Using movie magic to fight the Kaiser

Nov. 9, 1917: Los Angeles would supply more than 2,000 recruits for the U.S. Army’s camouflage divisions, mostly “from the ranks of motion-picture scene painters and carpenters,” The Times reported under the headline “They Fool You Every Day; Will They Fool the Germans?”

Milton Moore, technical director of the Universal Film Co., told the newspaper, “We can build fake villages in 48 hours -- villages that we will defy an airman to detect. We can hide a village in 24 hours and make it impossible for German observers in treetops or in airplanes to detect the slightest trace of habitation.... Here, we have turned forests and hills into desert scenes within two days, and have obliterated all traces of trees and mountains in the background. Only a few days ago, we took a downtown alley in Los Angeles and turned it into a Turkish street inside of two hours.”

“The French and the British won’t know a thing about real camouflage, until your Uncle Sammy hits the Flanders trail,” Moore went on, “and incidentally the Kaiser won’t know much about it after we do arrive.”