Matchbox HMS KELLY

[spaddad]

Hi naval peeps,

hoping that some of you guys can help me out with some colour info. I'm building the Matchbox Kelly & was wondering how accurate the kits painting instructions are.They offer 2 schemes, one overall 'light grey' which I assume is immediate pre hostilities & one 'sea grey', presumably immediate post hostilities. Also I was wondering if there was a standard colour scheme for the carley rafts & ships boats, any help would be appreciated, thanks,

spad

[Graham Boak]

Pop across to Sovereign Hobbies and look at their notes on RN WW2 camouflage, which is recently researched from original files and is somewhat different to what was previously perceived as wisdom.  The prewar light grey was known as 507C, and was for ships in warmer climes, notably the Mediterranean.  The Home Fleet grey was darker and known as 507A.  However once war broke out then a number of different camouflage schemes were adopted, and you will need better knowledge of the individual ship's history.  Some of its flotilla were painted in Mountbatten Pink, a favourite of its commander if no-one else.  Kelly ended up in the Med, where a lot of destroyers were painted with 507A hulls and 507C superstructures.  Kelly didn't last to post-hostilities nor did many of her sister ships in the J and K classes.  Decks would be a slightly darker grey with reddish-brown corticene (linoleum) laid over walkways or where people would be standing for any length of time.

 

I don't want to say too much as I'd be straying out of my main area of interest without decent references to hand - of which there are not many, but Alan Raven published a number of works on RN camouflages which certainly included some K class destroyers: given a bit more time I can dig some of these out.  

[spaddad]

Hi Graham,

thanks for your reply, most helpful, I'll certainly follow up on your suggestions. I know Kelly didn't survive the war, by post hostilities I meant Sep. 3 1939. I know a bit about the history of Kelly, she was built in my home town & I have attended several remembrance day parades as an ATC cadet at Hebburn cemetery where several of her crew are buried, once when Mounbatten was in attendance. I assume her repaint took place after her first round of repairs, necessitated due to storm damage, or after her encounter with a mine off the Tyne in Dec.'39. When I was serving my apprenticeship one of the fitters had worked on the mine repairs when she came back into Leslies for repairs, he said their first job was to wash the human remains off the bulkheads etc., can you imagine the youf of today dealing with that?

Does anybody else do a kit of the Kelly in a bigger scale?

Would certainly appreciate any stuff you could dig out Graham,

thanks,

spad

[Courageous]

If you have the wallet their is this.

 

Stuart

[Graham Boak]

Well, Stuart has just clarified what would have been my response "Find who is selling the White Ensign kits".  The price is not excessive for resin kits, particularly the WEM examples which are the Rolls-Royce of the industry.  They do however make the Matchbox Kelly look like something Fred Flintstone might have been pushing along.  Be prepared for very tiny etched brass, but fortunately you can do a very nice model whilst ignoring the more awkward bits!  You might be able to find a resin J/K from Niko or HP-Models but I'm sure you won't get a better one.

 

There are two references you will find very helpful.  The first is Christopher Langtree's The Kellys, which might be slightly difficult to get nowadays but is well worth the effort.  The other is much more readily available, Les Brown's Shipcraft 21 British Destroyers: J-C and Battle class.  I got mine from Transport Models in Preston, so it should be easy to find.  This does include a build of the 1/350 WEM Kelly, in Mountbatten Pink.  It shows green decks which rather surprises me.  Langtree's book did have a profile of Kelly herself with dark hull and light uppers, described as briefly used in 1940.  I think that both books talk about 507B, which if you've read the Sovereign Hobby site you'll treat with some reserve.  I looked in Alan Ravens books but couldn't find anything on Kelly herself, but there were a number of different patterns used on other Ks in the Mediterranean.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Graham Boak

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On the subject of deck colours, we have found that three distinct but equivalent trowelled-on anti-slip compounds were in use simultaneously. Semtex was but one brand name of the three.

 

We know that one was green, one was brown and the last was "the colour of dry asphalt" but we don't know anything about the character of the green or brown, or which colour corresponded to which brand nor any way to determine which brand was used on any specific ship.

[Chewbacca]

On ‎01‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 22:07, spaddad said:

Hi Graham,

thanks for your reply, most helpful, I'll certainly follow up on your suggestions. I know Kelly didn't survive the war, by post hostilities I meant Sep. 3 1939. I know a bit about the history of Kelly, she was built in my home town & I have attended several remembrance day parades as an ATC cadet at Hebburn cemetery where several of her crew are buried, once when Mounbatten was in attendance. I assume her repaint took place after her first round of repairs, necessitated due to storm damage, or after her encounter with a mine off the Tyne in Dec.'39. When I was serving my apprenticeship one of the fitters had worked on the mine repairs when she came back into Leslies for repairs, he said their first job was to wash the human remains off the bulkheads etc., can you imagine the youf of today dealing with that?

Does anybody else do a kit of the Kelly in a bigger scale?

Would certainly appreciate any stuff you could dig out Graham,

thanks,

spad

My Grandfather lived in Hebburn all his life and worked at most of the Tyne shipbuilders over the years.  I remember him saying that he worked on KELLY when she was in build and then worked on her again when she came back in for repairs but I'm not sure if it was after hitting the mine or being attacked by E Boats off Norway.  The family connection was then completed when my father served under Lord Mountbatten in the Far East.  Suffice to say I shall be tackling one of the Atlantic Models kits at some point.

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

John Snyder suggested Mountbatten Pink if modelling her in the Med. Flyhawk have announced a new HMS Kelly kit in 1/700. It will be the best by a long mile, when it eventually emerges.

 

thanks

Mike

[Graham Boak]

Just started rereading Langtree's The Kellys.   He feels that if Kelly had been repainted Mountbatten Pink, Mountbatten would have mentioned it in one of his many reports.

[spaddad]

Just been watching "In Which We Serve" on the telly & was wondering about the Ju-88 shown during the sinking sequences. It undoubtedly is a real Ju-88 but was stock film used or was it perhaps a captured aircraft loaned to the film company for the making of the film. As the film was made with the help of the ministry of information (in 1942) it seems quite possible this could indeed be the case. Discuss.

[Graham Boak]

Langtree gives eight different camouflages for Kelly, beginning and ending with overall 507C Mediterranean light grey.  All fairly simple in one or two shade of three basic greys, nothing  involved.  If you want to make her from the Matchbox kit that means two sets of torpedo tubes, no Oerlikons, no additional aerials.   By the end she had two Oerlikons, the 4in AA gun,  Type 285 radar and the later HF/DF aerial in front of the bridge, but these seem to have been only on her final state.  In between she did carry the larger HF/DF on top of the mast.

 

So pick your date.