I received an email from another group on some of the latest thinking on
Battleship Colors at Pearl Harbor during the attack. It seems historians
working the new memorial found archived documents that show Adm Kimmel
ordered the ships painted medium blue with forward main turret tops painted
to identify the ships to air spotters and aft turret tops painted to
identify air squadrons embared as spotters during combat. Arizona would
have had red for both sets.
So there's supposedly a new more detailed Arizona model for the museum
witth this paint job.
Add this to an article a few years back on finding parts of a zero with
factory finish in a museum - the plane was at the Pearl Harbor attack, and
was a Caramel color. So now blue battleships, caramel colored Zeros (in one
squadron). Hard to choose how to use this on future kits - who is right.
There were reports of light brown Zeros so I can buy that - but nobody knew
if our ships were grey or blue? - especially since that would have been such
a major change - not to mention the colorful upper turrets. However looking
at some black and white photos almost could convince you the turrets tops
were a different color than the fronts. Like to hear some other opinions.
Val Kraut
- posted 14 years ago