Ms 22 question

Ed's got it right. The paint section of my site is here; you want to start in December 1944 or so if you want all the background, but if you want as much as I know right now look to February 1945 and the February S19-7 Serial 631 documents.

I've been keeping my eyes out for documents that might indicate when certain yards and bases would have received the new paints but have found nothing yet. General rule at this point is that if a ship were repainted stateside it's more likely they had the neutrals sooner after February; ships painted out at Ulithi could have had fresh blue applied much later due to lag in the supply chain.

In 1945 the Navy changed the specification for their paints.   The purple/blue pigments were becoming harder to find and more expensive.   Neutral gray paints of the same tonal value replaced the blue.  

The ships were not painted out of blue all at once, rather it happened as yard availability occured.  And paint priority was given to different classes.  So it becomes a matter of what ship, what theatre, and when painted.

Tracy White's Researcher at Large has a lot of the documentation which he has gleaned from archives sources