Re Jervis’s paint scheme and the black stern section, Tim has accurately quoted from the list of Jervis’s paint schemes on page 52 of Langtree’s book: “Sep 1940 – Dec? 1941: Mediterranean disruptive, AP 507A and AP 507C with black stern section.” However, somewhat confusingly, the immediately previous entry on the list reads: “21 Jul 1940-?1941: Mediterranean disruptive, AP 507A and AP507C” ie no black stern section until sometime in 1941. The two statements are incompatible.
Looking at the photographs in Langtree’s book, on page 91, in the chapter “The Mediterranean Theatre, 1940-41” there is a photo of camouflaged Jervis at Alexandria captioned as “newly painted”. She has no black stern section so there was certainly a time when she was in the “Mediterranean Disruptive” with no black stern section.
On page 125 there is another photo of Jervis in “Mediterranean Disruptive” this time with the black stern section. It is captioned: “Jervis in late 1941, with an unusual variation of her previous camouflage with a black panel added at her stern.”
I doubt that we will ever find enough photos to pin down exactly when this black stern section was painted onto Jervis but, based on the dates when it first appears in photos of another Mediterranean destroyer, I suspect it was a very late 1941 thing.
In the case of Jervis it was certainly after Matapan (27-29 March 1941). I have a copy of a photo of the fleet at Alexandria with Jervis, Kandahar, Hero, Queen Elizabeth, Valiant and Formidable all in frame. This dates the photo to sometime from 13th May 1941 when QE first arrived at Alexandria to whenever it was exactly that Formidable left Alexandria for repairs in the USA (July 1941?). In the photo Jervis has no black stern panel:
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Jervis 1941 5 or 6 Alexandria Formidable - Copy.jpg [ 36.53 KiB | Viewed 2579 times ]