Watercolor Painting: Joseph Desch (2014)

Background

Inspired by the book The Secret in Building 26 (DeBrosse and Burke, 2004) and the PBS documentary, The Dayton Codebreakers, I wanted to know more about Joseph Desch - a central figure in the book and documentary.  Desch was a pivotal leader in the efforts by the United States and Britain to overcome the threat posed by the U-boats during World War II. He led a team at NCR (National Cash Register Company) in Dayton Ohio, to build machines (bombes) that could decode the secret messages encrypted by the Engima machines used by the German navy.

At first I wanted to create a simple portrait of Desch, but worried his accomplishments would not be conveyed adequately.  Erring on the side of too much information, I planned a large painting composed of sub-images that represented photographs and artifacts from Desch's time.  In essence, the painting would represent the Battle of the Atlantic (running across the painting clockwise from the bottom left to the right).  Given the secrecy associated with the work in building the bombes, I thought it would be appropriate that there would be an envelope with all the secrets tucked away somewhere (e.g. the NSA), and that at some point this envelope would suddenly spill out all the secrets.  This is actually close to the truth.  According to Deborah Anderson, daughter of Joseph Desch, the details of Joe's work and that of NCR in Dayton, did not become known until 1995.  So this painting represents the revelation of these secrets.  In no small measure, those secrets came to light because of Deborah's interest and probing into the history that her father swore to keep private for his entire life.

Knowing a little about the dire situation faced in Britain because of the U-boat imposed cut-off of the supply routes, another reason for me in creating this painting is to say "Thank you Joe".  Because of the top secret nature of the cryptanalysis projects, I doubt that Joe heard many people offering praise.   

Below I have included a photo of my painting along with the text used on its caption.  Details of how the painting was created is also given below.

Caption

Joseph R. Desch
(B.S. Electrical Engineering, University of Dayton, Class of 1929)

by David J. Wright (2014)
Watercolor, acrylic, gouache and ink on paper
Permanent loan to the University of Dayton


Joseph R. Desch (1907-1987), was the Research Director of a top secret project housed at NCR (National Cash Register Company) in Dayton, Ohio, during World War II. The involvement of Desch and Dayton with this project were revealed fifty years after the conclusion of the war.

German submarines (U-boats) had been sinking ships sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. When the United States entered World War II, it began an aggressive campaign to remove the U-boat threat. Understanding messages sent to and from the U-boats that had been encoded using the Enigma machines was a top priority. The US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory was setup to support Desch and his team in Building 26 on the NCR campus in Dayton, Ohio. In parallel with a similar operation at Bletchley Park, England, machines called “bombes” were built to decode Enigma messages.

Construction of 121 US Naval bombes, each weighing 5,000 lbs., was undertaken in Dayton by a workforce of civilian and naval personnel including 600 WAVES (women in the US Naval Reserve). Using an innovative combination of mechanical rotors and electrical components (thyratron vacuum tubes), the bombes were precursors to modern computers.

To the very end, German naval officers refused to believe their messages were being read by the allies, even as their submarine fleet was destroyed. Desch also played an important role in helping decode messages from the Japanese naval forces operating in the Pacific Ocean. The strain of this work took its toll on him.

Inventions of Joseph Desch and his team were instrumental in shortening World War II. He received the Medal of Merit from President Harry Truman in 1947. Desch is remembered as a pioneer in the nascent field of computer and information technologies.

Sources

Australian War Memorial (2013) http://www.awm.gov.au 

Bletchley Park Trust (2013) Google Cultural Institute: http://www.google.com/culturalinstitute 

Boslaugh D.L. (2013) The Story of the Naval Tactical Data System. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Global History Network, http://www.ieeeghn.org 

Buchheim L.-G. (1986) U-Boat War. Bonanza Books. New York, NY.

Crypto Museum (2013) http://www.cryptomuseum.com 

Dayton Codebreakers (2013) http://daytoncodebreakers.org (Documentary video and Web site)

DeBrosse J. and Burke C. (2004) The Secret in Building 26: The Untold Story of America's Ultra War against the U-boat Enigma Codes. Random House. New York, NY.

Horenberg M. (2013) Enigma Message Breaking Project, http://www.enigma.hoerenberg.com

Lee J.A.N., Burke C. and Anderson D. (2000) The US Bombes, NCR, Joseph Desch, and 600 WAVES: The First Reunion of the US Naval Computing Machine Laboratory. IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, spring 2000: pp.1-15. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/WAVES.pdf  

Mariners’ Museum (2013) http://www.marinersmuseum.org 

Morison S.E. (1956) The Atlantic Battle Won. History of United States Naval Operations in World War II. Volume 10. Little, Brown and Company. Boston, MA.

NCR Archive (2013) Dayton Historical Society, http://www.daytonhistory.org 

Pitt B. (1980) The Battle of the Atlantic. World War II Series. Time-Life Books. Alexandria, VA.

UK Imperial War Museums (2013) http://www.iwm.org.uk 

UK Royal Navy (2013) http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk 

US Library of Congress (2013) http://www.loc.gov 

US National Archives (2013) http://research.archives.gov 

US National Security Agency (2013) http://www.nsa.gov 

Wikipedia (2013) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

How the Painting was Made

The painting was created predominantly using watercolor (Winsor and Newton). Acrylic tinting (Winsor and Newton) was used to provide background color to each sub-image.  Some gouache was added in a few places for highlighting, watercolor pencil for the map, and ink-and-pen for the text.  Each sub-image was laid in a specific location based on an arrangement created using Microsoft PowerPoint.  All of the sub-images were created using one or more original photographs.  For example, the portrait of Joe Desch was a merger of a picture of Joe standing at his home and a photo from the NCR Archive showing the front of building 10.  The picture representing Alan Turing is actually of NCR leaders and guests standing on the steps to building 10.  I did this because presumably the Turing visit was so secretive, no photographs were taken (that I am aware of).  Knowing that Turing came to Dayton to see the bombes being designed and created, is an amazing piece of history.  All the original photographic images were reduced in size and printed using a laser printer (and frequently inverted), so that I could copy with tracing paper and graphite onto the much thicker watercolor paper (Arches, 140lb cold press).

The following images show various stages in the creation of the painting.

Watercolor Painting: The University of Dayton - circa 2008 (2013)

In the summer of 2013, I created this painting of the University of Dayton campus using watercolor and ink.  The painting represents a perspective of the campus viewed from a vantage point close to the Roesch Library building looking South East.  The painting is based on a UD photo (taken circa 2008) that had been used in promotional materials including a calendar (see below).  The image at the bottom shows the painting in progress.

Watercolor Painting: Main Street, Dayton, Ohio - circa 1910 (2013)

This is a painting I made using watercolor and ink, showing the Main Street of Dayton, Ohio around the year 1910.  This is a date that falls midway between the celebration held by the city for the return of the Wright Brothers after their invention of the airplane (the bunting was probably left over from this celebration), and before the devastating flood of 1913.  The image is a compilation of photo's and interpretation of photo's made of Dayton and the public transportation seen on the roads during the time.  The overall layout was derived largely from a photograph showing Main Street in the book, Dayton: On the Wings of Progress (Lester Reingold, 2005).  I was fascinated by the hustle and bustle of Main Street during a market day, with the various competing forms of transportation.  As a nod to the changes brought by the Wright brothers, you can see at one end of the street a bicycle and at the other in the distance, the Wright Flyer airplane.  Two pigeons can be seen nervously watching the new developments in the air. 

Two photo's showing the painting in various stages of development.  Following a pencil sketch, ink was used followed by watercolor.

Watercolor Painting: Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales - circa 2010 (2013)

I really enjoyed creating this painting of Cathays Park, Cardiff, Wales.  This is my home and birthplace.  Most of the buildings seen in the foreground are part of the capital city's civic center.  The picture was created using Google Earth to allow an aerial perspective showing the Welsh National War Memorial located in Alexandra Gardens with the City Hall and the National Museum of Wales in the mid-distance.  The view is facing South towards Cardiff Bay and the Bristol Channel.

These images show the painting being created using a pencil outline, followed by ink and watercolor:

Watercolor Paintings from 2012-2013

The following paintings were all made during a span of two years.  I think my confidence in using watercolors grew over this time.  Each picture is a lesson for me.  Today I look back at them and wish I could do them over with the insights that came during their creation.  That's one of the fun things about painting.  Constant learning!

These are five paintings from my homeland and birthplace, Wales.  The first shows Castell Coch (The Red Castle) near Cardiff:

This is the market place in the Cardiff city center (based on a photo in Wikipedia):

This is a Roman set of steps near Harlech Castle (based on a photo in a Welsh tourist guide):

This is the Norman Keep in the middle of Cardiff Castle (based on a photo in Wikipedia):

This is a double decker bus from Cardiff in the color scheme I remember as a child (based on a photo in Streets of Cardiff by Roger Davies, 2006):

These two paintings are based on images found in The Watercolorist's Essential Notebook - Landscapes (Gordon MacKenzie, 2006)

Here are flowers (water lilies and roses) growing in the garden:

Fall colors in our backyard:

One of our garden containers on a deck railing:

Three paintings I created based on photographs posted on the State of Ohio Department of Natural Resources Website:

Early Watercolor Paintings

I have been painting for as long as I can remember.  Only in the past year (2013) have I realized that painting offered me a great way to unwind.  So on the one hand I paint to relax, but perhaps because of my scientific training, painting is also a way to observe the world around me.  To paint something, requires the learned skill of seeing.

Here are some of my paintings from 1992-1993.  I lost a number of early paintings because of termites that worked their way into our basement.

This painting was based on a very early photograph shown in a compilation of images from the National Geographic Magazine:

These were inspired by the zinnia's growing in our container garden:

This was based on an image in the book Painting Natures Details in Watercolor (Cathy Johnson, 1987):

I cannot remember for sure, but this may be based on an advertisement:

And this shows the town of Hoorn in Holland, based on a photo in a tourist guide:

Learning Assessment Today

Here is the text of an article I wrote for the University of Dayton, Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center Newsletter for Spring 2014 (see http://www.udayton.edu/ltc/_resources/documents/newsletter/ltcnews_s14.pdf) 

Since its inception, higher education has employed methods to ascertain whether students had learned the prescribed course materials. With such a fundamental role, it can therefore be both exciting and daunting to realize that learning assessment is changing quickly today. Here are some trends that faculty should be considering:

• Assessment is increasingly seen as a critical and natural part of learning. It should not be considered as merely an endpoint of a course, but should be seen as part of a continual cycle of information processing by the human brain. In other words, assessment should not be limited to high-stakes mid- and end-of-term exams, papers or reports. It needs to occur frequently throughout the semester using low-stakes methods to provide feedback along the way. Learning assessments should therefore be used for both formative and summative purposes.
• There is a rich and growing diversity of assessment methods. Examples include visual concept maps, short in-class writing assignments, clickers, inquiry- and problem-based assignments. A diversity of methods allows students to explore the same concept through different “lenses” and to engage students using modalities and approaches that they may prefer. Simple methods that do not take long to grade should be used to ensure feedback is returned quickly to keep students on-track.
• Online assessments are a perfect complement to face-to-face courses. Although many faculty think of online quizzes and assignments serving the needs of distance learning courses, they are increasingly used for face-to-face courses. At UD we have noted a growth in the numbers of quizzes and assignments being collected within Isidore due to greater usage in all types of courses. Rubrics (scoring guides that clearly documents evaluation criterion) are available within Isidore on request.
• Flipped classes will grow the use of assessment in the classroom. Inverted or “flipped classes” typically moves the delivery of course content online. Such classes then free up the time in the classroom for applying what is learnt and invariably uses a rich set of assessment methods. For many faculty using this approach, it is not uncommon to completely rethink how to engage students through assessments.
• Long-term authentic assessment of student learning calls for the use of portfolios. Academic programs are built with an expectation that knowledge, skills and an appreciation for the discipline is developed across a sequence of courses and through co-curricular activities. Individual course grades rarely capture a holistic or developmental view of these experiences. Portfolios are seen as one of the most powerful ways to more comprehensively capture the entire learning experience and to provide opportunities to foster student reflection.
• Learning assessment data is increasingly used for program evaluation. Whether for a major or for cross-disciplinary programs such as the Common Academic Program, there is an increasing importance placed on how program effectiveness is judged by student learning outcomes. It makes sense when designing assessments for a particular class that the resulting graded work will be in a format that can be used to document teaching effectiveness and course alignment with program goals. An increasing number of faculty will discover that effective assessment plans will be designed through close collaboration with peers and that careful attention should be placed on the design and use of student learning outcome statements.

Well-crafted learning assessments have never been a more important part of higher education. Faculty are increasingly called to create assessment plans that serve many roles, not only to guide and grade students but to evaluate programs. Additional reasons for rethinking assessment will come in the near future with the advent of wearable computing devices such as “smart” watches and eyeglasses. Take advantage of the services and resources of the Ryan C. Harris Learning Teaching Center to discover more about learning assessment. For example:

• www.udayton.edu/ltc/writing/assessment_resources
• www.udayton.edu/udit/communications_collaboration/e-learning/isidore201.php
• www.udayton.edu/udit/communications_collaboration/e-learning/clickers.php