A red-painted frigate served as a D-Day brigade headquarters

The River-class frigate shown here was made easy for an army brigade to identify during D-Day by using conspicuous red-lead undercoat paint. As a brigade headquarters ship, she needed to be visually unmistakable to troops and craft trying to find their command point amid a crowded amphibious operation. That practical purpose came with the obvious danger of attracting shore artillery or aircraft. The comparison with officers wearing red coats in the First World War emphasizes how identification requirements could conflict with battlefield concealment. The case reveals how amphibious command and control could drive a warship into choices that ran against normal camouflage practice.