Roland Penrose, ‘camouflage evangelist’

‘The tendency in warfare up to very recent times,’ wrote Roland Penrose in his 1941 book The Home Guard Manual of Camouflage, ‘has been to rely on sheer strength and even ostentation rather than concealment.’ Be it the shining armour of medieval knights, the scarlet coats and prominent headgear of Napoleonic troops, or even ancient fortresses with forbidding defences – all were considered intimidating enough to defeat an enemy perhaps without the need for violence. ABOVE & BELOW: Members of the Home Guard in disguise at Osterley Park Training School in west London, 1940. This was where Penrose taught camouflage lessons to trainee soldiers. But the savagery of the t