Hiding the Lockheed Plant

During World War II, the Army Corps of Engineers decided that they needed to take steps to prevent the Lockheed Aircraft Plant in Burbank, California from being bombed by the Japanese.  The certainty of how well the Japanese could make it that far across the ocean undetected was in doubt, but at the same time, the aircraft developed at the Lockheed plant were so destructive to the Japanese forces, that this would've been an excellent candidate for bombing during the war.  Here is what the plant looked like from above before it was camouflaged:

And here is what it looked like after they camouflaged the plant:

You can see that the parking lot remains in the same place, and that at least at one or two spots, it remains uncovered, but unless the Japanese had time to look closely at every inch of the American landscape from above, there wouldn't have been much of a chance of them spotting the factory.  It's all still there!  Here's what it looked like from underneath the canopy:

Underneath the canopy was the rest of the plant and all of the buildings surrounding it.  The grass camouflage, commonly used in combat during the war, was employed here to make it look like a rural neighborhood.  They even went through camouflaging this slanted roof, which you can see in the aerial shot next to the main part of the factory.  It looks weird from here, but it looked real above!

They built model houses on the roof of the plant, and then set up trees to appear to blend in with the grass.  It was modeled off of the surrounding landscape, if it had not been a suburban landscape.

The parking lot was also covered.  It was relatively well guarded, and the engineers even went to the extent of moving cars around on the surrounding streets to appear to be parked, as if there was activity going on at the surrounding streets.  You can see the parking lot in the "before" picture above off to the left of the factory.  This was all covered.

As you can see, the cover from below looks relatively translucent, as if it should've been see-through, but as soon as you get above the canopy - as you can see from the rooftop shot - the canopy appeared very similar to grass, even at close distances.  From where a plane would be bombing, it was indistinguishable from the ground.

The whole purpose of this, obviously, was to protect the planes that the Lockheed plant was creating, most specifically, the P-38 Fighter, which had multiple uses, including bombing, ground attack, and air to air combat.  These planes shot down more Japanese aircraft than anything else in WWII.  Lockheed was also producing several Boeing B-17 Flying Fortresses and many other aircraft.  The Army didn't necessarily camouflage all of these plants, but felt it was necessary for Lockheed due to its proximity to the coast.