Eyes Painted On Vehicles (For Good Luck, Etc.)

[AgProv]

This discussion was spun off from the Swastikas Thread.

Brig Wrote:
Well before WW2 my mother-in-law made a quilt displaying swastikas. When the Nazis ruined the symbol, she put it away and only brought it back out long after the war. At the time it was an Indian good luck symbol.

Didn't the good luck symbol have the legs going the other way? used to see ships on the Manchester ship channel with them on the bow 40 or so years back.

Interestingly, in the days when British tanks were still known as "His Majesty's Landships", they could be seen adopting the seafaring tradition of having the Eye of Horus painted on the side as a good-luck charm. This never completely went away - it was seen in North Africa in 1940-43, and I understand some British armour committed to Iraq very recently had the symbol applied. So the swastika isn't the only ancient symbol that persisted into the modern age.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Interestingly, in the days when British tanks were still known as "His Majesty's Landships", they could be seen adopting the seafaring tradition of having the Eye of Horus painted on the side as a good-luck charm. This never completely went away - it was seen in North Africa in 1940-43, and I understand some British armour committed to Iraq very recently had the symbol applied. So the swastika isn't the only ancient symbol that persisted into the modern age.

According to this well-researched article:

https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/144492/1/Content.pdf?accept=1

... the painted eyes:

- were related to an Asian contribution of funding and labor during the First World War;
- were derived from the Chinese tradition of painting eyes on a boat's bow for good fortune;
- were always referred to as "Chinese Eyes"; and ...
- have been traditionally used by only one tank unit (whose designation has changed multiple times over the last century).

I've not yet found any evidence for the Eye of Horus being used on British tanks.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Here's a photo of a tank with the Chinese Eyes ...

SOURCE: http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-eyes-have-it.html

 

[AgProv]

That's interesting - I've heard "Chinese Eye" and "Eye of Horus/Eye of Osiris" used pretty much interchangably. Happy to accept you're right on this one - I'm wondering if the confusion is down to a large part of the British military in WW2 being based in the Med, first Egypt (home of the old Gods) and later Italy itself, a place where boats go to sea with the Eye on the prow... (quick check informs that this seems mandatory for small-to-medium boats in Malta and other Med islands) - but the Chinese Eye must itself go back thousands of years?

Guards Armoured Division shoulder patch, WW2. So - Chinese Eye?

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Guards Armoured Division shoulder patch, WW2. So - Chinese Eye?

I don't know, but I tend to doubt it.

For one thing, the original Chinese eyes were not official insignia. The Guards Armoured Division patch is an official insignia. If there's a connection between the WW1 Chinese Eyes tank unit (regiment level?) and the WW2 Guards Armoured Division you'd have to rummage through the history of Royal Army organizational structures to find it.

The Chinese Eyes were originally added in pairs - one on each side ot the tank's front - just as they were positioned on boats and ships. The only photos I can find showing the Guards insignia on a tank shows a single insignia on the tank's front.

 

[maximus otter]

Interestingly, in the days when British tanks were still known as "His Majesty's Landships", they could be seen adopting the seafaring tradition of having the Eye of Horus painted on the side as a good-luck charm. This never completely went away - it was seen in North Africa in 1940-43, and I understand some British armour committed to Iraq very recently had the symbol applied. So the swastika isn't the only ancient symbol that persisted into the modern age.

I’ve read a lot about WW1 and tanks (and WW1 and its tanks).

ln the Osprey New Vanguard title British Mk. IV Tank, David Fletcher (historian at the UK Tank Museum, Bovington), depicts a Mk. IV tank named Fan-Tan of the 6th. Battalion, Tank Corps. This tank was built in Lincoln with funds raised for Britain in Malaysia. lt had a “fierce dragon” painted on its glacis plate, and:

“…an eye painted on each side near the front. This reflected the oriental practice of painting eyes on boats so that they could “see” where they were going.”

This may have been the origin of the practice.

l have read other accounts where the practice was adopted after tank crews heard members of the Chinese Labour Corps - employed to help the Tank Corps - were heard to say, “No have eyes. How can see?”

lnterestingly, as the tank was to be employed to crush German morale as much as to seize German trenches, the British army seriously considered painting “fierce Chinese warriors” on the tanks. (Why Chinese, l have no idea…)

maximus otter

 

[EnolaGaia]

I’ve read a lot about WW1 and tanks (and WW1 and its tanks).

ln the Osprey New Vanguard title British Mk. IV Tank, David Fletcher (historian at the UK Tank Museum, Bovington), depicts a Mk. IV tank named Fan-Tan of the 6th. Battalion, Tank Corps. This tank was built in Lincoln with funds raised for Britain in Malaysia. lt had a “fierce dragon” painted on its glacis plate ...

l have read other accounts where the practice was adopted after tank crews heard members of the Chinese Labour Corps - employed to help the Tank Corps - were heard to say, “No have eyes. How can see?”

lnterestingly, as the tank was to be employed to crush German morale as much as to seize German trenches, the British army seriously considered painting “fierce Chinese warriors” on the tanks. (Why Chinese, l have no idea…) ...

See the detailed history at: https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/144492/1/Content.pdf?accept=1

There was bureaucratic motivation to somehow reflect or honor the contributions from the Far East. One was the funding for which the tank labeled Fan-Tan was supposed to be a symbol. The connection between tank painting and the Far East was that the Chinese Labor Corps was the auxiliary unit assigned to paint the tanks (and other vehicles) - including insignia, ID numbers, and camouflage.

 

[EnolaGaia]

More generally ...

There are two themes or reasons commonly cited for painting eyes on vehicles:

(1) Eyes are simply a symbol or sigil added for good luck or good fortune.

(2) Eyes reflect a sort of vehicular animism in which the vehicle is considered "living" - e.g., the belief every ship has a "soul."

 

[EnolaGaia]

The Chinese Eyes example points to a general nautical tradition of giving ships eyes, re-interpreted for tanks in an instance specific to funding and labor obtained from the Far East.

It occurred to me there was a much closer source of historical precedents that could have influenced things if the Chinese connection hadn't been in play - the widespread habit of representing eyes on the bow of ancient Greek galleys. Here's an overview from a recent Texas A&M thesis ...

A Brief History of Ships' Eyes ​

...
Between the Bronze Age and the 3rd century BCE, all types of watercraft used in the Mediterranean from small boats to large galleys were commonly adorned with eyes on their bows. In Greece, the earliest clear depiction of a ship with eyes is a Late Helladic clay ship model decorated with circular eyes discovered at Phylakopi, Melos. However, ship representations with eyes do not reappear in the archaeological record again until the Geometric Period. Excavations in the Dipylon cemetery at Athens have yielded an impressive collection of Late Geometric I [c. 760 to 735 BCE] ceramics decorated with ships. Eyes adorn the bows of these galleys and typically take the form of 8- or 16-point stars enclosed in circles, although other related types are known. Slightly later examples dating to Late Geometric II [c. 735-710 BCE] show a greater variety of abstract forms used to indicate the presence of eyes.

During the 7th and 6th centuries BCE, many representations of Greek galleys fail to include eyes on the upperworks of their bows. Instead, the eyes on these vessels are typically placed in association with the forefoot, which now takes on a stylized zoomorphic form that often resembles the head of a boar. The development of naval tactics involving the ramming and the subsequent disabling of enemy ships may coincide with introduction of eyes set in relation to the forefeet of warship bows.

Representations of ancient Greek warships dated to the 6th century BCE show that they were commonly decorated with two pairs of eyes. One was set low on the bow to impart a zoomorphic form to the embolos that has been identified for the late 6th and early 5th centuries BCE as the head of a boar. Another was set on the upperworks of the bow as those during the Late Geometric Period but the eyes become more realistically depicted with a slight almond shape and a clearly delineated pupil.

By the 4th and 3rd century BCE, more elongated, dolphin-shaped eyes were introduced and eyes on Punic vessels move to between the waterline and upper wale.

The form of the ship eye remains elongated until the 2nd century BCE when it appears to take on a more Roman appearance, both elongated, and naturalistic as well as, round, almond-shaped, and wadjet-eye-shaped. Moreover, ship eyes were no longer exclusively set in the upperworks of galleys.

I couldn't help but wonder if the wadjet-shaped eye was adopted because of trading relations with Egypt. The wadjet was closely associated in ancient Egyptian religion with the Eye of Ra, a powerful protective deity. Like the wadjet, the eyes of a ship were thought to be apotropaic in nature and scholars have likened their use to decorations depicting the gorgoneion on armor, weapons and architecture. Although the identification of which specific deity possessing the eyes may vary based on context, the eye motif seems to primarily, and almost universally, denote the presence of a protective supernatural consciousness that aids its user by keeping watch for invisible threats.

(condensed from the Master's thesis of Troy Joseph Nowak, Texas A&M University, 2006, "Archaeological Evidence for Ship Eyes: An Analysis of Their Form and Function")

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

On warplanes I assume the angry eyes (and bared teeth) were a touch of bravado and to intimidate the enemy, like on this rather striking Kittyhawk:

 

[EnolaGaia]

On warplanes I assume the angry eyes (and bared teeth) were a touch of bravado and to intimidate the enemy, like on this rather striking Kittyhawk ...

Fearsome Fighter Face Fun Fact ...
The "shark face" motif is canonically associated with the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers" who battled the Japanese in China on behalf of the Chinese government. However, the famous "shark face" didn't originate with the Flying Tigers. It actually originated with the German Luftwaffe.

Perhaps the most enduring nose art of World War II was the shark-face motif, which first appeared on the Messerschmitt Bf 110s of Luftwaffe Zerstörergeschwader 76 ("76th Destroyer Wing") over Crete, where the twin-engined Messerschmitts outmatched the Gloster Gladiator biplanes of No. 112 Squadron RAF. ... The Commonwealth pilots were withdrawn to Egypt and refitted with Curtiss Tomahawks (P-40) off the same assembly line building fighter aircraft for the American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers being recruited for service in China. In November 1941, AVG pilots saw a color photo in a newspaper of a shark mouth painted on a 112 Squadron P-40 fighter in North Africa and immediately adopted the shark-face motif for their own P-40Bs. The British version itself was inspired by "sharkmouth" nose art (without any eyes) on the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighters of Zerstörergeschwader 76. This work was done by the pilots and ground crew in the field. However, the insignia for the "Flying Tigers" – a winged Bengal Tiger jumping through a stylized V for Victory symbol – was developed by graphic artists from the Walt Disney Company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_art#History

 

[maximus otter]

See the detailed history at: https://hub.hku.hk/bitstream/10722/144492/1/Content.pdf?accept=1

There was bureaucratic motivation to somehow reflect or honor the contributions from the Far East. One was the funding for which the tank labeled Fan-Tan was supposed to be a symbol. The connection between tank painting and the Far East was that the Chinese Labor Corps was the auxiliary unit assigned to paint the tanks (and other vehicles) - including insignia, ID numbers, and camouflage.

Fascinating link, thanks.

maximus otter

 

[Mungoman]

Interesting topic, which got me thinking - in my time in Thailand, I never saw Eyes painted on their longboats...I wonder why?

It was common to see the boat builders (average Thai village shipwrights) just above the high tide mark slipping, or building these long boats out of wood, with the basest of tools.

There'd be garlands of cloth, and flowers around the prow piece, but that was all - and of course, powered with a 365 perkins...or something similar

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

Fearsome Fighter Face Fun Fact ...
The "shark face" motif is canonically associated with the American Volunteer Group (AVG) "Flying Tigers" who battled the Japanese in China on behalf of the Chinese government. However, the famous "shark face" didn't originate with the Flying Tigers. It actually originated with the German Luftwaffe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_art#History

Ah but the Italian WWI Nieuport-Maachi biplanes were decorated in similar manner long before the Luftwaffe adopted the idea.