Jan Gordon and the Dazzle Scheme Project, Demobilisation in 1919

Browsing the National Archive, I came across a fascinating record of Jan Gordon's demobilisation from the WW1 Dazzle Scheme project. It shows notes in six different hands.

He was demobilised from the 1st December 1919. The record reads:  


    Ty Lieut 9-11.17 [Temporary Lieutenant]

    9-11-17 President for Special Service (Dazzle Scheme)

    Granted technical allowance 5/-0 day

    27.3.18 - 11.12.18 to be sent on leave as he becomes available pending demobilisation = 1.2.19.         President for duty with Admiralty Sub Committee Imperial War Museum (To report to D AMS office, 225 Tottenham Court Road) = 

    Demobilised from 1.12.19.

    This officer is not to be demobilised. 2/19


Jan Gordon's demobilisation record


The Dazzle Scheme Project inspired numerous articles and books, a recent example being the 2016 book by James Taylor.  

Jan Gordon himself wrote about the project shortly after the war in his December 1918 Land & Sea article on The Art of Dazzle Painting. Here, he elaborated on the distinction between camouflage designed to make an object blend in with its background and dazzle designed to confuse an attacker: "and so the word camouflage, with its associations, has been dropped in favour of the more appropriate word "dazzle-painting"". I illustrated this distinction in my February 2013 article by contrasting the daily camouflage activities of my pet cuttlefish ("Ramses") with the startling black and white "deimatic" patterns displayed during an escape from a perceived threat.

The article describes how Norman Wilkinson's letter to the Admiralty of April 27th 1917 enumerated "all the objects which dazzle-painting still aims for" and how the scheme was approved by the Admiralty on May 23rd. Work on the first experimental ship, "The Industry" began shortly afterwards.




Noted artist Steven Spurrier worked with Jan Gordon in the project and Jan Gordon later sent him a copy of his 1923 book "Modern French Painters" with the following dedication:

"To my old pal Spurrier

       in memory of the purest art we ever touched. Dazzle.                                                                            

                                                                                 Jan Gordon"

This is an evocative connection with the story of the dazzle-painted ships of WW1. In "The London Roundabout" (1933) Jan Gordon reminisced about those times: "I was in uniform, lieutenant in the R.N.V.R., although I had never been nearer to the quarter-deck than the Royal Academy Schools, which were the headquarters of the Naval Camouflage section, under the well-known marine painter Norman Wilkinson." 


S.S. Dictator in Herculaneum Dock, Liverpool. 
Water colour by Guy Kortright, R.N.V.R.


I wonder why the demobilisation date of December 2019 was so long after the war had ended, though this site states "Demobilisation of British, colonial and imperial troops did not finish until 1920, considerably longer than servicemen had anticipated."  


References

J.G. Gordon, Lieut. R.N.V.R. 1918. The Art of Dazzle Painting. Land & Sea, December 1918

R.D.A.Smith 2013. Jan Gordon: Dazzle Camouflage in Nature and War. February 01, 2013

R.D.A.Smith 2014. Jan Gordon and the Dazzle-Painting of Ships. March 25, 2014

R.D.A.Smith 2014. Jan Gordon and Steven Spurrier: "The Purest Art. Dazzle." May 17, 2014

R.D.A.Smith 2014. "Dazzle-Painting in War-Time." May 18, 2014

R.D.A.Smith 2014. Jan Gordon: Dazzle Camouflage in Nature and War. March 11, 2014

R.D.A.Smith 2015. Jan Gordon and the "Dazzleship" at the Little Art Rooms, 1919. March 06, 2015

R.D.A.Smith 2016. Jan Gordon and WWI Dazzle Ship Painting: a new book by James Taylor. December 03, 2016

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jan and Cora Gordon and the Balkan Hat: Getting Published in World War I

Image
In " The London Roundabout " (1933),  Jan Gordon describes how they came to publish their first book, " The Luck of Thirteen " (for an overview of this and their subsequent books visit Jan and Cora Gordon Books ). Following the "famous retreat" from Serbia, they wrote, "Having reached London in rags, and lacking visible means of support, we were trying to capitalize our experiences. The sale of some photographs temporarily banished the wolf, at least round the corner, but to continue the good work Jo had written an article called A Woman's Day at the Montenegrin Front ." "JO AT THE MACHINE GUN" A friend sent them to see Dan Rider, who recommended they send it to the Westminster Gazette - "They'll eat it." "Eat it they did, and spewed it out again as print. From this manuscript and a few others grew our first travel-book." On showing sketches of Serbia to Cecil Chesterton, editor of the New
Read more

Jan Gordon's WW1 Dazzle design for H.M.S. Southampton

Image
Dazzle painting of ships has fascinated many since its first deployment during WW1, spawning numerous articles, books and imitations. The artist and writer Jan Gordon was one of the original protagonists; he designed dazzle patterns, wrote about the principles and practice of the art, and remembered those days fondly when later dedicating one of his books to a dazzle painting colleague,  Steven Spurrier. One of the dazzle designs produced by Jan Gordon was that for HMS Southampton and I discuss below the available information on this design. I also recently bought the book " A Naval Lieutenant 1914-1918," which gives an account of the wartime experiences of the Southampton, with several contemporary comments on camouflage and dazzle. Camouflage of ships in WW1 At the beginning of WW1 in 1914 , Stephen King-Hall (as "Etienne"), serving on HMS Southampton ,  recalled,  " After the big sweep we all went to Loch Ewe to coal, and here I remember noticing the ba
Read more

Jan and Cora Gordon in Albania

Image
Jan and Cora Gordon visited Albania in the summer of 1925 and in 1927 published the book " Two Vagabonds in Albania ." Two phrases from this book resonated when I first read it: " Now and again a wolf howled from far away, and somewhere a kid, lost or smelling some wolf-taint in the air, bleated with persistent terror " pg. 138. and " As we came down into the cultivated fields of the valley we found ourselves walking through clouds of red-winged grasshoppers, which sprang up on all sides with a clattering flight ." pg. 139 The book begins with "Don't stay in Durazzo." From Durazzo they made a clockwise loop to the south, passing through Tirana, Elbasan, Berat, Kelcyre, Permeti and Gjinokastro before returning north to Tirana. The second leg of the journey was an excursion to the north, from Scutari up into the mountains. Map of prominent places visited on the southern loop described in "Two Vagabonds in Albania"
Read more