I ran across this little article At Modeling Madness today showing a New color scheme for the U.S.S. Arizona on Dec 7th 1941. It makes for a more colorful Arizona that's for sure. I thought I would share it here and find out what your thoughts might be.

http://modelingmadness.com/arizonacolors.htm :-)

This is really pretty incredible. Far be it from me to doubt Martinez but it's hard to imagine that nobody had mentioned such a thing for 65 years? Not to mention that I thought this kind of color coding went out of fashion with the new war. Still this will just give DML, Revell, et al, another chance to sock us for a new kit, with the box art showing the new colors.

In an article yesterday on Model Shipwrights, Ron Smith from AA Military Research, he covers the the new information along with fleet orders and color photos. It's a good read. And, as Ron has explained, because the 'Zona was totally destroyed, the Navy ordered all records of the ship destroyed. There was no need to keep them.

Gator

Ahoy,

Good Lord!......It took 65 years for this new info! I am very happy for all the new
Arizona builders.....now they'll have the "right color" for that particular period.

Cheers,
Joe

You think that was a "Doh!" moment? :-) :-) I gar-ron-tee it was cha!

later...Gator

First statement is

1. All the other BB's survived the attack relatively intact with the exception of the Oklahoma. Did they have these colorful markings?
2. If they had , then it would be plausable that the Arizona did as well. It is also more than likely that we would all know about this based on similar markings on the Pennsylvania...which I have never hear of being painted blue with main gun turret tops being painted red.
3. My viewpoint would be this was only in the proposal stage and that none of the ships were in this scheme.

Discussed here too

Arizona

Posted the link in the previous Arizona thread first.

David

It seems that, according to the info that was found, each Battleship Division had it's own color for the turret tops. Here is a repost of what was posted on both MW and SN:

Here is the text of Kimmel’s order -- it is his first US FLEET letter and is “No. 1 USL-41” dated March 24, 1941.

SUBJECT: Turret Markings for Identification by Own Aircraft

1. This letter replace U.S. Fleet Letter No. 13L-40, which letter is hereby cancelled, since colored tails for aircraft are being eliminated.

2. Battleships and cruisers shall paint the tops of any or all their forward turrets or enclosed mounts with the following colors for identification by their own aircraft. When stripes are involved, they shall be painted parallel to the axis of the guns.

BATTLESHIPS

Battleship Division ONE … Red (solid)
Battleship Division TWO … White (solid)
Battleship Division THREE … Blue (solid)
Battleship Division FOUR … Black (solid)
Battleship Division FIVE … Yellow (solid)

CRUISERS
Cruiser Division TWO … Yellow (double stripe)
Cruiser Division THREE … Red (double stripe)
Cruiser Division FOUR … Blue (single stripe)
Cruiser Division FIVE … Yellow (single stripe)
Cruiser Division SIX … Black (single stripe)
Cruiser Division SEVEN … Green (single stripe)
Cruiser Division EIGHT … Black (double stripe)
Cruiser Division NINE … Green (double stripe)
Detroit and Raleigh … Blue (double stripe)
Richmond … Red (double stripe)
Augusta and Omaha … Red (single stripe)

3. In addition, battleships and cruisers shall paint the top of their after turret or enclosed mount to correspond with the section their aircraft are in. The colors are red, white, blue, black, green and yellow for first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth sections respectively.

H.E. KIMMEL

If you look at this picture of the Pennsy in drydock three days after the attack, you can see the turrets are a lighter color. There are other photos which seem to back up the turret tops being painted.


As for the colors of the ships themselves, if you read the article Ron Smith posted on MW.com, he makes a very strong case for the battleships being painted in a variety of schemes on 12/7/41.

I look at it this way: I have the following 1/350 models in my stash, all in 1941 fits: Arizona, Oklahoma, West Virginia, California. Instead of having the choice of painting "light grey" or "dark grey", I may be able to paint them in a variety of schemes, if Ron's research is correct. As a modeler, I think that's cool. As a history buff, I think it's awesome that this has come to light. Who knows what other finds are buried deep in the archives, waiting to be found?

Does anybody have a list of which BB's belonged to which division?
Or which cruisers belonged to which division?

This was posted over on SN by James Corley. IIRC, he credits the information to the book "US Battleship & Cruiser Aircraft of the US Navy". The list shows the BB Division, the color of the forward turrets and the ships in that BBDIV:

Division Assignements December 1941
Battleship Division ONE … Red (solid) - AZ, NV, OK
Battleship Division TWO … White (solid) - TN, PA, CA
Battleship Division THREE … Blue (solid) - ID, MS, NM
Battleship Division FOUR … Black (solid) - WV, CO, MD
Battleship Division FIVE … Yellow (solid) - AR, NY, TX

I must have been a psychic child. I remember in the mid 60's when I discovered paints for my mdels (courtesy of making the visible man) I clowned around with my Revell Arizonza and painted the gun turrets red and some of the structures blue. Of course that was when I was around 11 or so when we still mainly played with them. I have my skepticism due mainly to the fact that after 65 years something this obvious just comes to light. It is not like this was highly classifed secret stuff. Enough of the BB's (including ones that were not at Pearl) were around and folks who served on them that would have seen these colors not to have said or written something up a long time ago.

On the other hand, like Martinn says. I like having options. If a plethora of Pearl vet BB's gets made in plastic in 350 scale, I would delight in not having to paint them in a single scheme.

Here's another shot of a painted turret, from the Naval Historical Center website. It's California's #2 turret while she's undergoing salvage

This still seems so hard to believe. It's like the evidence was right in front of everybody, but nobody knew it.

I also have to say, "What was Kimmel thinking?" Colored aerial recognition wasn't new, it was quite common throughout the tween war period. Still it seemed that the US would have known that every other major nation that was involved in the war had discontinued it's use in war time, at least as far as I know.