USMC DUKW COLOR

All the stenciling, aside from the serial number was applied in theater at the storage depots prior to issue to units, according to theater regs. (Circled stars were strictly in the ETO/MTO) This is how they looked fresh from the factory upon arrival at a depot.

I was about to say something similar.  Jeeps that were made for the USMC were originally painted OD and then overpainted in forest green.  Sometimes at the factory but mostly by the recieving command. You often see this most when the hood is opened up or when examining the frame.  You'll find a lot of overspray.  It's the same for Navy jeeps.  OD overpainted with various grays.  Under the hood and the frame is still usually OD green.

Actually even the US Army jeeps exhibit this overspray under the hood as the jeep went through a final touch up paint job once it was fully assembled and before the blue drab markings were applied.

From what I remember reading somewhere, all ground equipment during WWII (AFVs & soft skins) came from the factory in OD. This was done to keep up the max rate of production. Any repainting into a different color or scheme was done by the end user: foreign lend lease recipients, US Army, or the USMC.

JAFTANK

Just wondering What color The DUKW's were on Iwo Jima. Not the tri Cameo but the One color scheme. Did Marines get the DUKW's from The Army Or Did The DUKW's come from factory then to the Marines. And Could here DUKW's be Marine Dark Green Instead Of O.D.

They often get hand-me-downs from the Army because the Army has ability to have massive amounts of gear. Stateside the Army will train on one variant, but marry up with a newer variant in theater. That's the benefit to being the main ground service with a huge budget.

So the old, ragged out training stuff is available to be disposed of. The Marines with their smaller budgets will then take the older Army hand-me-downs because they might not have the ability to train on older stuff and then deploy with better stuff.

Much like when Desert Storm happened, the Marines had scheduled to receive an future variant of the M1A1, the M1A1 Heavy Common, but the Army was still mainly equipped with the original M1A1 as well as the M1IP and M60A3TTS. Only a handful of USAREUR units had the Heavy Common version.

Since there was a limited number of M1A1s of any type, the Army got priority and the Marines got to borrow any of the ones left over.

This Critical Past youtube video (color) shows wounded Marines being loaded on a DUKW for transport to a hospital ship offshore of IWO.  Three-color camouflage is shown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbWemf2FKKQ

It's going to be complicated unless you can come up with photos from Iwo Jima.

DUKW were GMC, and Marine Corps was an International user--there were some CCKW 2.5t used, but most were IHC M-5H-6. 

V Phib Corps was pretty mush just 5MarDiv and 4MarDiv, and the landings were right across the littoral from the AKA & APA, and various LCI and LCT.  So, there was not as much "lightering" duty as, say, at Okinawa Jima.

The Marines tended to repaint everything to the forest green they were fond of.  Even if those stol...err borrowed it from another service.