According to Alan Raven:
Quote:
... there was the introduction of a new flight deck stain for carriers called #21 Flight Deck stain which began to be employed on the ESSEX class as they came into service in 1943. This color when newly applied exactly matched that of 5-0 Ocean Gray. This new stain was also used on the flight decks of INDEPENDENCE class CVLs and CVE classes in 1943 and into 1944. About mid 1944 there was the introduction of #21 Flight Deck stain (revised). This revised stain was (when newly applied) identical to 20B deck Blue (revised) and was a near match in service with the introduction in March 1944 of glossy Sea Blue, a new camouflage color for use on carrier aircraft.
I'm on my laptop and am limited to
Navsource's CVL-24 page for now. There was a fairly systemic evolution to the mast that might enable you to use other ships photos to fill in the blanks. In early 1944 she would have had what I call the "Early" mast, which featured only a single yardarm to starboard and an angled/wedge truss structure forward, sort f like a stubby construction crane. This was cut off later and a more squared off appearance left. The earlier mast is shown in
this photo of CVL-25 Cowpens (larger black & white copy available
here). The later mast with a double yardarm and squared off front (as well as what the covered bridge actually looked like during war time) on the same ship is available
here for comparison.
_________________
Tracy White -
Researcher@Large"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-
Barbara Tuchman