Malta's blue Spitfires

Are there any other aircraft nearby on the carrier's deck to compare to?? (SBD's or F4F's?)

To determine if the Spits are deck blue, just look at the deck. Carrier decka at that time were stained with Norfolk 250N which was very slightly lighter and greyer than 20-B deck blue. Steel sections of the deck would be painted deck blue.

Here's the pictures:

If they were factory painted and not "in the field" then it would have been PRU Blue. I don't think the British Standards had been set out at that time but here's a reference; (Look up 636, left-hand column, bottom of page)

It wouldn't hurt to ask a question from the RAF Museum Research Section who are great at these sorts of things;

Richard.

They were painted on the Wasp, using paint on hand. The debate is over what US Navy color? Compared to the Wasp's F4F's the Spitfires look darker, but the F4F's may have faded over time; the Spitfires were painted in the hanger deck during the voyage, so the paintjob would be fresh. They were so dark that dark deck or hull colors were assumed, but the intermediate blue of the TBD's on the Hornet seems to be the same darker tone.

I have no interest in the Malta Spitfires, but why the assumption that the TBDs are Intermediate Blue?

Would not the proper colors be Blue Gray and Light Gray? To my knowledge Intermediate Blue was not used until the mid-war three color scheme. Blue Gray is somewhat darker than Inter. Blue and not a lot different than Deck Blue Stain.

Norm

My mistake. The Hornet TBD's are in blue gray and light grey. There's an overhead color picture of Wasp; the difference in tone between planes and flight deck is slight, no matter the variation in color printing. However, b&w pictures of the Calender Spits alongside Wasp F4F's show a darker tone on the Spits--which I ascribe to their being newly painted in Blue gray.

Bad assumption there.......if the film was ortho the ship paints have significantly more red than the blue/grey of the F4F's, ortho film will render the ship paints darker.

Exactly! So the best bet would be to go to the US Navy public relations or historical unit. Don't forget to bow as you leave the room backwards! ;-)

Richard Brooks wrote:

FWIW The pictures of the Spitfires being swung aboard at King George V dock clearly show that they are in Desert Camouflage. Many years ago I met a Gent who had been on the Wasp for the Malta missions and he said that it was a conversation between the RAF pilots and the US Navy pilots on the first night out that led to the paint job. One of the RAF pilots remarked that the "Baby shit yellow" used in the desert camouflage stuck out like a sore thumb over the ocean. One thing led to another and the Wasp' crew broke out paint and brushes to cover the yellow (Middle Stone). I assumed at the time that they only covered the Middle Stone and not the Dark Earth but things that have come to light since challenge that conclusion. Unfortunately, the Gent I got this from, like the majority of W.W. II veterans, is no longer with us so I cannot go back to him and ask more questions. Whether they used "deck blue: or Non-Specular Gray Blue is another question I cannot answer. At the time of the conversation I assumed that they used Non-Specular Sea Blue. Of course, you know what you get when you break the word assume down?? With regard to making color decisions from surviving color films I will make a few cautionary statements. 1. Color films of that era are not known for their stability. Color photography was a very new process. 2. The printing process of that era obliged the lab people to make color "corrections" based on photographer's notes or, lacking those, the lab man's "best guess" and the results could differ quite a bit from what the photographer's Mk. I eyeball actually saw. 3. Non-Specular Blue Gray was a notoriously unstable color that could come out of the drum quite dark and fade wildly in a few weeks depending on exposure to sun and salt air. I got quite a lecture on this some years ago from a 2nd Cousin who had actually flown SBD's in "the Big One". Ain't research fun??

Bill Shuey

I suspect that those documents may be sitting on the bottom of the Pacific along with the Wasp. She went down pretty fast and I suspect all were more concerned with saving their butts than preserving history. Three 24" "Long Lance" torpedoes were extremely final. It might be worth while to do a google search on either the Wasp or the U.S.S. Wasp "Stinger's Club". The Stingers Club" was a Wasp veteran's association, I don't know hoe many of her vets are still around but it might be worth a try.

Bill Shuey

Once properly processed the Kodachrome of the era is very stable........that is from Eastman House, they say the color once properly processed should be stable for 100 years but that others factors affect what the film "saw". Where the problems pop up are filters used with B&W left on the camera and film temperature at time of exposure, both affected how final images look. Eastman House also noted that color film from the ETO was sometimes processed with Ilford or captured AGFA chemicals and it didn't always process right.

The USN used two color films, Kodachrome and Aerochrome. Kodacrhome is what we think of for color film. Aerochrome was a color infrared film and did not render true color images. If you find an orangey/red slide or negative , scan it and try to invert the colors and it still looks way wrong try converting to greyscale. If you get a good greyscale image you have Aerochrome.

Stan Piet, who did a lot of work with the photo collection in the Naval Archives at College Park, once told me that negatives on Kodak film were still generally good while anything on Ansco film usually, but not always, had drifted so that a print looked like a sepia tone picture.

Bill Shuey

The US Navy only used ANSCO Safety Film for some B&W work but it was rare, Eastman Regular Nitrate and AGFA SS Pan were the common pre-war and early war B&W. All official USN color was supposed to be Kodachrome or Verichrome.