Timeline for Dark Grey 5D

[508medway]

My understanding of 5D was that it went out of use in late 1941. Going through the Australian Archives, there is a letter from Rear Admiral Crace, who commanded the Australian Squadron, to Professor Dakin who was in charge of the Australian Camouflage Section.

Crace describes the USN colour as Hull Dark Matte Grey. Is this a mistake on his part or could there still have been USN ships in the Australasian Area still in 5D.

Could 5N in some conditions appear to be more a matte dark grey than dark blue grey?

[Tracy White]

"Hull Dark Matte Grey" isn't anywhere near an official US Navy term so I'm not sure what it is meant to describe. Could it be a RN/RAN term for the US 5-D color?

There were two formulas for 5-D and both were essentially a neutral gray. The first was a conversion paste (paragraph 2) and then The "true" 5-D. Since the pre-war #5 Standard Navy Gray had a hint of blue in it the converted 5-D wasn't truly neutral, but the level of chroma was so low in comparison to the amount of black as to be virtually impossible to see by human eyes.

One area I'm not at all comfortable claiming any in-depth knowledge of is the US Asiatic fleet. My knowledge comes from archival research and there's just nothing from that theater that I've found that was sent back to the US and survived. We can see in the linked-to documents that Cavite was sent the 5-D formulas but my understanding is that this yard ha problems getting supplies to match the formulas and had to make due, which is one reason we have "Cavite Blue" as a color for some ships operating in the South West Pacific. The US Navy ordered the return of excess stock of 5-D paint and as far as I know (memos Ron Smith uncovered) it was all used up in the manufacture of depth charges by mid 1942 or so.

It's possible that the longer supply chains and a war going on could have made for some US Navy ships retaining their 5-D into 1942 or that they were wearing 5-N Navy Blue that was faded and chalked to near-neutral, but as I said above, I have no documentation from the Cavite Navy Yard so I can't really provide anything more than I've already written.

[508medway]

Thanks Tracy.

The RAN colours are confusing with them talking in June 1942 of a dark grey for use for HMA ships, then adopting Chicago Blue but with some elements adopting their own colour known as Task Force Blue before apparently switching to the the RN's G10 or a matte version of it. Photos are of little use as all these colours are so close together that in black and white it is hard to even guess which colour is which.

[Tracy White]

I have similar problems with the US Asiatic fleet and have frankly wondered how I'm going to include anything useful in the eventual camouflage book I hope to write on USN WWII camouflage.

"Errmm... other books and authors have said this and I really don't have anything new to add" just seems lame.