U.S. NAVY AND MARINE CORPS COLORS AND MARKINGS IN THE GOLDEN AGE
During the Golden Age of aviation, between the world wars, brightly colored military aircraft were common in many nations. The British and the Japanese operated some especially colorful aircraft. But nobody made such systematic use of color as the air arms of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Not only were their aircraft bedecked with large splashes of color, but no two aircraft in a squadron were painted alike! In the Navy, in the mid-1930s, no two aircraft of the same type in the whole fleet were painted alike! And every color and every marking meant something. For example, if you knew the system (and hadn't already read it in the ReadMe file) you'd know instantly that the Marine Corps J2F this file was included with was flown by the squadron commander of Marine Scouting Squadron Three, and that the squadron was assigned to the Neutrality Patrol.
For those interested in such things, here are a few notes about the colors and markings of the aircraft of the U.S. naval services in the years between the wars. Like all rules, these had exceptions, but those are too complicated to cover here. Entire books have been written on the subject. Let this be simply a primer on the basics.
EXTERNAL AIRCRAFT COLORS
After the end of WW1 naval aircraft were painted gray, like everything else the Navy owned. In 1919 fabric covered parts were painted in an aluminized silver lacquer, and this didn't change until the introduction of camouflage on the eve of WW2. The color of metal covered parts, though, changed back and forth between gray and silver several times.
In 1924 metal parts (except floats) were painted silver. The silver lacquer didn't hold up on metal surfaces, and in the late 1920s gray began to reappear on the unit level. Soon it was ubiquitous, and by 1930 the Bureau of Aeronautics made it official again. In 1935, with better paints available, the standard changed back to silver for metal parts.
Except for a few land-based transports, naval aircraft, being operated in corrosive salt air, were never left natural metal. They were always painted either all silver, or silver and gray.
In the days following WW1 the gray used was battleship gray, but by the early 1920s it was the same Light Gull Gray adopted in its matte form as overall camouflage on the eve of WW2, and used again in the gray & white scheme seen on naval aircraft from the middle fifties until the advent of the low-viz schemes of the 1980s.
The color yellow appeared on top wing surfaces of seaplane trainers as early as 1921, and in 1924 it became part of the standard color scheme. Through the 1920s the yellow was also applied to the top of the horizontal tail, but that practice was stopped in 1931. After that the yellow was only applied to the top of the upper wing. Yellow was never applied to any lower surfaces, or to either surface of the lower wing. Although it was referred to as orange-yellow, the color was just yellow. It was somewhat deeper and richer than the Lemon Yellow used for section marlings, desacried below.
Until mid-1938 the yellow on top of the upper wing came to the center of the leading edge. After that it was carried around the leading edge to 5% of the chord. This was because it was discovered that the discontinuity in the paint was enough to disrupt the airflow where it met the wing, affecting the aircraft's stall characteristics. It's an interesting comment on the aeronautical science of the day that it took the Bureau of Aeronautics fifteen years to realize this!
SECTION COLORS
Naval squadrons nominally consisted of 18 planes in six sections of three. By the early 1930s a system of identifying each aircraft's position in the squadron and section had been developed. The Marines didn't adopt the system until the middle 30s, a few years after the Navy.
The section colors were standardized as:
1st Section - Insignia Red
2nd Section - Insignia White
3rd Section - True Blue (much lighter and brighter than Insignia Blue)
4th Section - Black
5th Section - Willow Green (a light to medium green with sort of an avocado cast)
6th Section - Lemon Yellow (noticeably lighter than the identification yellow used on the top wing)
The squadron Commander led the first (red) section, and the executive officer led the fourth (black) section. This made it simple to split the squadron into two divisions of three sections, led by the CO and the XO.
Until the very late 1930s only Marine fighter squadrons had 18 aircraft. Marine bombing and scouting squadrons had 12 planes, and thus had no green or yellow section.
The section colors were applied as Section Markings. Every aircraft had a formation chevron on top of the top wing in the section color. It usually pointed forward with the point at the center of the leading edge of the wing. Some squadrons reversed the chevron. In that case the marking became split, since it was applied so that the two stripes would converge so as to place the point at a spot directly over the pilot's head. Since there wasn't any wing at that spot, the chevron was truncated and had no point. On monoplanes the chevron was retained, split in half by the fuselage. The angle of the chevron was always 90*.
The Marines didn't adopt the wing chevron until the late 1930s, but they began using the cowl and fuselage colors soon after the Navy introduced the system.
Each section leader's aircraft also carried the section color on the fuselage in the form of a vertical band around the fuselage behind the cockpit. The two wingmen's aircraft lacked the fuselage band.
On the nose of the aircraft, the section color revealed the position of the aircraft in the section. The color was applied to either the engine faceplate or the engine cowling, depending on what a particular aircraft had available. If a type had both a cowling and a faceplate, sometimes the color was applied to both, but not always. Some units painted only the cowling, and a few painted only the faceplate. On Townsend ring cowls, the entire depth of the cowling was painted. On aircraft with full NACA cowls, the section color was applied in a band at the forward part of the cowling.
The pattern was:
Section leader - color all around the cowl or faceplate.
Second aircraft in section - color on the top half of the cowl and/or faceplate.
Third aircraft in section - color on the bottom half of the cowl and or faceplate.
It became fairly common to outline the section markings with a thin pinstripe of black or white, especially the light colors white and yellow.
Although the section colors and markings were intended for the use of tactical squadrons, some shore based units adopted them. For example, Utility Squadrons One and Four (VJ-1 & VJ-4) both applied section colors and markings to their first eighteen aircraft, even though they operated widely different types that never flew in tactical formations.
In the Asiatic Fleet, where there were few squadrons, mostly just ship units of a few planes each, it was not uncommon to see each aircraft in a ship unit wearing full section leader markings, each in a different color - as if each plane formed a section of a single aircraft. The Lighter Than Air Unit, which flew its Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks from the derigible aircraft carriers USS Akron and USS Macon, followed this practice.
UNIT MARKINGS
The most prominent marking was the Identification Group on the sides of the fuselage. The first character was a digit indicating the squadron number. Then, separated by a hyphen, came a letter indicating the type of squadron. After a second hyphen came the aircraft in squadron number.
Aircraft numbers were in sequence by section, so the first (red) section consisted of aircraft numbers 1, 2 and 3, the second (white) section had aircraft numbers 4, 5 and 6, and so on up to aircraft number 18, the third aircraft in the sixth (yellow) section.
The individual aircraft number also appeared inside the apex of the chevron atop the upper wing. On monoplanes the number was duplicated on each side, just outside the chevron.
In the 1920s letters and numbers were applied in insignia blue. By the late 20s black had largely replaced blue, and became official in 1930. White was used for characters that appeared against backgrounds of red, blue and black. Occasionally white was also used on a Willow Green background, although the specification called for black.
These are the most common mission letters used to designate the type of squadron:
B = Bombing
F = Fighting
J (not U) = Utility
N = Training
/ = Observation (1920s)
O = Observation (from 1930)
P = Patrol
S = Scouting
T = Torpedo
Until 1935 Marine squadrons applied the mission letter of the identification group with a circle around it. The circle was the same size of the rest of the characters, or only slightly larger, so the letter was quite small to fit inside the circle. From 1935 or 36, the Marines dropped the circle and substituted the letter M in front of the mission letter: MB, MF, and so on.
For a while in the late 1920s and early 1930s a smaller letter, B, S or A, followed the mission letter. It's been written that those were secondary mission assignments for the squadron, but that's incorrect. In fact, the letters designated the squadron's assignment to the Battle Force (B), Scouting Force (S), Base Force (F) or Asiatic Fleet (A). These markings weren't in use for very long.
For a period in the mid- to late-1920s the identification group was also carried atop the upper wing and beneath the lower wing, and the national star insignia was removed from the lower wing to make room for it. The marking was never universally applied (almost never on fighters) and many aircraft had completely blank lower wings.
On both sides of the fin the aircraft's serial number ("Bureau Number") was applied, and the aircraft's type designation was carried on the rudder.
The squadron insignia was usually applied to the fuselage below the cockpit, forward of the identification group. Marine Corps aircraft carried the Globe & Anchor insignia in that location, and sometimes carried a squadron insignia on the vertical fin.
TYPICAL SECTION MARKINGS FOR A TACTICAL SQUADRON:
AIRCRAFT # SECTION FUSELAGE BAND COWL COLOR
1 Red Yes Full Cowl
2 Red No Top Half
3 Red No Bottom Half
4 White Yes Full Cowl
5 White No Top Half
6 White No Bottom Half
7 Blue Yes Full Cowl
8 Blue No Top Half
9 Blue No Bottom Half
10 Black Yes Full Cowl
11 Black No Top Half
12 Black No Bottom Half
13 Green Yes Full Cowl
14 Green No Top Half
15 Green No Bottom Half 16 Yellow Yes Full Cowl
17 Yellow No Top Half
18 Yellow No Bottom Half
19 & up None No None
All Navy aircraft carried the chevrom on the top of the upper wing in the section color. The Marines didn't adopt the chevron until the late 1930s.
TAIL COLORS
Originally there were no tail colors except for vertical red, white and blue stripes on the rudder. These were, in fact, part of the national aircraft markings of the day. Towards the end of the 1920s Navy squadrons began to paint the tails of their aircraft, originally to distinguish between squadrons on the same carrier using the same aircraft type. Non-carrier squadrons soon took up the practice, and by the early 1930s rudder stripes were rarely seen on tactical aircraft in the Navy.
In 1936, with the invention of the Carrier Air Group, colors were assigned to carriers rather than squadrons, and observation squadrons colored their tails according the battleship division they were assigned to. By then even some land based reserve units were getting in on the use of tail colors.
A few Marine units painted their tails, and one fighter squadron briefly used different colored tails to distinguish between flights within the squadron. But by and large, the Corps retained rudder stripes right up until the eve of WW2.
Originally the colors used for tails were the six section colors: Insignia Red, Insignia White, True Blue, Black, Willow green and Lemon Yellow. When the cruiser-based scouting squadrons and flying boat patrol squadrons ran out of colors they added Aluminum as a tail color. It might seem pointless to mark the tail of a silver airplane by painting it silver, but there were clues to recognizing it. When external metal parts were normally painted gray, the presence of silver instead on metal fins and stabilizers indicated that the plane was using silver as a tail color. Also, the absence of rudder stripes indicated the use of silver as a tail color. Utility Squadron Three and Patrol Squadron Eight (VJ-3 & VP-8) were among the squadrons that used Aluminum as a tail color for varying periods of time.
The gunnery ship based observation and scouting squadrons and the patrol squadrons soon needed more than seven tail colors, and they introduced wide horizontal colored bands in the six basic colors. When they ran out again they introduced narrow double bands. The cruiser scouts only used double bands in red, blue, green and black, but the patrol squadrons needed all six colors and then some. For a while they duplicated tail colors among squadrons based in different geographic regions, but they eventually added diagonal checker patterns. All six colors were assigned as checkered patterns, but not all the units formed up before the advent of camouflage.
BRANCH OF SERVICE MARKING
The name of the branch of service, either U.S. Navy or U.S. Marines, was carried on the far rear fuselage, beneath the horizontal stabilizer. For a period in the late 1920s the Marine Corps also applied it in large letters on the upper surface of the top wing, and the practice was quite common at the time. For a very brief period in 1932, the Navy applied it in large letters below the lower wing, but the marking was in use for such a short time that very few aircraft ever received it.
NATIONAL INSIGNIA (STAR)
Shortly after WW1 the national star insignia was revived to replace the roundel in use during the war. At this time it appeared on both upper and lower wing surfaces. In 1923 it was deleted from the lower wings,to make room for the identification group, and it didn't reappear there until 1930.
The star didn't appear on the fuselage until the very end of 1938, with the beginning of the Neutrality Patrol. Aircraft assigned to the Neutrality Patrol (which eventually included just about the whole Atlantic fleet plus most land based units on the east coast) carried the national star insignia on the forward fuselage. The star wasn't applied to the rear fuselage until the advent of camouflage just prior to WW2.
The colors of the insignia were specified as the colors of the American flag. The bright primary red and pure white didn't leave much room for interpretation, but the blue varied some. By the late 1930s it was noticibly darker than it had been in the 20s.
INTERIOR COLORS
The interior color of naval aircraft pretty much followed the color of external metal parts, going back and forth between silver and gray. Zinc chromate green was specified from mid-1938. Instrument panels seem to have been black since some time in the 1920s. Leather covered headrests could be either black or brown, and fire extinguishers were red. Telescopic sights were black.
Until early 1932 the insides of engine rings and cowlings matched the external metal parts. After that they were painted black.
While the corrosive salt air in which naval aircraft operated required frequent refinishing of exteriors, it seems highly unlikely that interiors were repainted except when the aircraft was completely overhauled. So while aircraft exterior colors were seldom very far behind the official specification of the day, the interior color in most cases probably remained what it was when the airplane was built for most or all of a planes lifetime.
PROPELLERS
Wooden propellers were varnished wood. Metal props were originally polished bare metal. A 1929 specification introduced warning bands at the tips on both sides of each blade: red at the tip, then yellow in the middle, and blue inboard. Each band of color was four inches wide. It was optional to carry the blue of the innermost band down the back side of the blades to a point even with the outer edge of the cowling. This option was soon adopted almost universally, and at some point became mandatory. The red was Insignia Red; the yellow was the same identification yellow as used on the upper wing, and the blue was Insignia Blue. Prop colors didnt change again until after the advent of camouflage on the eve of WW2.
MISCELLANEOUS PROMINENT MARKINGS
In late 1931 red prop warning bands were authorized on floats and fuselages, in the obvious locations. This practice soon became almost universal.
In late 1936 the bottoms of floats and flying boat hulls were specified to be painted black, though the practice never became universal and was rare by the late 1930s. The black was carried up the hull to the waterline on flying boat hulls, but not on floats except flying boat wingtip floats. At the end of 1938 this was replaced by a 4-inch black stripe at the waterline of flying boats, but not floats. A year later this was reduced to a 2-inch stripe.
Flat black anti-skid walkways were applied at the wing roots of aircraft that were boarded by climbing onto the lower wing, and in appropriate places on top floatplane floats and the tops of the hulls of flying boats. On some types, mostly large aircraft in the biplane era, then on most monoplanes, there were also thin black stripes outlining the areas of the wing that could be safely walked on.
WEATHERING
In the period between the world wars, before there were Ceconite fabrics and Imron paints, the corrosive salt air in which naval aircraft were operated required that the planes be refinished frequently and touched up constantly. Because of this, the aircraft seldom showed visible weathering and usually looked pristine.
References:
The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Color Guide, Vol. 1 1911 - 1939
The Official Monogram US Navy & Marine Corps Color Guide, Vol. 2 1940 - 1949
Major John M. Elliott, USMC (Ret.)
Monogram Publications, Boyleston, Mass.
THE reference on the subject. Just amazing in its thoroughness and detail.
Color Schemes & Markings, U.S. Navy Aircraft 1911 - 1950
Bill C. Kilgrain
Privately published
Incomplete but a valuable reference nonetheless.
U.S. Navy Aircraft 1921 - 1941
U.S. Marine Corps Aircraft 1914 - 1959
William T. Larkins
Orion books, republished with both titles in one volume.
A photographic record of the aircraft - hundreds and hundreds of photos with informative captions and some basic text and appendices. Larkins' intent, which he came close to realizing, was to show every type of aircraft operated by the Navy, Marines and Coast Guard in the markings of every unit that ever flew it.
This primer was compiled largely from the above sources by Mick Morrissey, a long time scale modeler with a special interest in the Golden Age aircraft of the U.S. Navy, Marines and Coast Guard.
