OK, I don't have all of my documentation on this posted yet, but did have a new one go up earlier this month. The yellow lines Dick mentioned were hold overs from the prewar mahogany flight deck stain with yellow solid lines. When they started painting the flight decks blue (first experiments with flight deck camouflage in the Pacific fleet in 1941 were done with paint, not stain, which was found to be TOTALLY unacceptable. Planes were slipping around on wet decks even when chocked), they simply kept the yellow markings. When the first stains were approved, they were
designed to match deck blue for the deck color and Ocean Gray for the lines. Note that these were not Norfolk 250 /251 or Flight Deck Stain 21. However, in July of 1942
Directives for the new Essex class carriers were released that called for 250-N and 251-N and a
late 1942 document shows the Navy desiring those to colors to match 20-B and 5-O. Those are the colors desired in the purest sense.
Enterprise was note a pristine ship by the Battle of Midway. She had undergone many paint experiments prior to the way and had been very busy during it. Maybe they had problems with colors covering the old yellow lines and used white paint. Maybe they used regular Ocean Gray. I can say quite confidently what the Navy brass wanted but not what the ship's force was able to carry out.
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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