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Warship Perspectives: Camouflage Volume One: Royal Navy 1939-1941 by Alan Raven

By Bob Pearson

Published by WR Press
PO Box 709
Lynbrook ,NY 11563
USA

 

Well, its here.. . as mentioned last month I was hoping this volume would arrive in time for the previous issue. Now that I have it, I can say it was worth the wait.. and more.

The book starts from the early days of RN camouflage, when it was applied to HMS Grenville and Griffin in November 1939, to the more universal schemes put forth by various commands and the Admiralty itself. The main bulk of the book is taken up with its 150 illustrations, text is limited to brief descriptions of the patterns and colours, as well as the reasoning behind the colours chosen. For those wanting a full textual history of RN camouflage, I would refer them to the articles on the subject that Mr Raven has had publisehd in Plastic Ship Modeler.

Among its 56 pages can be found 150 pieces of artwork, 95% of which have never been seen before as well as eight pages of colour – the front cover is a striking painting of HMS London. Aircraft modellers have numerous sources to turn to for their colour references, but until recently the ship world has been forced to rely on old sources – many written over 30 years ago – for their inspiration. Case in point is the oft-repeated appearance of HMS Naiad in white/green/brown, Mr Raven now has her in black/507b/507c. Most ships are shown in both port and starboard patterns.

Mr Raven points to the following "To those who have reviewed, are going to review and who might review; The visual errors on page 26 (Sheffield) and page 53 (Formidable) will form part of an errata that will be in Volume Two which will be published by years end." Besides these two errors, there is a third one .. on page 27 HMS London is described in two different schemes, however the same four colour pattern is used to illustrate both.

Originally the intention was to publish the entire volume in colour, however costs precluded such from taking place, therefore the colour pages are devoted to those that are most striking in their appearance. This in no way detracts from the rest of the book. In fact some of my favourite designs are among those in the b/w section.

Conclusion

Two words . . . buy it.

My thanks to WRPress for the review sample. Camouflage Volume One: Royal Navy 1939-1941 is available from Warship Books for $24Cdn/$16US + $3Cdn/$3US shipping.