasn’t – how could it be? Later, she paced the flat, brooding over the news. How foolish she must have been not to have guessed this, not to have known. She blamed her deafness, the pregnancy, her lack of sophistication. She didn’t know what to do at all, apart from wait for John to come home from work. She was almost looking forward to telling him so that at least he could share her consternation.

  It would be a long wait before she heard his key turn in the lock.

  She ran into the corridor.

  ‘You won’t believe this. My mother is divorcing my father.’

  John, briefcase in hand, gave a small sigh.

  ‘Oh. That.’

  Maureen blinked.

  He knew.

  ‘You knew?’

  He squeezed past her. ‘I did.’

  This was another shock, almost as bad as the first. He knew and he hadn’t told her.

  Why?

  The fact was John Barclay did not have an easy relationship with his mother-in-law. He had endured her disapproval, ignored her meddlings and grown increasingly weary of what he called her ‘manoeuvrings’. But on this one matter they had reached an understanding.

  He set down his briefcase and turned back to Maureen.

  ‘Your mother and I, we thought it best not to tell you until after Patricia was safely delivered. We didn’t want you getting upset about it all.’

  John reached out to his wife, placing his hands on her arms. Maureen had miscarried their first child and he had wanted, above all, to protect her and the baby.

  ‘I knew how upset you’d be. You will always come first. You and the baby mattered more. I am sorry.’

  Maureen turned away, dazed. How secrets could be contagious.

  ‘You kept this from me!’

  John turned her back to face him. He bowed his head and held her gaze.

  ‘I give you my word I shall never ever do anything like this again.’

  John Barclay would keep his promise. He proved himself, time and again, to be a devoted husband, determined to build a solid, loving family. This would be the first and last time he would ally himself with Nancy.

  But for Maureen the shock of her parents’ divorce would reverberate for years. She wasn’t sure what upset her more: the fact of their divorce or the deliberate deception. She was a grown woman, but they’d treated her like a child. Perhaps they still thought of her as one, since they hadn’t really watched her grow up. John was acutely aware of the pain this caused his wife and never forgave Joe or Nancy their game-playing. (‘Maureen honestly had no inkling. It took a long time for her to get over it.’2)

  Joe didn’t come to meet his first grandchild. He sent a charming note wishing everyone well, but left it to Nancy to expose and explain the details of his ‘affair’. He was both embarrassed and ashamed. He had been trying to do the right thing, over and over, trying to keep everyone happy. It had not worked.<
br />
  For years Joe had delayed and procrastinated, but now, when he was finally fulfilling his promise to Mary, he went into hiding from his own daughter. To John Barclay it smacked of cowardice, and as he became increasingly impatient with his wife’s parents, the idea of moving away and starting over grew in appeal.

  Joe thought keeping his distance meant keeping a promise, keeping his composure. He understood what it meant to Nancy. She needed Maureen more than he did, and Nancy could be there for Maureen in a way that he couldn’t. The bond between mothers and daughters should not be interfered with. Joe had seen it up close between Kitty Meade and Mary.

  But Maureen wanted to hear from her father, and when she didn’t her hurt intensified. Without a full explanation she was left to imagine all sorts. For a long while after she’d learned of Joe and Mary’s relationship she feared the very worst – that it was her doing. She assumed that the relationship must’ve started when she was working at The Needlewoman, and that she had unwittingly brought her father and Mary together. She was therefore to blame for the disintegration of her parents’ marriage. It seemed entirely plausible in the context of what she knew.

  As is often the way, one secret spawned another: Maureen voiced her worries to no one, for fear of upsetting her own mother.

  In September 1943 a decree absolute set Nancy and Joe free. Nancy didn’t publicise the news, although she had a week of leave and was spending it with Maureen, tidying and reorganising their new flat in Camp View. It was a larger space, with wide windows looking out onto Wimbledon Common, and an extra bedroom, which was just as well since Patricia was no longer a baby and another was expected. It was a Sunday, traditionally a day of rest, but Nancy couldn’t stop cleaning. Maureen was exhausted just watching her. She wasn’t in the mood for guests but one would soon be here. Dick Orr-Ewing was coming down from Scotland and had expressed a desire to see Maureen and John, and to meet Nancy’s first grandchild. John remained rooted to his armchair, reading the newspaper. He didn’t see the point in making a fuss.