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Old 10-15-21, 08:36 AM   #1
gap
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Join Date: Jan 2011
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Icon1 About merchant ship wartime colours

Interesting read:

https://www.shipsnostalgia.com/threa...colours.29141/

summarizing:
  1. Grey paint was the general rule for Allied merchant vessels. Some ships had funnel tops and top half of masts painted white so to blend with the sky.

  2. Apparently there was no official rule prescribing the above, so the grey paint was more a matter of common selse by shipmasters/shipowners than else.

  3. As a consequence of the previous point, there was not a sudden transition from peacetime colours to wartime grey. Some ships - probably the ones whose trading routes were closer to the main war theatres - were repainted at the earliest opportunity after the war broke out, whereas a few others are reported to have switched colours as late as January 1941.

  4. Ships built during the war were delivered in grey paint. Late in the war a few Liberty ships might have sported dazzle comoufflages too, but that was not universal.

  5. The implementation of safety rules was somehow more strict for ships sailing in convoys. These rules included:
    • avoiding bright hull/superstructure colours;
    • not having the ship name painted on the hull;
    • no dark funnel smokes (this would have ruled out old coal-burning steamers from convoys).

  6. As far as I can understand, breaking the first of the aforementioned rules would have had no other consequence than a harsh reprimand by the convoy commodore, which implies that, occasionally, ships in peacetime colours might still be found within Allied convoys.

  7. Demonstration of the above, is that - as reported by a WWII survivor - neutral ships retained their company colours for most of the war even when sailing in convoys. If I can add a personal note, this might have been sort of a nonsense. According to German engagement rules any ship sailing within Allied convoys, even though belonging to a neutral nation, would have been a valid target, and retaining peacetime colours would only have made her an easier prey. In other words, convoy protection would have nullified "neutrality privileges" or, even worse, it could have rendered them counterproductive, but this is probably something which was not so clear at that time.
If you have any other information on the subject, be it in form of pictures, documents, first-hand reports or simple impressions, you are welcomed to share them here
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