Newly discovered USN training colors?

[Jennings]

A friend of mine's father went thru naval flight training in 1945, just missing getting into combat before the end of the war. He retired as a Captain 32 years later, having flown a staggering array of naval aircraft over his career. He graciously loaned me a somewhat tattered album he'd put together all those years ago of his training days. Among other interesting stuff I found four pics (the two best of which appear here) of the SBD-5 (I'm pretty sure they're -5s) navigation trainers he flew out of NOLF Saufley Field, near Pensacola.

You can see that they appear to be in overall Gloss Sea Blue, but what's intriguing is that the rudders appear to be white, and a large panel in the middle of the upper (at least) wings is some color lighter than GSB. It's clear that it's considerably lighter than the blue of the insignia as well. I'm guessing that the rudders were white and this mystery panel was yellow, although it's hard to say for sure. Given that they were trainers, it could potentially have been green (the color for instrument trainers), and that would make the relative darkness of the color make sense.

The upshot is, I'm open to interpretations. I'm not an expert on navy colors, but I've *never* run across a photo of any navy training a/c painted like this. And an overall GSB Dauntless is pretty unusual in itself! Only ever seen one other pic of one before.

So, here they are. NOLF (Navy Out Lying Field) Saufley, 1945, pilot, Ens. Jim Brady. Thanks to Jim and his son David for loan of the pics!

JH

Here are some possibilities for the upper surfaces...

Edited October 30, 2007 by Jennings

[Matt Roberts]

I think you found the Holy Grail of Dauntless paint schemes. When the AM kits were new, one of the magazines ran a trivia contest with the question 'Were there ever any GSB SBDs' and the answer was no. Considering since then a pic of a natural metal one popped up - I believe in the SS Walkaround this one is definately a new one.

Where did you see a pic of a GSB one before, I'd only seen Tri-color for Dash 5 and Dash 6 Dauntlesses

Matt

[Slartibartfast]

Consider this: green with insignia red wing panels and white or yellow rudder. Knowing the film type would help a lot.

[Jennings]

I thought about red, but it doesn't make sense from a USN markings standpoint. Of course, this entire scheme doesn't make sense, since it appears to be unique. So red is certainly a possibility.

I have no clue (nor does the photographer) what kind of film was used, other than that it was a Kodak Brownie camera, and thus 126 roll film. Most likely it was whatever Kodak b&w film was available in Pensacola at the time.

J

[3Dguy]

Could the wing panels be orange? Kinda like the the orange stripe on the fuselages of aircraft based at naval air stations around the country?

[Jennings]

Could the wing panels be orange? Kinda like the the orange stripe on the fuselages of aircraft based at naval air stations around the country?

They could, and I've considered that. The only problem is, during the war, orange was not in widespread use, and surely not on USN training aircraft. I'm not saying it wasn't the case here, and it surely could have been, but just that orange doesn't seem, from my knowledge of USN markings practices, to be highly likely. But what the heck do I know??

Light blue? Light pink? Mauve? Chartreuse? Peach? Dancing Salmon?

J

[Jennings]

Consider this: green with insignia red wing panels and white or yellow rudder. Knowing the film type would help a lot.

Are you talking about an overall green airplane?? If so, what's your thought process?? I've never seen a Navy airplane in green, unless it was a USAAF type in OD/NG. Well, the Electra in "Dive Bomber" was green, but then that's the same movie that had a radial engined PT-22 in it

Elaborate!

J

[TF51GREGWISE]

Coool! I hope some of ARC photo guys can help with the colors.

[David Walker]

Very interesting photos. Thanks for posting them.

[Jennings]

Update, 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, 30 October - David spoke with his dad (I'd emailed him about the buzz over this). His dad thinks the wings were yellow and the rudder white. Keeping in mind that this is a memory of an octogenarian dating from 62 years ago... I think yellow wing panels are the most likely from a 'makes sense to me' standpoint. Most GSB airplanes had white lettering, although yellow was possible.

Here's my interpretation based on what dad said this evening. I can just make out a lighter color under the wings of the two distant airplanes, so I've included that (makes sense, no?). I found a BuNo of an SBD-5 that crashed at Saufley in 1945, so I picked one close to it for this airplane. It's still possible the rudder was yellow I suppose. I found the reference to VN-9 (never heard of a "VN" squadron before) being based at Saufley Field in 1945 with "over 150 SBD-5 Dauntlesses assigned" for a 3 week, 26-hour preoperational training program for carrier bound pilots.

J

Edited October 31, 2007 by Jennings

[David Walker]

That makes for a gorgeous scheme. I'd love to do one looking like that. Any chance you'll be doing decals for it in 1/48 or 1/32? I'd buy a set right now.

Edited October 31, 2007 by David Walker

[agboak]

Use of yellow for the upper surface of training aircraft, otherwise still in camouflage, seems to have been reasonably common. It is one of my pet grievances that the US modelling/historical community pay so little attention to the immense training programme carried out in the Continental States - the modelling possibilities must be endless!

Thanks for this one.

[109ace]

Nice job on the profile. It's a tempting scheme to do. But I'm not so sure about the yellow numbers. When looking at the pictures, the numbers have the same hue as the rudder. Which does not have the same hue as the wing panels. I'd go with white for the numbers and rudder. Yellow wing panels.

Update, 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, 30 October - David spoke with his dad (I'd emailed him about the buzz over this). His dad thinks the wings were yellow and the rudder white. Keeping in mind that this is a memory of an octogenarian dating from 62 years ago... I think yellow wing panels are the most likely from a 'makes sense to me' standpoint. Most GSB airplanes had white lettering, although yellow was possible.

Here's my interpretation based on what dad said this evening. I can just make out a lighter color under the wings of the two distant airplanes, so I've included that (makes sense, no?). I found a BuNo of an SBD-5 that crashed at Saufley in 1945, so I picked one close to it for this airplane. It's still possible the rudder was yellow I suppose. I found the reference to VN-9 (never heard of a "VN" squadron before) being based at Saufley Field in 1945 with "over 150 SBD-5 Dauntlesses assigned" for a 3 week, 26-hour preoperational training program for carrier bound pilots.

J

[Chappie]

I love this kind of stuff. This kinda ties in with the "Time Machine and Camera" thread.

Chappie

[A-4Silverfox]

Ornothographic film was an early film that often made the color yellow appear as a very dark color. Photography units assigned to training commands would most likely have a lot of ornothographic film to consume, as the good stuff would have gone to the combat line units. The formation numbers would have been white, just compare the star-and-bar color to the plane numbers.

[David Walker]

I'd go with white for the numbers and rudder.

The formation numbers would have been white, just compare the star-and-bar color to the plane numbers.

That's pretty much what I was figuring too. Anyone know off the top of their head if there any decal sheets out there with this style of stencilled letters and numbers in white?

[A-4Silverfox]

I think Aeromaster made sheets for Corsairs and late war TBM's with yellow and white nomexes.

[mchuray]

While your friend's Dad may have identified the color as yellow I am inclined to think it may be Willow Green. This was the color used for Nav. trainers. Yellow is possible, but I know I have confused some detail colors on vehicles that I use when I in the Army only to find color pics that I have taken to prove me wrong. That was only 35 years ago.

Mark

[David Walker]

I think Aeromaster made sheets for Corsairs and late war TBM's with yellow and white nomexes.

I dug through those and couldn't really find anything that was going to work, but Hobbydecal has a sheet, "1/48 and 1/72 WWII USN Markings for ARC Group Build" that looks like it might do the job. I ordered one this evening so I should know here pretty soon.

[agboak]

Willow Green was used for instrument trainers, for example in fuselage and wing bands on SNJs. I have a feeling that it might have been used by Reserve Marine units, postwar, but am not sure of that.

Front-line combat types, in operational training units, sometimes had yellow on top of the wings, though this kind of panelling does not seem to have been common: it is certainly new to me.

[strawberry mivi]

Looking at the first photo the underside of the wings seems to just have a star-and-bar, can't make out from the monitor any extra colour block.

[ron]

You have the makings for a pretty neat paint scheme there!

You have a black and white photo and a first hand account of the person who flew this plane that is was GSB, yellow panels and white tail. If the tail is white then the call letter appear to be the same. It may have been 62 years ago but I can't see a person forgetting that bit of info if they flew the plane.

I would consider that good enough to prove the scheme existed as stated.

[Slartibartfast]

Make the doubters prove YOU wrong!

[David Walker]

Depending on how the Hobbydecal transfers work out, this may move to near the top of my "to do" list.

Edited November 1, 2007 by David Walker

[Jennings]

While your friend's Dad may have identified the color as yellow I am inclined to think it may be Willow Green. This was the color used for Nav. trainers. Yellow is possible, but I know I have confused some detail colors on vehicles that I use when I in the Army only to find color pics that I have taken to prove me wrong. That was only 35 years ago.

Mark

Except that VN-9 wasn't doing nav training. This was "heavy" (ie: heavier than an SNJ) transition for carrier-bound pilots. Given the fairly widespread use of yellow wing panels on various trainers, I'm more inclined to agree with yellow. I've never seen green on an instrument trainer that was in any pattern but stripes on the wings and fuselage, while there are lots of instances of yellow inner wing panels like this (even on things like PBYs).

J