Strathconas? in Groningen?

[Colin Alford]

While I recognize the quoted sources as generally being reputable, I am very skeptical that the camouflage material used by the FGH was actually horse hair.

I searched through the FGH War Diary, and the only description that I could find to the material used is “wire garnish camouflage”.

See images 160 and 161: https://heritage.canadiana.ca/view/o...eel_t12699/160

In the images presented above, I do not see any shrimp nets (description in next post). I believe I can see “galvanized wire netting” which I would commonly call “chicken wire” being used to secure the camouflage material.

While I agree that horse hair was commonly used as padding in seats (CMP seat pads, Universal Carrier seat backs and Sherman turret seats definitely used horse hair) and as a packing material for delicate items, any salvaged material would already be cut to specific sizes and shapes, which would likely be somewhat visible once attached to the vehicle. I have never encountered any horse hair used in ammunition packaging. To camouflage all of A Sqn, FGH tanks in 15 days would require a massive amount of salvaged horse hair padding.

Military Training Pamplet 46: Camouflage, Part 1: General principles: Equipment and materials (all arms), details the standard camouflage materials that were available. I believe that the most likely material is Steel Wool (see attached image of description).