Did You Know: Boeing Built A Whole Fake Neighborhood To Conceal Factory In WWII
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Image via Thiago B Trevisan / Shutterstock.com
These days, we’re lucky to have arts and crafts as an at-home pastime, but Boeing once resorted to them out of necessity. During the second world war, it fashioned an entire fake neighborhood to camouflage the roof of the Boeing Plant No. 2, where it was building B-17 bombers.
Straight Out of a Movie
Those aren’t the suburbs in WandaVision.
The setup of the makeshift town was attributed to G.W. Dennis and John Stewart Detlie, a Hollywood set designer, who applied the same techniques used for movie set towns to design a “neighborhood” realistic enough to fool enemies from afar.
The town, completed in 1944 as a defensive measure in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, had wooden buildings standing at just four feet—shorter than a person.
Its trees and lawns were constructed from chicken feathers and spun glass, and its ground was a combination of burlap, canvas, and chicken wire.
After the Pilot Episode
Boeing’s faux neighborhood was taken down a year after the war. The Seattle Daily Times captured it for the first time on July 23, 1945, and gave it the nickname, “Boeing Wonderland.”
[via Seattle Times, Vintage Everyday, Bored Panda, r/wwiipics, images via various sources]
Image via Thiago B Trevisan / Shutterstock.com
These days, we’re lucky to have arts and crafts as an at-home pastime, but Boeing once resorted to them out of necessity. During the second world war, it fashioned an entire fake neighborhood to camouflage the roof of the Boeing Plant No. 2, where it was building B-17 bombers.
Straight Out of a Movie
Those aren’t the suburbs in WandaVision.
#ThrowbackThursday @Boeing made a fake neighborhood to hide from potential WWII airstrikes. https://t.co/vgTomQ2DcW pic.twitter.com/oQWjlN5kOs
— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) June 9, 2016
The setup of the makeshift town was attributed to G.W. Dennis and John Stewart Detlie, a Hollywood set designer, who applied the same techniques used for movie set towns to design a “neighborhood” realistic enough to fool enemies from afar.
The town, completed in 1944 as a defensive measure in the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack, had wooden buildings standing at just four feet—shorter than a person.
Its trees and lawns were constructed from chicken feathers and spun glass, and its ground was a combination of burlap, canvas, and chicken wire.
After the Pilot Episode
Boeing’s faux neighborhood was taken down a year after the war. The Seattle Daily Times captured it for the first time on July 23, 1945, and gave it the nickname, “Boeing Wonderland.”
Look carefully at this wartime Seattle "neighborhood" and you'll see that it's in fact the disguised roof of a Boeing bomber factory! Trees and structures were made in miniature to fool enemy aircraft. (Seattle Times/Boeing)#WWII #WeRememberThem #16MillionStrong pic.twitter.com/P9FUxDHOuP
— WWII Memorial Friends (@WWIIMemorial) March 27, 2021
And heres some images of the fake Boeing town. pic.twitter.com/kn7EH4HHVa
— redgunnit (@redgunnit) January 20, 2020
[via Seattle Times, Vintage Everyday, Bored Panda, r/wwiipics, images via various sources]
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