DECRA Roofing Systems has a captivating history dating back to
World War II. Frequent bombings on British soil by the German
Luftwaffe produced an urgent need to reconstruct many buildings
quickly and easily out of makeshift materials. The most common
material used were sheets of corrugated metal. While the
corrugated metal provided a quick remedy to reconstruct damaged
buildings, evening bombing raids continued to be menacing. The
Luftwaffe dropped flairs to help illuminate the bombing runs.
Since the new buildings were made of a shiny reflective metal,
they became easy targets because they illuminated the bombsite.
The problem was compounded during the war years, because the use
of oil-based paint to protect and camouflage buildings was
impossible to obtain outside military applications. To alleviate
the problem, an emulsion coating from coal products was
developed to be applied to both new and existing steel and
corrugated iron structures and provide camouflage. The chemical
emulsion claimed to be "acid-pr