Camouflage Section - Royal Engineers

[Guest Pete Wood]

At the risk of sounding very foolish, can someone tell me what this unit, made up of Royal Engineers was responsible for and where they were located.

Were there many such sections, and were they actually 'out in the field' or were these men office-bound?

[Terry_Reeves]

The RE Special Brigade had a camouflage section as part of their Special Works Park Coy, making scrim nets for Livens Projector emplacements. These were made by locally employed French women. The Brigade commander CH Foulkes in his book "Gas" The Story of the Special Brigade", p184 says " ...great care was taken in training the brigade to camouflage these positions, an expert being borrowed from the camouflage school for the purposes..."

I don't know about the school but the Special Brigade HQ was at Helfaut near St Omer, with much of their administrative infrastructure based here and in the surrounding villages.

Terry Reeves

[Mike_H]

In France in May 1916 the REs formed a Special Works Park of 7 Officers and 82 ORs

for camouflage work. In April 1917 the establisment was increased to 28 Officers and 315 ORs. Later the numbers increased to 56 Officers and 346 ORs.

In November 1918 the Special Works Park was organised into a HQs of 5 Officers and 5 ORs and Army Camouflage Factories each of 2 Officers and 26 ORs. A Special Works School for experimental and instructional purposes was set up in UK.

In July the names of the establishments were changed to Camouflage Park and Camouflage School.

The original Special Works Park was at Wimereaux. As the service developed the Camouflage Factories were located in each Army Area.

There is plenty of detail about the development of the Service in the RE's

WW I History, Miscellaneous Volume.

Mike_H