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Uncover your potential', indeed! Once you stop ogling the girl, though, you might notice that this Australian Special Air Service (SAS) recruiting poster shows Australian Disruptive Pattern Camouflage to very good effect. [Image courtesy Brad Turner collection.]

Parachute camouflage
United States of America

The camouflage fabric shown here was taken from a discarded U.S. parachute in June 1944. It was recovered by James Cullen, who at the time was serving with the U.S. 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, a few miles inland from Omaha Beach — one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France. He was understandably surprised to find the parachute in that vicinity because the U.S. 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were supposed to have landed on Utah Beach, the westernmost of the Allied landing beaches during the D-Day invasion. However, a number of factors militated against the successful execution of the plan and, as a result, 45 per cent of the U.S. airborne units were widely scattered and unable to rally.

The pattern represented in Mr Cullen's example comprises dark green and medium green leaf-shaped elements on a light green base. The dark green elements look black here, because this was the best I could manage while enhancing the pattern in Photoshop.

There is no way to tell whether Mr Cullen's example came from a T‑5 or a T‑7 parachute; but if it is from a T‑5, then this particular pattern could have been in service from 1943. At any rate, the earliest T‑5 used in the Normandy landings, which I have been able to verify, was dated June 1943, and was used by the U.S. 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment. Unfortunately, there is no way to know if its canopy was camouflaged, so my dating is purely speculative.

In actual fact, I have been unable to find much useful information about the development of camouflage for American parachute canopies — so a little help would be appreciated. All that I can say, with any degree of certainty, is that the pattern continued in service until the end of the Vietnam War, and there is some evidence that fabric salvaged from abandoned parachutes was sometimes used by the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN; Vietnamese: Quân Đội Nhân Dân Việt Nam). to fashion camouflaged helmet covers and capes.

kamouflage.net is grateful to James Cullen, for his invaluable contributions to this article.

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