You'd be surprised, but there was a certain shade of pink, that was used by the British navy in early war. Apparently some commander was watching a line of ships when one suddenly dissapeared from view much much quicker than others. It was some passenger liner painted in it's civil colors, which were lavander type. So he devised this paint scheme, believing in its total effectiveness, that had full flotilla in pink/maroon color (Mountbatten Pink -
http://www.steelnavy.com/images/chips/RNchip02.jpg). Anyway, HMS Kenya was doing an operation in Norway and german battery fire from land couldn't have success because their color markers were painted also in pink - thus the gunners couldn't figure out if they scored hits and where. it's one of those camouflage stories, don't know if it's true, but a pink ship was quite a real thing.
And the reason for pink/maroon color is because of the early morning/evening colors of sky - most crucial and denagerous time, when the visibility is bad, but good enough for the u-boat.
