USS Missouri 1/450

If I was mistaken, I'll sure be the first to appologize. I've heard and read the decks were stripped all my life though. Even Malcolm Muir Jr., author of "The Iowa Class Battleships: Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin" Blandford Press ISBN 0-7137-1732-7 touched on it in his book.

Aint the first time I've been wrong though.

I guess black and white film can be decieving,  the uniforms, and desk cover seem to have a lot of contrast to the deck here.
 

kustommodeler1 wrote:

This is where the fun begins! To me, research is half the fun of building a ship.   2 great sites to visit are www.navsource.org, and  www.shipcamouflage.com   If your model is in WWII configuration, she was most photgraphed in a slightly modified Measure 22 camo paint scheme. Missouri wore this during the signing of the surrender documents by Japan. I say modified, because the decks were holystoned to thier prettiest natural teak wood, instead of being "deck blue", while the rest of MS 22 stayed in place (freshened up of course).   You can usually tell some of the older photos that were originally black and white, altered by having color added, will have the deck a dark blue during the signing. Nope. She was bare teak. After the war, her camo was removed altogether, and she went back to peacetime all over  Haze Gray. All horizontal surfaces were "deck blue", including the 16" turret tops, 5" turret tops, and all decks that were not covered in teak wood. In her last configuration, beginning during the Reagan era in 1984, and lasting to this day as she rests in retirement at Pearl Harbor, all the exterior decks that arent teak are now what is called "deck gray" instead of deck blue.

This mistake is often made.   The decks on the Missouri were not stripped for the surrender!

USNHC Photo

These are NOT color added photos.  They are from the original color negatives.  The colors are too clean to have been monkeyed-with.

Between September 2, 1945 and September 29, 1945 the Missouri returned to Pearl Harbor.  Whether the decks were stripped during this period is unknown.  Available photos do not show the deck from a high angle.

USNHC Photo

On October 13 she passed through the Panama Canal enroute to New York City.  The decks were stripped by this time

USNHC Photo

Even by this time the effort to strip the decks were not totally complete.    Check the remaining stain in the wood to the port (left) of the B turret.

USNHC Photo

Heck,  they were still playing the surrender staging of the event by ear up to the morning of the event.  The grand mahogany table loaned by the Royal Navy from the KGV wouldn't fit!   They sent a chief down to the mess to get a table,  he came back with a folding table complete with carved initials from some sailor.  They covered it with a coffee-stained table-cloth.  

Further evidence that the surrender photo was not colorized. 

Look at the difference in tone of the decks in black and white.    The first is from September 2.  The overall tone on the decks is dark.

USNHC Photo

In the second, made in October, 1945 during the Navy Day celebration in NYC.  President Truman comes aboard using the same gangway as Adm Lockwood.   The tone on the decks is significantly lighter.    

USNHC Photo

It is a long debunked myth that the decks on the Missouri were stripped for the surrender.  

This is where the fun begins! To me, research is half the fun of building a ship.

2 great sites to visit are www.navsource.org, and  www.shipcamouflage.com

If your model is in WWII configuration, she was most photgraphed in a slightly modified Measure 22 camo paint scheme. Missouri wore this during the signing of the surrender documents by Japan. I say modified, because the decks were holystoned to thier prettiest natural teak wood, instead of being "deck blue", while the rest of MS 22 stayed in place (freshened up of course).

You can usually tell some of the older photos that were originally black and white, altered by having color added, will have the deck a dark blue during the signing. Nope. She was bare teak.

After the war, her camo was removed altogether, and she went back to peacetime all over  Haze Gray. All horizontal surfaces were "deck blue", including the 16" turret tops, 5" turret tops, and all decks that were not covered in teak wood.

In her last configuration, beginning during the Reagan era in 1984, and lasting to this day as she rests in retirement at Pearl Harbor, all the exterior decks that arent teak are now what is called "deck gray" instead of deck blue.