Calling all Northampton-class (CA-26) fans

[ArizonaBB39]

Jeff, looks like Ms11 for sure for how I'm trying to depict the ship then, but with natural wood decks, based on the info you provided in the Portland and Indy thread.

[Jeff Sharp]

Abram,
Looks like my leading candidate for the date of this film footage is Dec.5, 1941 in the morning before Minneapolis left the formation at 0920.



So I have a feeling that Chicago was probably painted in MS-11 in November at Pearl like Raleigh, Detroit, St Louis, Honolulu, Phoenix were.

[Vladi]

Hi Abram and all, this is very interesting! I actually had a discussion about the possibility of Chicago retaining 5-S (Ms11) even after her voyage to Australia in the Facebook Warship Camouflage Research Group some weeks ago. Just my speculation on how to explain why the "Chicago Blue" happenned to be very different from even faded 5-N. Now you proved she actually wore 5-S before Pearl Harbor attack. I acknowledge there are arguments against her retaining 5-S later, it�s just a possibility. FWIW

Abram, re your table of turret colours above - I hope you are aware you actually need the USS Houston Corsair Armada kit to make a 1941 Chicago (unless you replace most of her superstructure like I did ). Their Chicago kit depicts her after the final refit in Dec 1942.

[Jeff Sharp]

I also found this article that talks about USS Minneapolis and the filming of the movie. This confirms the date of 12/5/41 so Chicago was definitely in MS-11 before the attack.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailyr ... n/%3famp=1

[ArizonaBB39]

Jeff and Vladi, Thanks for the information and looking into this with me.

Vladi, the Houston kit is the one I have, I just didn't distinguish which version of a kit I was using on the spread sheet. Thanks for checking on that.

[Vladi]

All good then, Abram

[Jeff Sharp]

Check out her CXAM
https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip ... -fired-uss

[ArizonaBB39]

That's pretty cool, I guess I've never thought about the fact it rotates like that, for some reason I thought it was like the gun directors and only moved at what they're trying to see. Thanks for sharing

[Lethal215]

Thanks to Rick D for helping with some King Board info. Stumbled upon the CinCAF Annual Report 1941 with some references to Houston dated Sep 11, 1941.

[Lethal215]

Next 3 pages from the Annual Report, p.48 (last post), 59, 66, 67

[G-Opt]

Useful documents about HOUSTON. They confirm her propulsion system was sound at least--which was always the contention of her senior surviving Engineer officer (LT Bob Fulton)--as the war approached, even if her armament still needed considerable work. Her logs show she made at least 31 kts on full power runs as she steamed out from CA to Hawaii in late '40, and had reached 30 kts later in her second Asiatic Fleet deployment.
The issues with her 'new' MK19 5" directors were never properly addressed, as we know. THAT, in fact, eventually became her Achilles heel, and may be argued to have contributed to her loss.

The problems with her degaussing girdle explains anecdotal evidence that they were still fooling w/that at Cavite in Nov. 1941 when she left for her southern 'defensive' position at Iloilo.
And she never got her new searchlights (which were left on the dock at Cavite) or any directors for the quad 1.1" guns, etc.
Ironically, the former were noted by her IJN adversaries at Sunda Strait as weak during her final engagement.

Many thanks.

[MartinJQuinn]

Check out her CXAM
https://www.shutterstock.com/video/clip ... -fired-uss

Kudos to you Jeff, you always find such interesting stuff.

[Jeff Sharp]

Thanks Martin!
Here's some more for ya.
Tracy submitted this photo to Navsource dated Feb.12, 1945 aboard USS Chester.


There is actually color film footage of this day over on Critical Past.
The color those two sailors are painting the anchor chain is yellow.


There is a handful of Chester footage during that same week on the Critical Past site. She was wearing Measure 32 Design 9D in these films but her decks were no longer camouflaged.


A couple of close up shots of her hanger deck and the deck above the hangers have me scratching my head a little bit again about deck colors.
This one shows church service on Feb. 11th. Notice that the hanger deck no longer has wood decking. It appears to have some sort of brownish square pattern to it now.




The deck above the Hanger also has a very brown tone to it compared to the blue plane.



If you wish to see all the films from this week, just type in USS Chester in the search field on the Critical Past site.

[Rick E Davis]

I think the "squares" are non-skid material. There were several different non-skid surfaces tried/used during WWII, which one this is I have no idea. The USN painted the stuff deck blue (or whatever was the camo of the day) to match metal surfaces, but the paint wore off fairly quickly.

As for the Yellow Primer appearing almost white in B&W photography, this is pretty common. I came to the conclusion some time ago that the strange "whitest" areas were primer. I read somewhere that the yellow zinc chromate also changed color as it aged. I saw this in a couple of color images. Turning from bright yellow to light yellow, to a sort of Tan.

This image shows a well worn destroyer (USS ERBEN DD-631) with areas of rust and various ages of primer applied. Also note, how the faded 5-N becomes darker when wet.

[Guest]

Hello all hands
i came up on this thread seeking info on painting the decks of the Northampton (2400 scale) and found a treasure trove of into. Thanks to all for the wonderful resources, i see that i will need to do some wood decks and some compsiite ones like the hangar deck and the upper gun deck, working with what photos i can find and info.

I am wondering if you all know of a remarkable book i found by a sailor named Fitch who wrote his story as a young enlistee into the Navy pre war and his experiences as a crewman aboard the Northampton until she was sunk and his life afterwards in various duty stations and ships. It is a remarkable book and just wanted to post the info on it if anyone didnt know of it and was interested. He was for a while Adm. Spruance's Talker among other remarkable experiences he had and he was aboard for the memorable visit to Australia his ship made, as well as being aboard at the time of Pearl Harbor, and all of the other significant engagements until the sinking of the Northampton.

thanks again for the wonderful resources here. I look forward to more study I am working on some historical research on the IJN and USN in WWII using both hands on research and 350 scale and 2400 scale ship modelling for deeper engagement. thanks again.

Chris

Desert Sailor
Growing up in the Pacific Fleet 1941-1946
A Memoir by James W. Fitch FC 1/c USN
Infinity Publishing.com
www,buybooksontheweb.com

[Jon C Ryckert]

Chris, the decks would have been painted Deck Blue 20-B. I believe it was a match to the Navy Blue 5-N paint that was used on the verticals surfaces. HTA, Jon

[Guest]

thank you Jon

i tried wood decks and it just didnt feel right. I will go with your info much appreciated. It just bugged me and I want to get this right and keep it accurate. I am working on various classes of ships of both USN and IJN, and have had excellent help from a pro here for IJN and for some of USN..but the USN went thru so many changes during the war and I have come to learn individual Captains and individual yards may have impacted the paint schemes of ships as well.

Also the non skid matting that was introduced that was a darkish brown color added another level of complexity. Not sure if all classes of ships used it. Will keep digging in the LIFE archive and other original sources as much as possible. thanks again. The Northampton is the first CA I have worked on and wanted to get her right.

thanks.

Chris

[Vladi]

Hello Chris, do you mean the non-skid matting that can be seen on the hangar roof of Northampton here? Are you sure it was darkish brown? I always thought it was dark gray (rubber).

BTW this photo is coming from the LIFE archive that was at one point of time available on FB but it then disappeared. I would be glad if you could share where could it be found now, it was a great resource!

This is how I depicted this matting on my USS Chicago. I used decals printed on a laser printer, so there was no way how to make them appearing dark gray (very few laser printers print white colour), that�s why they are just black.

[DrPR]

In the 1970s the US Navy used stick-on nonskid patches like what you see in the Northampton photos. They came in rolls. You just peeled them off the backing and pressed them down wherever you wanted them. They had a black grit, but you could paint over them.

I don't know if they were the same exactly as used in WWII but they looked the same.

We also mixed sand with paint to create continuous non-skid areas.

Phil

[Rick E Davis]

The non-skid used in WWII no matter what they looked like new, did seem to start looking almost brownish after the paint was worn off and got dirty from oil, grease, and all kinds of other tracked on grime. But, depending on the ship's CO and the Chief's responsible, there would have been an effort to keep the decks primed and painted. But, ships were not allowed to keep a lot of paint onboard, so rusty areas could have been primed and waited for an opportunity to get paint at an advance base or from a tender.