In 1940, while escorting a convoy, Lord Mountbatten noted that one ship in the group vanished from view much earlier than the remainder.

Mountbatten thus became convinced of the colour's effectiveness as a camouflage during dawn and dusk, often dangerous times for ships, and had all of the destroyers of his flotilla painted with a similar pigment, which he created by mixing a medium grey with a small amount of Venetian red.

[3][4] A later refinement of the basic Mountbatten pink camouflage was the use of a slightly lighter tone of the same colour for the upper structures of the ship.

The Royal Navy prisoner interrogation report of crew rescued from S 147, a Schnellboot sunk in the English Channel in April 1944, states they believed the boat's overall pink shade was effective.

The Germans fired on the Kenya for several minutes with coastal guns but she sustained only minor damage from near misses.