The SteelNavy.Com Message Board: Re: Was Prinz Eugen painted in USN colors

Thank you.

From the article I linked:

This first photo:

https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/surrender.jpg

Caption with that reads:
"(Prinz Eugen in late 1945, still unaltered from it’s WWII appearance but now flying the American flag.)"

Further down is this photo:

https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/boston1946.jpg

Caption is:
"(USS Prinz Eugen arrives in Boston, MA on 22 January 1946.)"

There are then images of her at Philadelphia, but they are close ups, not overall. If she was repainted--or touched up at all--it would probably be here, since this is where the rest of the major work was done.

Finally, here she sits, ready for the bomb tests:

https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/14june1946.jpg

Caption:

"(USS Prinz Eugen on 14 June 1946, arrived at Bikini Atoll. By this time all Germans had left and without their help, the #3 boiler and most of the radars were not functional. The big white hash marks painted on the hull were so that any list on target ships could be determined from a distance through binoculars. The small numbers at irregular intervals just below the main deck are internal frame markers for damage assessment.)"

Compare this last with the first one I posted above. You are right...same basic measure, and I agree she looks like she was "touched up." Perhaps there were stocks of German paint still aboard, and they were used. If the Germans had enough pride to paint over an Army radar, they likely would have wanted to--and been allowed to--touch up their ship in Philadelphia with any possible existing German paint stocks aboard.

Previous Message

I don't know the answer of the "exact" paint colors used, but from photos, she was repainted sometime from her turn over to the USN and her "trip" to Bikini. The ships paint looked pretty battered in December 1945. They kept the same basic graded scheme. The first image below appears in NARA USN 80-G files in two places with two different dates. (80-G is notorious about NOT having accurate dates for photos) I have not tried to track down the exact date. A summary of her movements on the "kbismarck.com" website doesn't help in matching the first photo with photos.

08 May 1945: The Prinz Eugen is handed over to the British.

26 May 1945: Leaves Copenhagen with Nürnberg, and sails to Wilhelmshaven escorted by British cruisers Dido and Devonshire arriving on the 28th. Once in Wilhelmshaven enters dry dock.

(Note; on 13 December 1945, Prinz Eugen was awarded to the US)

05 January 1946: The American flag is hoisted and the ship put into service in the US Navy as USS Prinz Eugen (IX-300).

13 January 1946: Leaves for Boston with a mixed crew of Germans and Americans.

22 January 1946: Arrives in Boston. Shortly after moves to Philadelphia where the barrels of turret "Anton" are removed.

March 1946: Leaves for the Pacific through the Panama Canal.

01 May 1946: In San Diego, the last German crew members leave the ship. Dispatched to Bikini Atoll in the Marshalls.

01 July 1946: A-bomb test Able. At 0900, a nuclear bomb dropped over a target fleet of ships by a B-29 detonates at 518 feet above the surface. Prinz Eugen is located 1,194 yards from the point of explosion and survives the test undamaged.

Previous Message

Here is an account of what the ship went through after the war:

https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/uss-prinz-eugen/

While it did spend extensive time in US Navy yards, I am not sure it was ever repainted. No specific mention is made in the article of that happening. There are black and white photos of it, and the paint scheme doesn't look altered.

That said, under "Destruction of USS Prinz Eugen" in the link above is printed:

"Professional to the end, the remaining Germans onboard repainted the SCR-584 haze grey so the Army OD green would not stick out."

That was an Army radar brought aboard, described in the text. The Germans decided to paint it. The article does not specify whether they used possible stocks of German paint which might have been aboard, or US Navy paint, and "haze gray" is enough of a "generic layman's term" for a warship paint job that there is ambiguity in how the author means that. Another possibility is that, while the overall ship might have been in German paint, the Germans used US paint, feeling it was better than the Army OD color. If you look at DKM and US late-war neutral gray colors, there are close smiliarities. A US gray color might have been "less offensive" to their sensibilities than OD.

Also--as noted in the article--markings were painted on the hull to judge listing after the blasts.

So, except for one highly ambiguous little detail, and some markings, I have found no other mention of a big repainting. It seems if they knew they were going to sink it, they would not have bothered to paint it all up? I have found nothing conclusive, and allow for the possibility it was, but personally feel they did not. That is only my opinion, for the little it is worth.

Previous Message

after commissioning as IX-300 and expended at Bikini? If so, what scheme?