Sherry Edmundson Fry - Involvement in Camouflage

Involvement in Camouflage

When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, Fry (who was living in New York by then) saw a news photograph of camouflage created by artists serving in the French Army. He showed it to a friend, New Hampshire painter Barry Faulkner, who was a cousin of Abbott Handerson Thayer (the so-called "father of camouflage"), and a former student of the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

By this time, both the French and the British had officially set up units of camouflage specialists called "camoufleurs", many of whom were artists, architects and stage designers. Working together, Fry and Faulkner organized meetings with artists and government officials, in the hope of beginning an American camouflage unit.

Soon after, in 1917, the U.S. Army did set up an American Camouflage Corps (known officially as Company A of the 40th Engineers), and Fry and Faulkner were among the first enlistees. The two men chosen to lead that organization were Homer Saint-Gaudens (son of the celebrated sculptor, and Faulkner's college roommate while at Harvard) and Evarts Tracy, the New York architect who had co-designed the Missouri state capitol building, and would later hire Sherry Fry to create Ceres for the dome.

This camouflage unit set sail for France on New Year's Day in 1918. A month later, Fry and Faulkner were sent to the front lines, where their primary responsibility was the camouflage of artillery positions. Years later, Faulkner recalled Fry's and his war experiences in several radio talks and an autobiography. Sherry Fry, said Faulkner, "had little sense of fear and less of discipline." He also "had an insatiable curiosity" and "resented taking orders." He defied regulations and went out alone in abandoned trenches, looking for enemy helmets, belt buckles and other souvenirs. These forays became his chief preoccupation, Faulkner recalled, and before long he was transferred to Chantilly, where because he was fluent in French he became an American liaison to the French camouflage unit.