What's the most common, or representative, color of a Mae West (the life jacket, not the actress or the cake! ). I've Googled and they're in bright yellow to navy blue/gray, with all sorts of shades in between.

Everything I have seen was the bright yellow, sometimes faded or dirty, but I was told the yellow was for improved visibility to make it easier to locate an airman in the water.

The Mae West worn on vessels started out as a blue, but varied by dye lots, and then was affected by fading. The inflatable vest worn by flight crews were various shades of yellow, from bright yellow to yellow drab.

I have several in my collection. The color of the B-4 vest in the attached pic (made in April 1944) is is the most representative color foe those worn by the US Army Air Force.

I can post a pic of a Mark 2 vest worn by a USMC Corsair pilot in mid-1944 if that's what you're looking for.

[img]http://gallery.kitmaker.net/data/500/thumbs/Mae_West_Vest.jpg" BORDER="0">[/img]

Let's try posting this pic again:

Actually, I was inquiring about the US Navy Mae West, seeing as this is a forum on ships. So I would suppose the navy version would be shades of navy blue/gray, etc.

Generally speaking, those were yellow too. The object being to make a downed pilot as visible as possible to the search and rescue operation looking for him. For the most part, Navy and USMC pilots used the same gear. Many B-3 and B-4 flight vests were marked with "AN #" stamps as they were purchased via a joint Army/Navy contract (including the B-4 in the pic I posted), so you could definitely use that color for a USN pilot. I'll try to post a picture of the BUAER Mark 2 USMC life vest which belonged to a fighter pilot in VMA 312. It's also yellow but a little lighter. He used this vest starting with the Okinawa campaign.

Here is a pic of the BUAER (Bureau of Aeronotics) Mark 2 vest:

Here's the pic of the B-4 life vest:

I think you missed the part where I said NAVY, meaning sailors. The, either Mae West, or kapok, vests deck crews wore during action stations. Anyway, I have since found out they were in shades of blue/grey.