by Admhawk » Fri Feb 13, 2015 9:41 am
In short, there is no straight answer. I'm pretty sure most came from the factory painted black, but that may have varied with available paint stock and at some point may have been grey. There was often a shortage of paint in Canada during the war and there are stories of sailors dumping canadian paint over the sides because it didn't stick very well, and using English or US stocks instead.
The problem comes when they are on the ships. Many, but not all, were painted in the colour of the ship. So some were WA green, or blue or B30 etc.. That's why it's so hard to tell from photos, because they weren't all the same.
Ships boats suffered this issue as well.
In short, there is no straight answer. I'm pretty sure most came from the factory painted black, but that may have varied with available paint stock and at some point may have been grey. There was often a shortage of paint in Canada during the war and there are stories of sailors dumping canadian paint over the sides because it didn't stick very well, and using English or US stocks instead.
The problem comes when they are on the ships. Many, but not all, were painted in the colour of the ship. So some were WA green, or blue or B30 etc.. That's why it's so hard to tell from photos, because they weren't all the same.
Ships boats suffered this issue as well.