Color of Battleships at Pearl Harbor

[Rick E Davis]

Specific direction for what Deck Paint to use for this evaluation was in this memo.

[Jeff Sharp]

It's interesting that it calls for 20 pints of 5-TM. As a comparison, Sea blue I believe only used 10 pints. Also, its VERY interesting that Whitney had this material on hand. I wonder if she just recently arrived at Pearl from Mare Island? Time to search for her log books! Since she was a Destroyer Tender, I wonder if those stocks were limited to the destroyers or if she was the ship that supplied the USS Raleigh's Sea Blue repaint at the end of October and USS Detroit's Sea Blue repaint in November.

[Dan K]

Deck paint for the blue deck evaluations?

[Jeff Sharp]

Well, no, not deck paint. 20-B wasn't available yet so they substituted it with vertical surface paint and tinted it a darker blue than even Navy Blue 5-N and applied it to the decks. Go Figure! Just another example of making due with what you have on hand at the time. They did the same thing with 5-D. By last count, there was 4 different versions of 5-D.

[Dan K]

I thought Rick's point was the paint mix for the dark deck evaluation.

Speaking of which, the notes that I have indicate that Tennessee sortied with Maryland, WeeVee and Pennsylvania between November 3rd through the 10th as part of a Battle Force exercise. And again for another Battle Force exercise between November 22 and November 28th. But, she also engaged in a two day exercise with Pennsylvania and Nevada on November18-19.

I'm just guessing, but I think this short excursion was for the dark deck evaluation, particularly given that Nevada was in company with her. Which also means her, and Nevada's, decks would have been painted between the 10th and the 18th. Can anybody confirm that?

[Jeff Sharp]

Yeah, sorry, I think that is exactly what he is saying. More than likely even Tennessee had to use this mix to darken her decks.

As far as the evaluations go, the aviation units of USS Raleigh and USS Detroit were tasked to conduct these evaluations. USS Detroit was in the yard and dry-docked through nearly all of November. She finally sailed on November 29th. At 1446 on November 29th she spotted Task Force Two which included USS Nevada. Between November 30th and December 4th, USS Detroit launched her planes daily. She returned to Pearl on December 5th about the same time that Task Force Two returned.

Not sure yet of USS Raleigh's exact movements in November but I would guess her planes were the ones that observed units of Task Force One which included Tennessee. Raleigh stood out of Pearl at 0520 on November 21st.
Task Force One including USS Tennessee left Pearl on November 22nd and returned on November 28th. I would guess this is when Raleigh made her observations.

[MartinJQuinn]

the notes that I have indicate that Tennessee sortied with Maryland, WeeVee and Pennsylvania between November 3rd through the 10th as part of a Battle Force exercise.

Wouldn't that be an interesting little diorama?

[Dan K]

Not sure yet of USS Raleigh's exact movements in November

If you have the time and inclination, Jeff, I would be most curious to see those.

[Jeff Sharp]

Well, I can paint some of Raleigh's picture for Nov '41 based off of other ships deck logs but it still has some holes.
Nov.1 - listed at Pearl
Nov.2 thru Nov.6 - Moored with USS Detroit at berth B-16 Navy Yard
Nov.7 thru Nov.10 - ??
Nov.11 thru Nov.12 - at Pearl
Nov.13 thru Nov.14 - ??
Nov.15 thru Nov.18 - at Pearl. On the 18th the Commander Destroyer Flotilla ONE broke his flag on USS Raleigh and hauled it down on the USS Farragut. No mention of Raleigh standing out of Pearl.
Nov.19 - ??
Nov.20 thru Nov.21 - at Pearl. She stood out at 0520.
Nov.22 thru Dec.2 - at sea.

[Dan K]

Thank you for that, Jeff. Yeah, the information is not quite not firm enough on the dates I had in mind.


Btw, did you/we ever finalize which bridge decks might have carried linoleum? Signal deck aft? Possibly the Navigation deck?

[Jeff Sharp]

Unfortunately nothing new with regards to linoleum decks.

[Dan K]

I want to get back to my thought about Tennessee having only her wooden decking painted blue by 12/7.

I have a very sharp and clear, cropped version of this photo (or one very similar) that I cannot seem to post due to file extension problem. Not sure where I might have gotten it from, but I think it was within the last year. Does anybody recall posting that cropping?

[Jeff Sharp]

Here ya go, Dan.

[Dan K]

I thought it might be you, Jeff. Thx!

So, as previously stated, my take on Tennessee on 12/7/41 is that only her wood planked decks have been painted deck blue, strictly as a result of the visibility experiments. I suppose we could debate the impact of the revised SHIPS 2, but the way I understand the timeline, the deck painting directives for experimentation came after it was released, in October, with formulas released in early November. I could well have that wrong.

More concrete, I believe, is the photographic evidence seen in overhead photo above of 12/10/41. If you look closely at Tennessee�s deck, it seems clear to me that metal plated deck areas are far darker than the wooden decks. The plating at the bow around the hawseholes, the anchor chaffing plates and capstans, the mooring bits, deck hatches, deck winches, top of the conning tower, the 5.25� gun mounts on the port side of the 01 deck, etc. are much darker. The stern main deck is less well defined, but I imagine that all the smoke/fire/heat of Dec. 7th may have had an impacted on all the painted areas.

My interpretation is seen below. Reactions?

[Rick E Davis]

A note, "Deck Blue" was NOT available for this evaluation. The supply of this paint had not arrived at PH. A substitute paint mixer was authorized basically using the same paint applied to vertical surfaces. As such the paint didn't wear as well as a deck paint and was probably a different shade than the paint already applied to the metal surfaces. And as David said, the same paint applied to porous wood doesn't appear the same as to metal. The same effect was noted when non-skid was painted.

[Dan K]

"Deck Blue" was NOT available for this evaluation.

Noted. I realized this after I posted my response.

I agree that the finish of the same paint will appear differently when applied to different surface compositions. However, I strongly suspect that a paint covered metal will fade, chalk and weather more quickly in this climate than that of paint covered wood. Particularly a paint which doesn't wear as well to begin with. In which case, the metal covered areas would appear lighter, not darker. The areas I've referred are pretty dark in comparison, like a 5-D would appear.

[Rick E Davis]

Other considerations;

The wood covered decks normally see the most foot traffic and wears the paint off faster. The metal coated areas (like the top of the conning tower) saw far less traffic and had been painted with a "for the purpose" horizontal surface paint. Finally, this photo was taken after the attack when USS WEST VIRGINIA was sunk next to USS TENNESSEE and fire fighting efforts from TENNESSEE was quite active. The impact on the experimental deck paint would be a question mark.

The whole idea of the deck paint was to eliminate the very noticeable visibility of the wood decks as observed from the air. Everyone knew this was true, but the battleship commanders didn't want to "paint" their beautiful wood decks. One commander suggested keeping the decks wet, which produced a darker appearance. (How would you like to be one of the sailors during an attack standing on the deck spraying water?) So, an evaluation was created to prove that painting was a good idea. The IJN made the whole effort moot.

As for if the linoleum covered decks were painted over. I kind of doubt it, but don't know for sure. The square footage of these areas on the bridge is small. Paint likely wouldn't have adhered well in any case. The linoleum was stripped off after the war started as a fire hazard.

[Jeff Sharp]

As far as Linoleum brown on outside weather decks go, a lot more research is needed to nail down why it appears some ships had it while others did not. Here are some stills of USS Colorado and USS New Orleans going under the Golden Gate Bridge in the late 1930's. Neither appear to have Linoleum brown decks.







Maybe the Colorado Class Battleships did NOT to use Linoleum Brown? Maybe it was a Flagship thing?

USS Oklahoma's Booklet of General Plans did a great job of identifying the decking type on each deck. It lists her superstructure decks as "Mastic".

Black and White photo's of other ships wearing MS-1 camo show that the decks were indeed not 5-D like the rest of the ship. But what color were they?
For example, here is a look at USS Astoria's superstructure decks in July '41. Astoria also took part in the Low Visibility Evaluations in Oct/Nov.





This is basically what "Mastic" is. I don't know if this came in any color other than shades of Gray.







Linoleum was also widely used. This came in Gray and Brown.

[Dan K]

The whole idea of the deck paint was to eliminate the very noticeable visibility of the wood decks as observed from the air. .......... So, an evaluation was created to prove that painting was a good idea.

Exactly. So, the wood decking was covered with this new paint mix. However, the other horizontal deck surfaces were already dark (Dark Grey?), so there was no need to paint them for a temporary experiment. I think this is what is seen in the overhead photo. That's how I interpret it, anyway.

As for if the linoleum covered decks were painted over. I kind of doubt it, but don't know for sure.

My linoleum coverings are speculative. We do have a hint, as Jeff discovered, of California's signal bridge deck being covered with linoleum. Plus the 1940 color photo of Idaho's signal deck platform also covered in a brown linoleum. (Maybe it is a flagship thing.) I just went with it.

[MartinJQuinn]

I just went with it.

No one can prove you wrong (yet). Though I'm feeling like a trip to the archives is in order to try and do just that...