The story behind dazzle ships, the Navy's wildest-ever paint job
Here's how the dazzle pattern was designed to fool enemy submarines:
Here is the dazzle paint on the HMS Badsworth.
The HMS Furious. World War I ended in November 1918, and all of these pictures were taken between 1917 and 1919.
The HMS Argus.
The HMS Kildangan.
The HMS Nariana.
The HMS Pegasus.
The HMS Rocksand.
The HMS Underwing.
Britain's Royal Navy was not alone in employing the dazzle design. The USS St. George was one of many US ships to receive the paint job.
USS Wilhelmina.
USS West Mahomet.
USS Leviathan.
USS West Apaum.
USS Charles S. Sperry.
USS Orizaba.
The USS Smith.
The USS Nebraska.
The dazzle paint continued into World War II. Here's the USS Wasp, and other US aircraft carriers at Ulithi atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
Reportedly Pablo Picasso saw a dazzle-painted cannon at a parade in Paris. He claimed that that patterning was influenced by cubism, a school of art he had recently helped pioneer.
Wilkinson himself was a painter, although his style looked nothing like cubism. His paintings were mostly maritime landscapes, sometimes depicting war.
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