Burbank Airport During WWII

This is a cool little article I found about the Burbank Lockheed Air Terminal (Bob Hope Airport).

During World War II, there needed to be a way to disguise and ward off enemy fire, so officials at the Burbank Lockheed Air Terminal got creative in their camouflage techniques, with camouflage netting. From the air, the enemy would see the entire area as a rural subdivision.

Before

After

Colonel John F. Ohmer was given the job. He was a pioneer in camouflage, deception and misdirection techniques. He got help from scenic designers, painters, art directors, landscape artists, animators, carpenters, lighting experts and prop men from movie studios in Hollywood, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Disney Studios, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Universal Pictures and others, Colonel Ohmer began the task of disguising March Field and its neighborhood.

The Lockheed-Vega aircraft plant in Burbank was fully hidden beneath a complete suburb replete with rubber automobiles and peaceful rural neighborhood scenes painted on canvas. Small farm complete with animals, a barn, a silo and other buildings were erected. Pastoral settings used frames of lumber and large spreads of canvas.

Hundreds of fake trees and shrubs were positioned to give the entire area a 3-dimensional appearance. The trees and shrubs were created from chicken wire treated with adhesive, then covered with chicken feathers for leaves, then painted various shades of green (with spots of brown, even). Air ducts were disguised as fire hydrants.

In other sections, scattered decoy aircraft made of canvas scraps, ration boxes, and burlap on chicken wire as well as flattened tin cans dominated the landscape. None of these aircraft looked real up close but looked great from a distance. Fake runways were made by burning grassy strips.