Battleship colors 1939

Yes there was a system on pre war Navy aircraft to designate an aircraft's position within a Squadron and Section. The tail color designated the to which ship or wing the aircraft was assigned. The color of the wing chevrons, fuselage band, (only section leaders had the fuselage band) and cowl would indicate section, while the cowl coloring itself; full cowl-section leader, upper half-2nd aircraft, or lower half- 3rd aircraft, would indicate it's position within the section.

1st Section, Planes #1,2,3, Insignia Red (fs#11136)

2nd Section, Planes #4, 5, 6, White (fs#17875)

3rd Section, Planes # 7, 8, 9, True Blue (fs#15102)

4th Section, Planes # 10, 11, 12,  Black (fs#17038)

5th Section, Planes # 13, 14, 15,  Willow Green (fs# 14187)

6th Section, Planes # 16, 17, 18,  Lemon Yellow (fs3 13655)

So whatever the aircraft number itself is, would determine what color the cowl lower half should be 3 is red, 9 is blue. 

I've got a page with a graphic illustration of this about 3/4 of the way down at

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Aircraft/YellowWings

Thank you Tracy, that was completely informative. The bird is a/c 1-0-9 and will have a red tail and lower half of the cowl blue. I will post her soon. 1/72 by Hasegawa. A nice touch, not to overdo it, the instructions from this original boxing list the a/c as attached to the BB "Pensuribania"

The history of the Seagull is a good one, never replaced by the Sea Mew and used throughout the war.

My USS San Francisco came with two. As I'm building her in late '42, they'll be blue over grey.