Wetherhorn

The Japanese high command seems to have not planned realistically for a longer war. There was no organization for dealing with the protection of mercantile vessels at the start of the war. Japanese ships tended to painted in shades of overall grey. Some ships had false bow waves painted on to give an illusion of speed. American submarines were initially plagued with torpedo problems, and failed to make much of an impact on Japanese shipping during the first part of the war. That created an illusion of success for those looking at the problem of protecting shipping. But once those problems  mentioned were addressed, and Japan found herself defending in a war that was not entirely what she had planned, the question of how to defend the seaborne commerce that was  the life blood of the empire became very important. Large numbers of new standard merchant ships were ordered from the shipyards. With them, a similarly large number of anti-submarine escorts were ordered. A new command was also created to be responsible for the control and routing of convoys. Camouflage was applied to many Japanese ships. Much of it was reminiscent of World War One dazzle designs. In fact, the design used on merchant cruiser Hokoku Maru is almost a direct copy of American WWI Type 9 design K. Later, merchant ship camouflage was standardized using overall shades of green, or  light green (Type 2 camouflage) with a large central panel of a contrasting darker green (Type 1 camouflage).

False bow waves were used on many ships, among them; Kirishima Maru, Taimei Maru, and Ayatosa Maru.

Here are several examples of mid war patterns using black, white, and grey or 3 shades of grey:

When the Japanese Navy realized that the war was not going to end quickly with a negotiated peace, and that the US submarines were sinking ships at a rate that threatened Japan with destruction, they organized convoy routes, built escort vessels, and made standard camouflage patterns to applied to all merchant vessels. I have some data on the convoy system but I’ll only post it at some later date if there is interest expressed by those of you who see this blog.

The standard camouflage was similar to what the Royal Navy would later adopt as a standard pattern. Ships  received a central panel of dark green, and the remainder of the ship was painted in a lighter green shade. The following patterns are for various ships, Navy, Army, and merchant ship authority, The precise shades for this camouflage are not clear to me, so there is a lot of variation in the patterns. If anyone can provide a better color, please let me know.

The patterns here show that the standard camouflage was employed on a wide variety of ships including cargo vessels, passenger ships, railroad ferries, and even hospital ships.

Here are some more items that did not fit in elsewhere. Here is a pattern for an aircraft transport, KEIYO MARU

This is a former whale oil factory ship that was converted for use as a tanker. Here is a photograph and a pattern

As the war came closer to a conclusion the Japanese were running out of aircraft carriers, and trained pilots. The Navy ministry decided to design some camouflage for the decks of aircraft carriers with the hope that some of these vital ships might survive to be used in a final decisive battle. The designs were printed in the US Navy Technical Mission Report, section X-32 on ship camouflage. Colors, once again, became a problem. The report is printed in black and white, so the verbal description of the colors used is still open to some interpretation. It is certain, however, that the deck patterns, except for the army assault ship AKITSU MARU were not done in shades of black, grey, and white.

Here are some of the patterns.

 

For now, this completes my studies on Japanese wartime ships camouflage. Comments  corrections, and suggestions are welcome.