OK, I'm going to start this by partially walking something back, but I'll do that at the bottom after I lay some groundwork.
Charybdis wrote:
Quote:
In addition, I had read that Navy Blue paint was discontinued in 1944 due to lack of blue pigment stocks.
The process started in 1944, but it wasn't fully completed before 1945. I don't have all of the documentation "yet" but have enough posted to make a good argument. To lay a foundation; during WWII the Navy had two paint manufacturing yards, Mare Island (MINY) and Norfolk (NNY) Navy Yards, and Philadelphia Navy Yard (PNY) was the yard that developed and finalized paint formulas and specifications. Starting in 1942 the Navy started contracting out to various paint manufacturers and by 1944 we have a blend of paint from both civilian and Navy sources.
The first document I have is dated
June 1944 and directs PNY to develop formulas and specifications for new neutral paints; a
reply a week later indicates that these were preliminary formulas only. In the middle of November PNY
forwarded samples of a proposed #37 (replacement for 5-L Light Gray) and asked the Bureau of Ships (BuShips) for approval, which was granted about
a week later. BuShips notified the USN paint manufacturing yards of the new formulas
a few days later.
At the same time, they
notified the Pacific Fleet of the upcoming change and directed the use of the old paints until exhausted (paragraph 5). A
letter in January 1945 also shows that the civilian sector was still manufacturing to the old formulas and was expected to for at least a couple of months. We know that the new leaflet specifications for distribution were definitely not in circulation
before the end of January.
Now, Puget Sound Navy Yard (PSNS) reported that Bunker Hill was painted "on or about" January 4th:
Attachment:
1945-2-10_CV17_Camouflage.jpg [ 80.48 KiB | Viewed 2389 times ]
Note that she's reported in Measure 21, but I need to walk back the definite mention of 5-N Navy Blue. There's no mention of a 5N at all, so we can't even be confused about if they meant 5-N Navy Blue or 5-N Navy Gray. November documentation indicates the specifications were still being finalized, but we don't know where Puget Sound Navy Yard was getting its paint and how much stock of 5-N Navy blue it had. Decision based on evidence is yours.
_________________
Tracy White -
Researcher@Large"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
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Barbara Tuchman