dickrd

I don’t think we need to be disputatious! It is difficult to interpret tone in the written word but my “must” as in “This camouflage design must have been applied for that purpose” was a musing/pondering sort of must! On reflection “could” would perhaps have been a better choice of word. Anyhow that train of thought followed on from your suggestion further above that Ekins was painted in the so-called Channel scheme (“gay Channel camouflage”) during the summer of 1944 for her duties in support of D Day. If she was then a conscious decision must have been made afterwards when deployed back to North Sea duties to repaint out of the Channel Scheme into the scheme photographed at Harwich in November for her later 1944 role(s). But maybe we should question whether she was ever in the Channel Scheme? Is there evidence for that? Best wishes, Richard

Boot topping should have been a glossy black and so should (and often does) look darker than the black of pendant numbers. But that contrast at the stern is considerable and is indeed why I suggested the possibility of red pendant numbers, which although officially outlawed did happen in practice. (A very dirty white ensign I think.)

Well it frustrates me that we have been unable to arrive at a satisfactory suggestion for the colours on Ekins. Digging around I find that as a Coastal Forces Control Frigate late 1944 her role was to provide radar guidance to the patrol lines of MTBs/MGBs off the Dutch coast aiming to strangle the E-boat threat. This camouflage design must have been applied for that purpose, inspired perhaps by the USN Measure 22 design. As Jamie has said, it is very risky to make judgements on things from just one or two photos. And we have all sorts of contradictory signals from these two images of Ekins at Harwich: light draught marks should indicate a darkish toned lower hull paint but dark pendant numbers on that same lower hull colour should on the contrary suggest something towards the lighter end of the tonal range! There is quite a degree of contrast between the pendant numbers (black?/red even?) and the darker paint so my guess is that the darker colour was around 20% RF ie that it was B20 or G20 or the ‘emergency’ equivalent of G20 achieved by a 50/50 mix of 507A & 507C. The tonal contrast with the upper colour is small. Like Jamie, my guess is therefore that the upper colour was around 30% RF in which case B30 would be the official candidate. But I would not rule out completely unofficial colours on Ekins to produce something bespoke for the task at hand. Minesweepers operating out of Harwich to clear the minefields off the Belgian and Dutch coast at exactly this time, November 1944, look like they might even have been painted in a completely unofficial way including shades of green and brown: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/3263 (Bone was no run-of-the-mill civilian war artist. He had been part of the Leamington camouflage design team and so would have known the official naval colours intimately.)

Given Our Ned's find of a photo of Ekins in the normal delivery paint scheme of Captains for the RN from US yards, I have waded into the pond and retrieved my stone.

(I cannot see what Jamie has said immediately above?) I'm going to throw a stone in the pond! Given that the camouflage design can be said to not properly match any official British scheme (we would need to debate whether she was deemed to have a forecastle deck or one long upper deck), I find myself wondering if she is still in an American delivery paint job ie USN Measure 22. That would be (weathered) 5-N blue lower and 5-H grey upper. This is her sister ship USS Donnell: The lighter funnel on Ekins may be a UK touch-up repaint using (the lighter than 5-H) RN G45 paint? https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205157999

Also some of them actually were painted different colours. Also, if I remember correctly, you see every ship twice. You see them from a slightly different angle/position on Saratoga in the two parts of the film ie there were two cameras filming this sail-past. If so, this would naturally cause differences.

The version of the photo of Kipling in Langtree’s book is much darker than the one on the IWM site (Rob: A 4348 is the photo on page 116): https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205138643 Although the bright sunlight and sun angle are an issue here, on balance I doubt Kipling was in 507C given the apparent difference in tone with other ships in frame and given that the draught marks are white. They were normally, but not always, black on a 507C background. I think there is every chance that Kipling was in Mountbatten Pink. One of the strange things about Langtree’s otherwise excellent book is his absolute blind spot re Mountbatten Pink on the destroyers of the 5th Flotilla. In his detailed listing of the various schemes on pages 52 & 53, Mountbatten Pink is not included other than in a footnote as being a possibility on Kelly Jan-Apr 41. His explanation is on pages 49 & 50: basically he found no evidence to support the idea. However, fairly early on in my researches into WW2 RN paints I came across a file memo personally signed by Mountbatten himself explaining the background, the colours he used to mix it and then explicitly saying: “I gave the formula to ships of my Flotilla to try and it proved quite successful”. I found that memo in the collection of the Admiralty Library at Portsmouth. Looking at Langtree’s sources on pages 219-220 it looks as if he essentially confined his primary research to the Public Records Office (now The National Archives) at Kew and the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and did not visit the Admiralty Library. But I also came across this 1942 document at Kew: I am always amused when I read Peter Scott's (he who invented the Western Approaches camouflage) comments about Mountbatten Pink. Scott writes that the "curious" colour was used on destroyers of the 5th Flotilla (Eye of the Wind, 1961 edition page 392) and was compared with the colours he had had his ship Broke painted in. In Scott's words "There was nothing magic about Mountbatten pink except the name".

I am having a rethink about the scheme on Mutine. On closer inspection the photo (FL 16588) does not after all tally exactly with the design sheet illustration in Hodges' book. Also the design sheet in Hodges is given as dated 12th August 1942, But Mutine was of course not completed until late February 1943 which gives plenty of time for a reworked design to have been issued. I will discuss with Jamie to see if he wishes to illustrate some options. Nothing is simple with RN WW2 camouflage!

Yes.

Jamie, Yes, the 507A was for the deck according to the design in Hodges' book. Please note though that your drawing above is based on photo A 15858 which is a censored and reversed image. This is actually the starboard side pattern as you can see if you click on the link I gave above. The portside pattern was different. If you don't have Hodge's book let me know and I'll e-mail you the page so you can draw that too! Best wishes, Richard

I think we can say with an unusually high degree of confidence what the colours were on Mutine in 1942 in photo FL 16588. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205121294 The design for this scheme features in Hodges’ Royal Navy Warship Camouflage 1939-45, page 21, noted as taken from a design dated August 12, 1942. This would be one of the long-lost Leamington design sheets. The colours are given as B5, MS4 and MS4A (which are of course correct in-use colours at that date). Then there exist in the Admiralty Library archive at Portsmouth various actual paint sample cards. Amongst them is a set of three annotated on the rear “Mutine”. The colours of these are B5, MS4 and MS4A. In this case I don’t think the evidence for the colour palette could be any stronger! I think it's an MS4 hull, MS4A upperworks with stripes of B5 and a B5 funnel.

Jamie, Rather than clutter up this thread with iterations I will e-mail you some adjustments and then we can perhaps talk on the phone to talk them through as last time. Best wishes,

Re C & D v X & Y, sorry, an early morning brain failure - getting my tones and turrets muddled - I will correct that! Thanks for the pointer to those other 20mm - I see them now.

I hope everyone has had as pleasant an Easter as was possible in the circumstances. As I suspected, I did not have very many photos of the port side of Kent for the period we are interested in (Sep 41- Apr 42) but I do want to suggest a small change to Jamie's illustration above. None of the photos widely available show any vertical demarcation at the stern between the tone of the aft-most camouflage panel on the starboard side and whatever you can see of the aft-most camouflage panel on the port side. Nor does the very poor quality photo of that area I posted higher up this page show anything either. I suspect it was the same colour both sides that wrapped around the stern ie the aft-most panel on the port side was Tone C not Tone B as in Jamie's drawing above. This seems to me to be confirmed by this image (dated 12th April 1942): I can see no actual vertical demarcation in the painting of the portside of B turret. A straight vertical there would in any case seem to have no place in this curvaceous scheme. I suspect that what might be showing there in the photo that seems to show something is some sort of water staining/run-off. Perhaps it had been raining - the sky looks cloudy/grey enough? I'll come back on the decks in another post once we have thrashed this one around. One question from me: I can locate 4 of the 6 Oerlikons said to be on Kent in this period (2 on B, 2 on X). The tub on the quarterdeck seems to be empty . Where are Nos 5 & 6?

The deck being painted photo (still form a bit of film) of mine that Jamie posted above is dated 16 August 1940 and relates to the camouflage scheme Kent was wearing when torpedoed in the Med. Someone on Kent must have liked patterning the decks as this was done again with her new late 1941 scheme. My current impression is that the wooden decks were Tone C with patterns of Tone A and Tone B carried up from the hull sides across the deck. Tone D was not taken up across the deck. The darker of the two tones visible on the quarterdeck in the hockey photo is Tone B carried up from the starboard side there. Aft of that was Tone C. The Tone A starboard hull panel was carried onto the deck along the whole length of that Tone A panel as can be seen in this later (radar now fitted aft) photo. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/75/a8001875.shtml Being upward facing in summer sun the tone here appears lighter than the tone on the side of the hull but I have other photos from the period we are interested in not taken in strong sunlight where it appears just a dark as the hull and superstructure. I need a bit of time to go through what I have and see if I can come back to you with something more detailed. I also want to think through the portside colours again.