I quite understand the problem getting one’s mind around the idea that many RN hull bottoms in WW2 were grey! If it helps, here is an August 1916 Fleet Order showing that the Admiralty’s official preference became for grey at that time. I have not (so far at any rate) found any subsequent order cancelling this order.
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AFO 1972 1916.jpg [ 63.37 KiB | Viewed 8297 times ]
Re “reports” of red or brown or red-brown in relation to HMS Prince of Wales & HMS Repulse on 10th December 1941, it would be helpful if any such references could be cited so we can see how many reports there actually were and how accurate they might be.
These are the ones I have come across:
On page 133 of Arthur Nicholson’s book ‘Hostages to Fortune’ eye-witness Lt Cdr Buckley reports seeing the “clean red hull” of HMS Repulse as she turned over and sank. Given that her last docking looks like it was mid July - mid August her bottom was unlikely to have been clean.
On pages 108-109 of Geoffrey Brooke’s personal account of his time on HMS Prince of Wales in his book ‘Alarm Starboard’:
“….The great battleship continued to roll slowly away; as her upperworks dwindled and then vanished, the grey paint on her hull changed to brown as the dividing black line of her boot-topping rose out of the water, and the men at the guardrails began to climb over and slide down this treacherous slope…..The ship was now nearly bottom up with the main keel rolling, if more gently…..she then came to a standstill, a 700-foot waterlogged cylinder of brown, the forefoot higher than the stern….”
Earlier, on page 93, he wrote that on 7th December whilst at Singapore “The Prince of Wales had been moved into dry dock for a quick scrape of her bottom…to remove speed-reducing weed….”
(It is unclear from Brooke’s account exactly how many of the six days that Prince of Wales was at Singapore she was in dry dock, but it reads like she did not enter dry dock immediately and was out of it immediately news of Japanese attacks was received on the morning of the 8th.)
It is always tricky to decide what weighting to give to eye-witness accounts concerning colour written decades after the event, but in this case we know that the upper hull of HMS Prince of Wales was not uniformly grey.
Another account re Prince of Wales, by Telegraphist C V House on page 249 of Middlebrook’s book ‘Battleship: The Loss of the Prince of Wales and Repulse’, reads: “The ship was at an angle of about 45 degrees, the sides thick with oil”. (House was sitting on the armoured plating on the hull side where it jutted out and was referring to the hull below him ie the lower hull.)
My hunch is that the "brown" Brooke remembered on the lower hull was one or other of, or a mixture of both, areas of rust exposed by the “quick scrape” at Singapore and patches of fuel oil. From her movements it looks as if Prince of Wales would not have had the opportunity for a proper docking and full repaint of her lower hull since completing her repairs mid July so her bottom was probably in quite a state.
In principle a ship should not have changed the type/brand of composition used on her bottom. But sometimes changes did of course take place. If a ship had a long life, this might happen perhaps at times of major rebuilds when the hull could be properly scraped and wire-brushed back to bare metal and then retreated, or during WW2 if the allocated brand of paint was not available and a chemically compatible alternative brand was. However every effort was made to get it right, and the records show surprising degrees of continuity, especially with the major ships. All the other KGV Class battleships remained in their original bottom compositions throughout the war until late 1945 when, whilst docked in Australia, a local Australian composition was briefly used on some of them. (KGV: grey Moravia during the war, grey Majors (Australian) November 1945 to June 1947, then back to grey Moravia, then into the new red POCOPTIC composition in November 1948 and until scrapped; DoY: red Clarks during the war, short period in grey Majors April - November 1946, then back to red Clarks, then red POCOPTIC September 1949 and until scrapped; Anson: red British until July 1945, then grey Majors until September 1947, then red Red Hand until red POCOPTIC in March 1949 and until scrapped; Howe: red Red Hand throughout until red POCOTIC in July 1948 and until scrapped.)
There really is no reason to suspect that during Prince of Wales’ very brief life she would have changed the composition used on her bottom ie whilst being repaired at Rosyth after the Bismarck action. In any case none of the authorised WW2-era Admiralty Quality anti fouling paints listed in the contemporary Rate Book was brown. Nor could the “brown” have been the MacArthur’s protective paints, two coats of which would have been applied under the outer/final anti fouling coat, showing through when she sank as they also only came in grey or black like MacArthur’s anti fouling.