Dear Guest,
I would not say dubious, no. As stated in my first post I am aware that the Royal Navy did not typically paint the planked areas of their battleship decks. All I was trying to say is that there remains a remote possibility that the planked decks were painted at the time the camouflage was applied in 1942?
As per your late father's evidence we now know without any doubt whatsoever that there was no deck paint up until Philadelphia in 1941. Of course all the circumstantial evidence points to continued creosoting into 1942 when the camouflage was applied. I'm just not sure we can absolutely categorically state beyond any doubt the decks were not painted in 1942 when the camouflage was applied? Though it does now seem rather unlikely that they were painted. Indeed I would much prefer to find out that the decks were stained as that looks far better on a model than a painted deck!
It is very difficult to tell such things from black and white photos. Hence my original question as to whether there was any documentary evidence of painted decks, as opposed to photographic evidence? For example, it is an indisputable fact that the USS Missouri had blue painted planked decks at the time of the Japanese surrender ceremony in September 1945. Yet in this preview photo here from Getty Images you can still see the joints in the timber planking and there is not much to say one way or the other whether they were painted or merely stained based on this one photo alone:
https://www.gettyimages.ie/detail/news-photo/allied-officers-crew-crowd-decks-of-the-american-battleship-news-photo/53370187?adppopup=trueThe decks in that photo look darker than the light grey turret sides but lighter than the blast bags and recoil bands on the 16 inch guns. That is about all that can be said. And even at that there is potential for mishap due to different photo film being biased towards different colours etc. A great example is black and white photos of 1930s red white and blue Spanish Civil War Neutrality Markings on battleship gun turrets. They frequently look
'the other way around' to the way they really were.
Yes you are perfectly right that Profile Morskie show planked shelter decks and that this is incorrect. I have the Kagero plans for H.M.S. Royal Oak and these make the same error. As does every model kit I have ever seen of the R Class including a brand new resin one of Royal Oak in 1/700. I noticed this before and posted about it in the
'Calling all 'R Class fans' thread. This photo among others from the Imperial War Museum shows no planking thereby disproving the planking theory:
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205135890 .
It is H.M.S. Revenge taken in 1940. There are other IWM photos from the First World War of H.M.S. Royal Oak that further reinforce this point. I scraped off the planking for my still work in progress 1/500 HMS Royal Oak as per photo here:
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Your point about the areas of corticene on the bridge deck is spot-on too.
Many thanks once again for your informed comments. I very much appreciate them. Indeed that is the strong point of a forum like this, to be able to get in touch with people and find out vital pieces of evidence such as this.