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14. Working Fire monitor. (Ref: GR2350)
15. Halifax (Ref: MV37)
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WR Press

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Camouflage Vol Four Supplemental
Ref: WR9
In this volume, which is the last to deal with camouflage of the Royal Navy in World War Two, an attempt has been made to cover some of the designs for which there was no room in the previous three.

Included are two sections that readers might find of interest; these are the patterns worn by the many types of landing craft in the latter part of the war, and athwartship views of bridges, turrets, hangars and those cruisers with square sterns.

In the case of the camouflage for the landing craft, not all of the many variants of those craft have been illustrated, and modelers should refer to photos to fill the gaps. Those that are shown display the patterns ‘as issued’ by the camouflage directorate. Variations did of course appear and reference should be made wherever possible to photos of individual craft.

Even though the four volumes that make up this series contain over six hundred pieces of artwork there are still many vessels that have been left out. In the case of major warships, only a relative few of the hundreds of ASW ships that served have been illustrated and the same applies to the minor ships such as the thousands of trawlers requisitioned into naval service. However it is hoped that these volumes will help with an understanding of the story of Royal Navy camouflage in World War Two.

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Essex Class Aircraft Carriers of WW2
Ref: WR8
The design of the Essex class began in 1939 before the start of the war in Europe. Under the terms of the then still current naval treaty the Americans were allowed to build one carrier of up to a maximum of 20000 tons which meant that the new ship would have generally the same characteristics as that of the Yorktown class.

With the British having gone to war in September and their almost immediate withdrawal from the treaty, the Americans were now free to pursue unlimited construction in numbers and displacement. The design for CV-9 was now essentially scrapped and a new range of designs was drawn up. Armor was increased, as was the flight deck area; the close range AA weapons were changed from all single 5inch to twin 5inch mounts; the machinery was now arranged in an alternate boiler room/machinery room style; this gave a far greater resistance to damage. The end result of all the changes over the original design was one that had a length of 872 feet and a displacement of 33,000 tons.

Like all the other books in Warship Perspective Series, this book is aimed at the warship enthusiast and modeller and contains general arrangement plans, fittings drawings, camouflage patterns and technical charts, data and many contemporary photographs.

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Camouflage Vol Three 1943-1944
Ref: WR6
The widespread use of patterned camouflage in 1942 carried over into 1943 on every type of major surface warship. On the many escorts operating in the North Atlantic, almost every one wore the Western Approaches type or a variant thereof. Escorts serving on East Coast convoys showed a mix of Western Approaches and Admiralty Disruptive schemes.

On the destroyers of the Home Fleet, most of the 0 class continued to wear variants of the Special Emergency Fleet Scheme, while ships of other classes wore a variety of schemes including a few in Western Approaches camouflage, such as the Meteor, Matchless and the Athabaskan. Admiralty Class Disruptive patterns were to be seen on ships of the S, W and V classes.

On the destroyers serving in the Mediterranean there was a swing away from patterned camouflage, with a gradual emphasis on the two toned straight lined schemes.
The destroyers working in the Indian Ocean appeared in some instances to have discarded their Official Disruptive patterns that had been applied in Home Waters in 1942, and adopted the simple two toned camouflage.

Cruisers continued to display a whole range of individual Admiralty designs. The 1943 patterns began to use the 1943 range of colours, some of which had been introduced into service in the summer of the previous year. These designs continued the trend toward simpler patterns and a reduction in the number of colours used down to three and sometimes two

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Camouflage Vol Two: Royal Navy 1942
Ref: WR5
The general state of the Navy as regards camouflage at the beginning of 1942 was a seemingly unfathomable mix of unofficial designs; Western Approaches style, official Admiralty disruptive types and threaded throughout, the use of overall one colour designs using Mountbatten Pink, dark grey or medium grey. Some ships wore dark grey hulls with light grey upper works, and then there was the rare use of camouflage for special operations.

The early months of 1942 saw the widespread use of camouflage from battleships down to motor launches and although the use of one colour types could still be found, patterned camouflage prevailed so that by late 1942 it was rare to see a major warship without it. The unofficial types, so prevalent in 1941 rapidly disappeared, and even Mountbatten Pink, which was a type officially sanctioned had vanished by years end.

By the middle of 1942 many small ships had adopted one of the 1942 Admiralty disruptive patterns or were wearing one of the Western Approaches designs. So great was the consumption of tinting materials from early 1941 onwards that there arose a shortage of certain colours by mid 1942. In order to allow the continued use of patterned disruptive designs, a special disruptive type was produced, to be worn only by Fleet destroyers. Known as the 'Special Emergency Fleet Destroyer Scheme', the pattern used new colours which were; G20, B30, G45 and white. Although very similar to the earlier range in tone, the actual colours showed a difference when first applied. The Special Fleet scheme was taken up mainly by ships of the '0' class and by some of the Tribals and was even worn by the Battle Class destroyer Barfleur in 1945. As with other designs it was not always worn as per the issued pattern and there were many variations. Generally however the essence of the design was retained. As far as the Western Approaches designs were concerned their general use had spread to the point where it had overwhelming use on escort ships operating in the North Atlantic.

In addition to the 1941 patterns, the camouflage department had issued in 1942 a large number of class patterns suitable for use on almost any class of small ship. In these 1942 patterns there was less use of the pale green, with some having only Western Approaches blue and white. So successful was the Western Approaches type that in some cases it was taken to the absolute extreme with a few vessels being painted in overall white without any measure of disruption in the form of pale blue or green panels. The first ships to use the 'White' camouflage were those under the command of Captain Baker-Creswell during the winter of 1942/42 and included the destroyers Bulldog, Amazon and Broadway and the Corvettes Aubrietia, Hollyhock and Nigella. These ships were only painted white during the winter months, and in the summer reverted back to Mountbatten Pink, the latter colour was the one that Baker Creswell felt was best for concealment at dawn and dusk, the most critical time for escorts and ships in convoy.

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Camouflage Vol One
Ref: WR2
These writings had their origins in the mid-nineteen sixties after the author found it impossible to correctly ascertain the camouflage of various warships. The subsequent search for information led to substantial research into the subject and to the realization that some definitive writing was needed. On several occasions the production of a dedicated volume seemed near, but only now (2000) was the time deemed to be right.

The preceding thirty-five years has seen a small number of writings produced, some by this author, but none could be described as having in-depth coverage, and a percentage have been badly inaccurate and ambiguous.

The Royal Navy was the biggest user of seagoing camouflage in the Second World War. In spite of this widespread usage, camouflage was generally felt to be one of the minor aspects of the many wartime efforts and it’s effectiveness was often impossible to quantify. Because it played a peripheral role, it is not surprising that definitive documentation on the subject is a mixture of the sparse and the non-existent.

Royal Navy use of camouflage was a much fragmented affair, due mainly to the fact that the camouflage section formed part of a miscellaneous staff department and did not have anywhere near the authority of other departments. The issued instructions became more of a set of recommendations and advice rather than sets of orders, and when coupled with the independent nature of the average British captain, resulted in a six year period that saw everything from strictly correct usage, to any number of individual ideas and colors. Very often the unofficial or amateur idea was carried by only one vessel, and then sometimes by whole commands depending upon the interest or whim of individual or group commanders. So prevalent were these practices that the British story has been extremely difficult to reconstruct. As a large percentage of the story is without official documentation, the author spent many years in correspondence and in interviewing trying to find and piece the parts together.

The tracking down of the large number of colors used was a long and great search, one that the author believes has been successful in that almost every known color used by the Royal Navy in the 1939-45 period has been located in the form of official color cards or a written formula.

This volume does not pretend to be complete, the very nature of the subject precludes this, but for the first time the story is given in some degree of depth and covers many of the side branches that people have wanted to know about for many years. Inevitably there are areas on which little or no information was forthcoming; these aside, the story is reasonably complete and accurate and should answer most questions about this somewhat esoteric but visually interesting subject.

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