Bad news if you already built a December 7th Arizona

Hey, thanks for the pointer to that article. The actual article from the Honolulu Star Bulletin is here.

Personally, I think the "new" scheme looks good!

 

Regards, 

This is very interesting news. However, I am puzzled (as are I'm sure most everyone here) as to how it could happen that with a number of survivors of the attack, the wrong information could have been promulgated for so many years. How did we have it wrong for so long?

jgonzales wrote:

This is very interesting news. However, I am puzzled (as are I'm sure most everyone here) as to how it could happen that with a number of survivors of the attack, the wrong information could have been promulgated for so many years. How did we have it wrong for so long?

1)  It was not important enough to ask when it was fresh in their minds

2)  The documentary evidence was buried in the Archives

3)  The remaining Pearl Harbor survivor's memories have been clouded by the passing years.   A recent oral history with a survivor who had been on the Oklahoma was reported on SteelNavy.  The gentleman was able to identify the Standard Navy Gray #5 (the pre war color), but was unable to remember either a blue or the 5-D Dark Gray from the time of Pearl Harbor.   All he could remember was 'Battleship Gray'.

That looks pretty cool. Now I know I'm gonna have to get a model of this ship and do it up like that.

 Any suggestions on the model? My Hobby Lobby has one and I think the brand is Mini Hobby

The MHM Arizona is the best 1:350 scale injected plastic kit there is (It is the only 1:350 scale injected plastic kit, as the Banner, Trumpeter, and MHM kits are the same).   It is a pantograph of the Revell 1:426 scale kit.  They corrected some of Revell's problems and introduced some new ones.  It has some problems with the turret spacing.  There are also deck seam problems.  Overall not bad for the company's first foray into ship models

The best injected kit in any scale is the Dragon kit in 1:700.  Get the Premium Edition with the added PE fret if you can find it.

The other small scale injected kits have been eclipsed by the Dragon effort.  It is on the par with the best of the small resin kits.

Aurora-7, Thanks for the cool link. I added it to my favorites.

EdGrune wrote:

jgonzales wrote: This is very interesting news. However, I am puzzled (as are I'm sure most everyone here) as to how it could happen that with a number of survivors of the attack, the wrong information could have been promulgated for so many years. How did we have it wrong for so long? 1)  It was not important enough to ask when it was fresh in their minds

This is an important point. As modelers, we tend to be very concerned about the accuracy of the paint and markings on the kits we build. That's a good thing; I consider it one of the most fun parts of the hobby.

Even reading about some of the "big" debates is enjoyable. Was Voss's Dr.1 cowl green or yellow?  Did the P-51s of the 361st Fighter Group in the summer of 1944 have green or blue camouflaged upper surfaces?

But it's worth remembering that the people whose crafts we're modeling had much bigger problems on their minds than what modelers 90 or 65 years later would think about their markings.

I mean, I'm sure none of us would have gone up to a survivor from the Arizona and asked, "Hey, I know that 1,177 of your fellow sailors and marines just died, but could you tell me what color your turrets were?"

And anyway, if we had all the answers, we wouldn't have any research to do. And what fun is that? 

Regards, 

read this before painting turrets red. http://www.modelwarships.com/features/archives/pearl_harbor_camo/pearl_harbor.htm

Small details like turret colors, cowling colors or nose art really become small details as the years go by. I have no problem with recent US Navy ship colors (haze gray hull etc, deck gray decks) but don't remember the exact shade of green on our PBR's in 'Nam. Fortunately WEM has the riverine green. I've talked to other vets, especially from WW2 and they usually remember generic names for colors. I.E. "My destroyer was "battleship gray" or my M4 sherman was painted green. That's why we have to do some research. Rick "Marty" Martin

Well, it's only bad news if your model is that date specific. For Arizona you now have a choice of three color schemes, just in 1941! You can go with the newly discovered blue/lt. gray/red turret tops or you can go with the earlier ugly dark gray/light gray or you can go with the even earlier pre-war USN standard navy gray ( a flattering light gray that makes even a scow look fabulous). I don't know why folks are so negative about all this color stuff. Pick the one that you like the most and go with it, Arizona will be correct in any of the color schemes you choose. I have already built models of the Pearl Harbor US battleships in both the pre-war gray and the dark gray and I have to say that the MS1 dark gray scheme is really awful as a display. The light gray is so much better at showing off the detail of the ships. I regret painting any of them in the dark gray scheme. MS21 is better by far for later in the war and MS22 is the best of all to make a really great display. The splinter schemes which may well be a tour de force of your painting skills hide too much detail for my taste so I usually research the time period for different paint schemes than those and use something more to my liking.

I see... I'm building the 1/720 kit from Revell of Germany... I know, it's a very bad kit, but with a little work I think it will look OK...  And I want to paint it with the 5-S Sea Blue and red turret tops, so I need a reference in HUMBROL or MODEL MASTER, at least a close match... Thanks in advance. Regards.

 

José

I would venture to guess that any given crew member's memory would center around the section of the ship where his duty station was.  If he was stationed below decks most of the time, I wouldn't expect him to remember any specific color scheme above decks.  I can't imagine, either, that anyone except those stationed up high or those involved in actually painting the turret tops would ever even know they were red.  If one of your duties were to constantly scrape and repaint any of the vertical surfaces, you would certainly remember that one color, either Sea Blue or Medium Gray - probably to the exclusion of any others.

i think that as memories fade to gray(pun intended) that the shades of gray are all alike but large bright patches of red how can anyone forget that, and not just the brave fellows on the ship but the dock people that supplied it and others  that saw the ship including civilians all around the area  

My question is, did the orders get carried out before the ship was lost?  A medium blue makes more sense for a ship operating in the normally sunny Pacific than does a dark grey, which would have been better suited for the North Atlantic.

The theory put forth by the researchers is that the Arizona may have been the only member of the battleline which was in 5-S on that date.   The Arizona was the only ship which had had a drydocking in the time frame between the order to repaint and the attack.  The question which has been gnawing is were there sufficient stocks of paint?   The orders also said that they were to remain in 5-D until local paint stocks were exhausted.  

This thread reminds me of the legend about the B-58 Hustler that was allegedly painted in SEA camo. 

Nothing but speculation, with no hard evidence (photos) or anyone still around who can actually confirm or deny it.

Mark

The article in the Honolulu paper (one of the links above) stated that one of the surviving pilots from the Arizona confirmed the paint job had been done.  There have been comments also about the Pennsylvania having white turret tops.  Since she was currently in drydock at the time of the attack, I find this entirely plausible that these two would be the only ones to have been converted to the new scheme, since they were the only two that had drydock access before the attack.

On a similar note, since I am waiting for its release to make my definitive Arizona in her new dress, has anyone hearde anything new re:Trumpeter's 1:200 Arizona?  I haven't seen or heard anything new since at least July 08.

A ship does not have to be in drydock to have her upperworks painted. More routine maintenance is performed pierside than in drydock, drydock time is in high demand due to the low ratio of available drydocks to the high number of ships needing hull maintenance.

An interesting camo version, and I'm not sure if I have heard of it before... 'Sea Blue' is used in a number of camo versions (MS11 is Sea Blue on all vertical surfaces with 'Deck Blue' on the horizontals), but 'Mediterranean Blue?'

subfixer wrote:

A ship does not have to be in drydock to have her upperworks painted. More routine maintenance is performed pierside than in drydock, drydock time is in high demand due to the low ratio of available drydocks to the high number of ships needing hull maintenance.

This is true. But the Arizona was in drydock due to a collision with the Oklahoma.  Since collisions with other metal bodies usually involves body work, and welding does bad things to paint jobs, she would have been a reasonable candidate for the first conversion paint job under the new order from Adm. Kimmel. If any of her hull above the waterline had been damaged, they would have had to paint her anyway, so why use up their depleting stock of 5D when they knew they would have to turn right around and paint her again in the new color.  The only reason to not do so would have been if they had not received enough of the 5S Sea Blue (not Mediterranean).  This would save the remaining 5D for those ships that needed touch-up work but couldn't get the new scheme yet.

searat12 wrote:

'Mediterranean Blue?'

This was a term the aviator and Arizona survivor used to describe the color; when showed a set of paint chips he chose Sea Blue.

Just to update an old thread; there is still much contention in regards to the issue of whether Arizona was painted 5-S Sea Blue. I spent some time down in the archives holding some of the records for Pearl Harbor and Mare Island Naval Shipyards (Mare Island was the yard on the west coast responsible for manufacturing paint for the other yards [Puget Sound, Hunters Point, San Diego, and of course, for its own use]) looking for records regarding naval paints and camouflage (two separate subjects).

There is no hard proof she was Sea Blue at this point and plenty of evidence for and against.

At the end of July, the Bureau of ships ordered the production of 5-D Dark Gray to cease, roughly three months before Arizona was in overhaul following the collision. In mid August Mare Island started issuing letters to ships that had requested paint, telling them this and how to requisition the new colors. Here is one to Arizona. 

However,  an October memo from CINCPAC Admiral Kimmel laid out some experiments in camouflage measures, and none of them match Arizona. Her wreck shows the Measure 1 pattern of a dark color from the waterline up to the tops of the funnels and then a light color above that. None of the experimental measures match that. 

However, we have not found ALL of the documentation. It is very possible that other memos orded something we don't know about. It's also possible she was painted in Measure 2 modified, which was called for when the Navy stopped manufacturing 5-D. It essentially called for ships to turn in all of their 5-D paint except enough to repaint the ship from the waterline to the main deck in 5-D, and then to repaint areas above that in Ocean Gray as needed. 

This is an issue that may take years to fully answer, if it is even possible at all.

 

 

 

How about those 1/700 Marylands too, where are the WIP's?

ps1scw

How about those 1/700 Marylands too, where are the WIP's?

Would love to see one of them built up.

If anyone ever invents a working Time Machine I am sure the people forcing their way to the front of the line will be a bunch of modellers wanting to go back to confirm such burning questions - and bless them for it.

One would hope that they'll mention something to the folks when they get back there...

This is pretty common though. 10% of the male population is color blind, and most people are not really very color literate.

I also know from first hand experience that "I don't know what the hell color it was. I was too busy climbing in and out of the dang thing!".

I intend to paint mine in 1936 colors anyways.