The Ship Model Forum

Jeff,

That is also fairly fresh, so it has to be somewhere late '41 or first half of '42..... The red dotted insignias on the Wildcats and TBD's with their red striped tails says the same thing... I guess the clincher would be the three SB2U's..... Vindicator dive bombers on the deck of the wasp with their wings folded....

Pre Pearl Harbor.... The wasp was serving with the atlantic fleet, would be in Ms. 12m with stained flightdeck, AND Linoleum decks and catwalks.....

Linoleum was a HUGE fire hazard although that wasn't known at the time, and although orders were in hand to paint all exposed decks/horizontals 20B, they didn't paint the linoleum... on any ship I believe.... At least until after Savo when they learned the hard way of how bad linoleum is as a deck surface in combat....

When linoleum starts to burn, you can't put it out especially with seawater, it liquifies and starts degassing, it's the toxic gasses released during the heating process that do the actual burning.... And it burns hotter than natural gas....

By the end of '42 I believe there were orders in hand to remove it from all ships as a fire prevention/ship preservation effort....

Impossible to tell in B&W photography Rick we both know this.....

My brain is leaning towards original Ms. 12 as "official" Ms. 22 didn't come into general use until late '42 early '43... but that being said we know how the navy worked and it could be either...

It's split at the first continuous sheer line which would be the well deck as seen in the pic..... that smacks of Ms.12 in early '42.... As to colors? the lower half has to be 5-N, so the upper has to be 5-O wouldn't it be? They were very quick on getting rid of 5-S after Pearl.....

the real question I think is it Ms.12 or Ms.22.... We would need a side on shot to tell.... Ms.12 followed the sheer of the first continuous deck, Ms.22 was a straight line from the lowest part of the first continuous deck..... Easy way to tell the difference if we have that shot.....

Rick,

I think I've just about convinced myself that the Kittyhawk in those pics is Ms.12..... (if you look at the bow you can pick out a discernible rise in the 5-N as it approaches the stem, this would conform to the Ms.12 specification)

The upper hull above the sheer line has to be 5-O Ocean Grey... (which on a broken up superstructure combined with 5-H haze grey generally appears as grey, but, on a broad flat unbroken expanse of surface usually shows it's blue heritage)

In the color pic you can plainly see the haze grey upper stack in all it's bright glory, in the linked B&W pic you an see this line barely on the stack, (the tones being almost identical to each other)

The absolute evidence is that it is next to impossible to tell colors from B&W tonal images, it's not as difficult to discern pattern but it can be...

Yep I'm convinced, (I've convinced myself barring documents saying otherwise)

She is in Ms.12...

I researched the color USS WASP (CV-7) images at NARA in some detail, because of varied reported dates and locations, including San Diego which was obviously wrong. Once I pulled transparencies, this was one of the times that I pulled numbers in between "known" numbers and found a grouping of images.

80-GK-447 (available as a 5x7 transparency and 2.5x3.5 copy negative), 80-GK-448, and 80-GK-451 (and a couple in between that were terribly out of focus and I didn't bother scanning) all showed USS WASP at the same place and were taken at the same time. Also all were 5x7 transparencies. But, 80-GK-451 was the image that lead to answering when and where these images were taken. There was USS WASP with USS NORTH CAROLINA and USS WASHINGTON at the same location. Searching through War Diaries for all three narrowed down to only three days when they were together. The likely date of the photos was on 25 March 1942, the day after USS WASP arrived late in the day (at 1635) at Casco Bay with her destroyer escorts and one day before the TF left for the UK. The small boat traveling between the nearest battleship towards USS WASP leads me to believe her to be USS WASHINGTON and was when the CO's gathered for a meeting for the next day's departure. I wasn't able to ID the BENSON-GLEAVES classes unit. There were several possibilities, Casco Bay was a major training and staging harbor.



Other well known USS WASP color images, 80-GK-768 and 80-GK-816, were taken at San Diego and on the cruise to the South Pacific. Other well known images taken from USS WASP of escorts on her way across the Pacific and of units at Nukualofa Harbor, Tongatabu, on 21 July 1942 (positive date because the presence of USS BARKER in the photos narrows the date to that day because she was at this place ONLY on that day to refuel on her way to Pearl Harbor, from Australia).

As for broadside images of USS KITTYHAWK, Navsource (and https://www.shipscribe.com/usnaux/APV/APV01-p.html ) has several images of her as completed after her conversion. But no dates are provided for the photos, but likely taken soon after completing. The March 1942 images taken at PH, show the same scheme. The demarcation line follows the main deck sheer line (and alines with her knuckle at the bow). In the case of USS KITTYHAWK, the sheer line is almost parallel with the waterline, making following Ms 12 or Ms 22 rules, a mute point. It could be argued that given when she was completed, commissioned 26 November 1941, the lower paint could be 5-S or 5-N.

... http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/17/09170104.jpg ...
... http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/17/09170105.jpg ...

Wow, gorgeous image Rick and I guess it dates the other images to early '42 beyond any doubt.... She still carried Vindicators in '42!!! that's something I didn't know, I thought the navy had replaced them all with Dauntless's by December '41.....

This is one thing I've always loved about doing research, one question innocuously asked about one thing can easily lead to an answer on a completely different subject.....

The deck spotting in your pic of the Wasp exactly matches the spotting in Jeff's photos.... so my initial guesstimation was correct, (late '41 to early '42) but my judgment placing it earlier in the period based upon aircraft complement was way off...... The little details sometimes get me....

Thanks for the shots of the Kittyhawk, it makes me have to ponder it some more.... The line is decidedly straight and remains that way over her service time.... Given the state of her hull paint in '43 to '44, she was a very active ship and wasn't given much time for maintenance.... (especially painting) Of course aircraft ferries were in very high use/high demand during that period as well... The pic of her in '45 shows her obviously after a refit with the paint clean and fresh.... The Haze Gray on her stack top in '41, is gone by the time of the shot '42-'43....

Maybe when they did her Ms.12, they made it easy on themselves rather than follow the sheer of the deck, they just ran a straight line and called it good...

The last two shots still show the Haze grey stack... I don't know what to think anymore....

I guess you have to research individual ship specifics cause there is no hard and fast rule..... (it's the only way I can rectify the inconsistencies in my mind)

Another note along the line of getting an answer to one question leads you to another answer...

I'm building the USS Gwin, DD-433, and after researching her movements from the time in March when she left Norfolk as part of DesDiv 22, escort for Task Force 18, I have most of her movements down except one major hole...

How she got from Pearl in mid May, to Midway the day after the battle to be present for the sinking of the Hammond and Yorktown......

She was the escort for the USS Kitty Hawk AKV-1 who was tasked with rushing reinforcements, (Buffalo's & Marines) to Midway the last week of May returning to Pearl the day before the battle and immediately turning around back to Midway to rejoin TG 16.2 where she was assigned to assist the Yorktown in her struggle to survive.... She had repair parties aboard the Yorktown and was standing too when the Hammond was torpedoed and the Yorktown was dealt her death blow.... She carried over 100 survivors from the two ships back to Pearl...

My hole in her movements, (how she got to midway) has been filled....

This process, (one answer leads to another) never ceases to amaze me....

Rick, your Pennsylvania pic also made the site.
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/178141068

There is a lot going on around her superstructure but I was looking for any evidence of linoleum brown decking on her. I see a possibility of it under her MK19 director and maybe the deck around the Conn.

Jeff, that is the Yard crew doing a repaint, the big splotch of white are the tarps they have hung over the area being sandblasted down to bare metal, the brown sections of superstructure are bare metal that has been rust preventative coated & primered.....

At that date, they wouldn't have been removing the linoleum...

Perhaps. Here is another example. This is Yorktown. Notice her machine gun deck color. Rick, if you ever get back into the Archives, this shot is identified as 80GK-5790.

It's captioned as a practice shoot in '45....

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... -5790.html

The color footage I found of Hornet during the Doolittle raid was also listed as 1945 so we necessarily can’t go by the caption.

What is strange in this photo, other than color shift, is that the 20-mm guns don't have either Iron Sights or the Mk 14 Gunsights? Given the lack of either, I'm inclined to think these guns were equipped with and have had their Mk 14 sights removed. Obviously this is a practice, but why no sights of any type in use? My guess is shot was intended as a PR shot, and they didn't want Mk 14 Gunsights in the photo.

Jeff,

Where did you locate this image? Historylink101? Beware that Historylink 101 scanned the NARA copy 35-mm slides made from the full size transparencies, intended for "General Viewing by Researchers" years ago. Double beware, we have used History 101 as one of the sources for hunting "scan worthy" transparencies. Trouble is about 5-10% of the time they have the wrong 80-GK numbers attached to an image. The NHHC website has far fewer color images, but are accurate on the 80-GK numbers. Looking on both websites, HistoryLink101 and NHHC, they both have this image. I went down several ratholes and long searches to get the right number to pull.

... https://www.historylink101.com/ww2_navy ... /5790.html ...

... https://www.history.navy.mil/content/hi ... -5790.html ...

That may very well be true in many cases, But the Yorktown of 1942 didn't have a gun gallery down it's flight deck like this one, this is an Essex class carrier, easily CV-10....

And CV-10, unless I'm mistaken, didn't have linoleum on it's catwalks and gun galleries... None of the essex class carriers did... I do not know what is going on with the coloring in that shot, but I do not believe it is lino...

Another thing about History Link photos, they are auto rescaled and cropped for online posting....

Example...



The first one of course is the NHHC's posted image and the second is Historylink's....

As you can plainly see the historylink image is heavily blue shifted and seriously pixelated in places as well, not a good image.....

I know yours is the NHHC's image, so this is not directed at you specifically, this is just an informational posting on the quality of historylink's images, don't trust them for judging colors or scaling.... Informational yes but the processing quality sucks....

EG

The Yorktown CV-5 before she sank.....



https://www.history.navy.mil/content/hi ... 21666.html

Photo 80-G-21666, No 10 mount 20 mm gun gallery....

Yeah, it’s probably CV-10 which makes that coloring very strange indeed. Is it maybe just rust?

EG,

I don't think Jeff was saying the picture of the 20mm above was CV-5, he was saying that the Doolittle Raid footage was dated as 1945, hence don't trust the dates given.

Of course, that's how I read his post, and I could be completely wrong!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Hi Martin, that pretty much sums it up. Initially, I came across this pic in a book and it was identified as Lexington but I’ll let the “carrier fans” hash that out. The captions and dates on a few of these pics have been wrong so we can’t assume this one is right. It is suggested over on the Yorktown page that this pic may even be Enterprise. The color of the deck would make more sense if it is Enterprise or Yorktown more so than any of the Essex class carriers because both were in service prior to the war and more likely to have had this deck color.

Oh, sorry bout that, I hit the quote button on the wrong message I guess, it was meant for the one with the pic....

Jeff's been looking for images of that pre-war brown linoleum installed on all US Navy ships during the '20's and '30's..... An almost indestructible and waterproof linseed oil based floor product.... Colloquially known as "Battleship Linoleum" 1/2" thick gelled linseed oil with a wood cellulose filler (sawdust/hemp fibers)

The amazing thing is no one thought of oil and wood as a fire hazard on a combat ship prior to Pearl Harbor, (where they really didn't understand why some of the ships turned into blast furnaces) and the first battle of Savo where the fire damage caused us to lose some ships that otherwise could have been saved.... (Damage control crews reported fires they could not extinguish causing #30STS steel plate to warp and almost melt from the intense heat) The Navy combining the damage data from pearl and the Savo Island disasters decided to remove all flammables from all ships, tests on the Lino showed that lino, not usually lightable itself, became intensely flammable when heated till the linseed oil started to melt and gasify.... By the end of '42 orders were issued to remove all of it from our warships.....

Ironically, the Japanese came to the same conclusion and ordered it's removal from their ships by the end of '43 as well.....

Jeff has been looking high and low for images of those lino deck coverings for a while now, I imagine to get an accurate feel for the color of such....

At least that is what I think he's looking for.... In my mind it's a brownish orange color but then I've never seen a real good image of it either...

As was the paint on the bulkheads, which helped doomed Lexington at Coral Sea.

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Actually, from a group of documents I accidentally came across at NARA, and didn't scan because I was in a rush and need to return to, the USN was looking for "fire-resistant paints" for the interior and directing removal of old layers of paint even before the Pearl Harbor attack. RN experience and "lessons learned" had more to do with it than someone going "You know we should think of doing this ..." This ONLY applied to interior paints, not exterior paints. In the documents there were charts of how quickly a paint sample would catch fire, at what temp, and how long it would burn.