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Posted by dick on October 11, 2025, 5:07:03, in reply to "Re: HMS Encounter 1942 paint scheme"
n/t 
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Well, white/black is obvious nonsense. From the photo A9565 I would say it is an Alexandria scheme in 507A & 507C. I also have a (private) contemporary line drawing/watercolour wash of her at "Oosthaven Feb 1942". It shows her port side pattern was mirror image of the starboard side as seen in the photo and was a two tone dark grey/light grey scheme.
(In case you come across it, there is also 'out there' a line drawing of her port side said to have been done "From a photograph of the ship at Singapore Naval Base". Too many of the camouflage panels it it have rounded edges and the hatching seems to imply two different colours/tones to the darks giving three tones in all. Essentially the hatching seems to imply that the darks above the hull were darker than the darks on the hull. I prefer to go by what I see in the IWM photo and in my line drawing/wash done at the time by an eye witness.)
Previous Message
Thanks Dick. That looks like a high-contrast scheme. What is/was your thinking on what the specific shades are likely to have been? I believe 507c/507a was quite common among ships based in the Med, where she had been stationed before being assigned to the far east from in 12/1941. However, the only color images I’ve found have been a pair of artist renderings showing the colors as white/black. Previous Message
To expand slightly on my last. If you visit the IWM site and work your way up and down from A9695 there are other photos of the convoy from which various ships can be identified and compared to the compositions of the various convoys to Singapore early 1942. Previous Message
I see my photocopy from a long-ago visit to the old IWM photo archive has turned up again! In the decades since then they have been progressively digitizing things and I see that A9695 is now available to view online. The ships in the convoy date it. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205143496 Previous Message
Anyone have info on how HMS Encounter was painted during the ABDA campaign/Battle of Java Sea/when sunk?
Thanks!
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