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Onlookers unfamiliar with military naval ships’ paint jobs would be forgiven for thinking the new coat of paint on HMCS Regina resembles that of a zebra.
The frigate now has wavy, thick, blue, black and white stripes painted across it.
In fact, the paint job’s function is to break up the ship’s silhouette on the horizon, like a camouflage.
According to Cmdr. Landon Creasy, who helms the HMCS Regina, the paint job itself is an act of remembrance.
Creasy said the design is a throwback to the one used during the Battle of the Atlantic, when Canadian ships escorted supplies to Great Britain during the Second World War.
“Canadian warships would escort convoys across the Atlantic and it was quickly determined in the losses against the submarine that we needed to change the way the ships looked,” Creasy told the Greg Morgan Morning Show while sailing off the coast of British Columbia.
Until the dazzle paint job was used, enemy subs would spot the ships through their periscopes and, from there, figure out the course and speed of their targets, Creasy said.
“We’ve just painted Regina in the dazzle paint colours from 1944 … and it really breaks up her silhouette,” he said, adding it’s also sometimes called disruptive paint.
“It makes it more confusing for the enemy to be able to determine the course and speed, which was necessary to make two things meet at certain point, which should be a torpedo and a ship,” he explained. “She’s quite unique in the way she looks.”
The vessel is 440 feet long, weighs about 5,000 tonnes and normally carries a crew of 217 sailors; when a chopper lands on the ship, that number goes up to 240.
“It’s a functional little community,” he said, referring to the frigate’s firefighting service, its mail room and its cleaning services.
The Battle of the Atlantic started the day the Second World War broke out in 1939 and lasted until Victory in Europe Day in 1945.
“(It was) the longest battle of the Second World War … It was the struggle to bring people and supplies across the Atlantic to the people of Great Britain,” Creasy said.
With it being Remembrance Day Sunday, Creasy said it’s important to stop and reflect on the sacrifices of soldiers and sailors who came before him.
“Back in the days of my parents being young, buses would stop at 11 o’clock and people would just stop what they were doing and think about the sheer magnitude of a loss of a generation,” he said.
“It’s important to have that act of remembrance, to reflect … It really means a lot for me. My grandmother died on Remembrance Day, so that always give me pause for thought as well.”
