With light bulbs against the enemy

Alvar Wilska’s air-raid protection scheme and the question of the concealment of Vuoksenlaakso industrial area

Authors

• Timo Vilén University of Tampere https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0324-2489

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33355/tw.84896

Keywords:

second world war, continuation war, industrial camouflage, civil defence, Alvar Wilska

Abstract

After the experience of World War I, military and civil defence authorities became increasingly aware of the threat posed by bombers not only to troops and cities, but also to industrial targets. Camouflage was one means by which enemy bombers could be confused, and so, with a new war looming, scientist and engineers – often working in close collaboration with artists – in several European countries were tasked to come up with solutions for the concealment of conspicuous and vital factories.

This article is concerned with one such solution, an air-raid protection system proposed by a brilliant Finnish scientist and inventor Alvar Wilska. Based on the principles of night vision and dark adaptation, the scheme utilised hundreds of powerful incandescent lamps and was, after experiments, installed in Vuoksenlaakso, Finland’s industrial heartland, to disguise some of the most vital installations in the country. While the adopting of Wilska’s scheme was, of course, motivated by the Soviet bombing campaign of Finland, the article shows that additional incentive to improve the camouflage of important factories and hydro-electric power plants was provided by the British bombing of the Ruhr area. In particular, the implementation of the scheme was spurred by Operation Chastise, which highlighted the potential damage that campaigns piggybacking on advanced strategies and new technologies (Barnes Wallis’ “bouncing bombs”) could cause to reservoir dams.

Using a comparative approach, the article discusses how the art (and science) of industrial camouflage developed in Finland before and during World War II, an important but thus far overlooked aspect of the Finnish World War II history. It traces the journey of Wilska’s invention from its inception to its completion before the end of 1943, with a particular emphasis on the experimental work involved. The article concludes that despite occasional clashes, barriers between scientists, engineers, as well as military and civil defence authorities were, at least in this case, rather low, and that in common with other belligerent countries, the war in Finland provided ample opportunities to unorthodox and young scientist who otherwise might have found it difficult to sell their ideas. Also discussed are the attempts of the Finnish authorities and Wilska to sell their invention to Luftwaffe, a process which saw the usual roles of Finland as a buyer and Nazi Germany as a seller of military-related technology reversed.