Strathconas? in Groningen?

[Jordan Baker]

Regards the "horse hair"

From a FB post by Anthony Sewards
"Mystery solved, the Fort Garry Horse (FGH) in Feb/March 1945, welded on steel mesh to the Shermans over the welded tank tracks, to add nets to hide/disguise the shape of the tanks and to hide the tanks shine. Once the steel mesh was added, shrimp net (cam net) was added as well as horsehair shipping material. Photos from that springtime and while on the advance in Holland."

[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).

[Colin Alford]

Here are some additional images from MTP 46 part 1 (descriptions of standard camouflage materials) and Part 6: Notes on screens (image of wire netting).

While “Wig netting” did include horse hair, it was woven into fish net, which the pictorial evidence does not seem to indicate as the material used (possible exception being the third image in post 13 which might have larger square openings). A fish net would also not fit well with the recorded description of “wire garnish camouflage”.

[Bob Carriere]

Interesting read.....

Wig netting made of horsehair or cow mane along with coir, which is coconut husks, to me are the most promising.....

I read that fine steel wool will not burn....... of which I totally disagree...steel wool can be ignited using a 9 volt battery..... ask any survival expert..... it burns fast and hot........ my wife uses steel wool to produce special effects in night time photography.......coconut coir might smolder for a while and hair will only smoke and stink.

Jordan's pictures shows well how the under laying square mesh was applied then the fuzzy stuff on top....... but what was the fuzzy stuff???? once you realize that the fuzz is attached to an under layer of mesh it is apparent that the top fuzz is not so tick after all....

Any pictures of shivering bald horses or bald cows (Scottish long horn cattle) to support the theory???

[Jordan Baker]

Thanks Colin for all the primary source material. The steel wool sounds most promising.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Most interesting topic with excellent input from all concerned