Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate
Technique Device Construction Usage Inventor
Masquerade ( tank as truck ) Sunshield hinged canopy Operation Bertram Archibald Wavell
Masquerade ( gun as truck ) Cannibal canopy with guys Operation Bertram The camouflage unit
Masquerade ( stores as truck , tent ) net-covered stack real stores , canvas , nets Operation Bertram Geoffrey Barkas , Tony Ayrton , Brian Robb
Masquerade , simulation False bomb damage , with smoke Trompe-l'œil painting , burning oily rags Siege of Tobruk desalination plant Peter Proud
Display Net Gun Pit netting/canvas with poles Operation Sentinel Peter Proud
Display False armoured division Tank dummies , wrecks , etc Operation Bertram John Baker
Display Dummy railhead wooden poles , petrol tins , canvas , wrecks Operation Crusader Steven Sykes
Display Dummy port wood , canvas , paint , rafts Operation Crusader Steven Sykes
Display Dummy pipeline petrol tins , canvas , scavenged materials Operation Bertram Geoffrey Barkas , Tony Ayrton
Techniques and inventions
A wide range of camouflage and deception techniques and devices were invented or developed by the unit .
The British Middle East Command Camouflage Directorate (also known as the Camouflage Unit or Camouflage Branch) organised major deception operations for Middle East Command in the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. It provided camouflage during the Siege of Tobruk; a dummy railhead at Misheifa, and the largest of all, Operation Bertram, the army-scale deception for the decisive battle of El Alamein in October 1942. The successful deception was praised publicly by Winston Churchill. These operations contributed to victory by diverting enemy attention from real targets to dummy ones, wasting enemy ammunition, preserving vital resources such as the single water desalination plant at Tobruk, and deceiving the enemy as to allied strength and intentions. Operation Bertram may also have been the last ever army-scale physical deception, since subsequent major deceptions, including those for the D-Day landings in Normandy, have included electronic measures. The unit was led by the film director Geoffrey Barkas, with a team of professional artists recruited as camouflage officers or camoufleurs. The team included the artist Steven Sykes, the first Camouflage GSO2 in the British army.