"WW2 East coast trawlers" Topic

Hi all,

Does anyone know what colours trawlers co-opted into convoy escorts used -especially mid war.
Were they grey, or left in their peacetime colours?

Many thanks in anticipation!

I think a workable rule of thumb would be:

1939 – peacetime paint rig, which would be pretty drab. Some form of gray with a funnel in a more spritely color, or a black ring at the top of the funnel.

1940-1941 – mostly gray with a different color funnel top.

1941 – 1942 – by now wearing fleet standard camo.

I have a book on requisitiond trawlers with a few dozen pix. None of the pix are dated specifically, and all are b&w, but the above seems to jibe with the picture trends.

Thanks for the great info- I have a couple to paint for next week's game and will get on with them now with confidence!

also worth noting that many trawlers operated by the RN were purpose-built rather than having been taken up from trade, so they would sport the current RN camouflage at the time as a matter of course.

Thanks David, I already have some 'Isles class' Navy trawlers, but found some old models of civilian ones, which will look better escorting my convoys?!

According to Mal Wright, and generally speaking, early war requesitioned trawlers would keep their painted black hulls if that's what they had; otherwise, various shades of grey (tending towards dark) depending on paint locally available. Improvised 'dazzle' schemes were also used.

Early war photographs, although black and white, show very dark tones of colour.