USS Arizona Paint Help...

I wish my father were still around.  He was a USS Utah survivor, and assisted with recovering bodies from the USS Arizona on December 8, 1941.  He would have remembered the color scheme.

DURR wrote:

sorry i was refer. to the first link  by piflo 1

OK, I remember seeing that picture now.  Yeah, that one was WAY overdone on the weathering. No Navy worth its salt would EVER let an active ship get in that condition.  That might look good on a well worn tank or vehicle, but they don't run around in salt water!  I read somewhere that one of the mottos of the Navy is "If it's shiny, polish it! If it's not moving, paint it!"  I'm sure you Navy folk out there have a better recollection of the real saying.  From a technique standpoint, that model is probably well done, but from a visual and realistic standpoint, IMHO it is terrible.  If I were to acquire a model like that I would immediately re-paint it!  But that is just my opinion.

tucchase wrote:

Yes, she was in pre-war condition, but remember, she was also the Flagship of the Fleet and went out on manuevers basically every week.  Being over 20 years old and in constant use, there would be no way she could be kept in pristine condition.  Since she was the Flagship for Admiral Kidd, I am sure she was probably kept cleaner than many of her sister ships.  Which model were you refering to?

sorry i was refer. to the first link  by piflo 1

the model is well built and the paint job is super but.............

i could be wrong here          the paint job to me is more of a war-worn ship

and the arizona pre pearl came from an era  more of the spit shine  high polish look etc..

of course imo   and i don't know all that much

Well, here's a HTML copy of the order laying out the colors in 1941:

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/USL-41.html 

And here's one for 1938 through half of 1940:

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/1939_24L-38.html 

I have done some research on this matter on another message board and I came across this place hoping to find the Aircraft Division color (Thank You for that information). Here are the 3rd and 5th Division Battleships at the start of WW2, and the newer divisions formed during the war. The turret colors were dis-continued once world war 2 started. This is from a historian at the Naval Museum of Annapolis that was kind enough to help me out.

Division 1 (red) - Arizona, Nevada & Oklahoma    
Division 2 (white) - Pennsylvania, Tennessee & California
Division 3 (true blue) - New Mexico, Mississippi & Idaho
Division 4 (black)- Colorado, Maryland & West Virginia  
Division 5 (yellow) - Training Division - New York, Texas & Arkansas
Division 6 - Washington & North Carolina    
Division 7 - Iowa & New Jersey    
Division 8 - Indiana & Massachusetts    
Division 9 - South Dakota & Alabama    
Division 10 - Wisconsin & Missouri

The colored turret tops feature wasn't generally known until December of 2006. It's one of those facts that faded into obscurity until re-discovered by researchers.

Some clarifications to things that have been said earlier in this thread that I see need updating.

December 30th, 1940 (essentially taking affect at the beginning of 1941) the Navy ordered all shipboard aircraft to be painted in non-specular (non reflective) colors; this is when the transition from silver covered aircraft started. Arizona's aircraft would have been painted in non-specular light gray after receipt of this order, issue of paint, etc., whatever impediments a bureaucracy adds to the adoption of orders.

The October 13 order mentioned above added the blue to the mix and as we can see in the photos Arizona's Kingfishers were two-tone, but there are photos of Kingfishers on Ford Island on December 8th that are still all-over non-specular light gray.

In regards to 5-D, there is now some confusion as to its proper appearance. While looking through records of Mare Island Naval Shipyard, I found "the" formula for 5-D, which appears to be completely neutral (I.E. no blue pigment present). Mare Island was the Navy Yard responsible for paint manufacturing on the west coast (including Hawaii). Later documents reference this formula shortly before it's production was ordered stopped, yet near the bottom of this page (look for "MUNSELL DATA ON MORE PAINTS") the National Bureau of Standards reported 5-D had a Munsell value (1929 book, not today's values) of 5PB, placing it in the purple-blue range.

The more we learn, the less we know

Tracy White wrote:

The aircraft wouldn't have had the colors painted on them at the time of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, but they might have earlier in the year when the OS2U-1s were attached to the BBs.  A February 1941 directive canceled the colored tails but I'm not sure how quickly it was applied. You can see photographs of Arizona's Kingfishers in September '41 on this Navsource's BB-39 page about 3/4 of the way down.

These Navsource pictures are very interesting.  They show the Kingfishers in their blue scheme without the colored tails, while their predecessors had the silver scheme with the red tails.  The Artist paintings at the end of the list all show the ship with either the 5-S Blue scheme or a lighter grey than the 5-D Grey. Only one artist picture shows the top of a turret though, #4, and it appears as a blue-grey instead of Insignia Red.  Could this have been the result of censorism to hide the new color designations?

If you choose to go that route, there is only one out-of-the-bottle [or tin] source for 5-S Sea Blue.  That is the Colourcoat line of paints from White Ensign Models. 

http://www.whiteensignmodels.com/acatalog/index.html?http%3A//www.whiteensignmodels.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Colourcoats_Naval_Colours_19.html&CatalogBody

Item number US-07.   WEM provided the paint for the Peral Harbor museum model

The color was never made in by Testors in their now OOP Marine line of paint. 

Your other option is to purchase a set of color chips from Snyder & Short and mix your own to that standard

I had posted some photos I had taken of the latest model at the USS Arizona memorial on a different website.  It shows her with the blue paint and red turret tops and I believe was the appearance she had on Dec 7, 1941. 

Let me know if I am able to post the link or if I need to post them separately here.

 Thanks-

Seeling 

ps1scw wrote:

These were on "silver" colored airplanes?  Whe did the Navy go to blue?

Technically late 1941.

An extract from Naval Aviation Chronology in World War II:

1941 October 13th -The Bureau of Aeronautics directed that all fleet aircraft be painted non-specular light gray except for surfaces seen above which were to be blue-gray. In late December, this color scheme was extended to shore based airplanes except trainers.

alumni72 wrote:

I'm hoping two things - 1: that this helps, and 2: that this pic isn't too big ...   For the BBs the vertical and the horizontal tail surfaces would be painted in the division's color.  I don't have a list of division colors handy, but I think there was one earlier in this thread. From the illustrations I've seen (mostly photos) both the upper and lower horizontal surfaces were painted the division color, as well as the entire fuselage from the rudder hinge back.  If you want me to post a photo as an example to clarify that, I will - but I'd rather not because the binding of my copy of Navy Air Colors is weakening from the strain of flattening it out on the scanner bed.

These were on "silver" colored airplanes?  Whe did the Navy go to blue?

The aircraft wouldn't have had the colors painted on them at the time of the Attack on Pearl Harbor, but they might have earlier in the year when the OS2U-1s were attached to the BBs.  A February 1941 directive canceled the colored tails but I'm not sure how quickly it was applied.

You can see photographs of Arizona's Kingfishers in September '41 on this Navsource's BB-39 page about 3/4 of the way down.

I'm hoping two things -

1: that this helps, and 2: that this pic isn't too big ...

For the BBs the vertical and the horizontal tail surfaces would be painted in the division's color.  I don't have a list of division colors handy, but I think there was one earlier in this thread.

From the illustrations I've seen (mostly photos) both the upper and lower horizontal surfaces were painted the division color, as well as the entire fuselage from the rudder hinge back.  If you want me to post a photo as an example to clarify that, I will - but I'd rather not because the binding of my copy of Navy Air Colors is weakening from the strain of flattening it out on the scanner bed.

What color red was used on Arizona's turret tops? Thanks Hank

Support the Troops  Garry Owen

That dark grey looks great, what color did you use for that?  I like the turret tops as well, I'd love to see somebody do a battleline with the different color turrets.

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/PearlHarborBatDivMarkings.html

I like the way that looks.  You get tired of seeing the same old thing time after time - Arizona in dark gray or Arizona in light gray.  This gives it more color, and in addition to being more accurate historically, it gives it a touch of the more colorful 30's schemes found on aircraft.  It just seems right.

Of course, it also looks different enough that we'll need to get used to it.  But it's a change for the better.