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P38 Lightning in desert camouflage?


old thumper

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I am hoping that some kind person out there could provide me with evidence of a wartime P38 receiving desert camouflage? I am aware of a warbird that received a British style desert camouflage scheme, but so far I have been unable to discover any actual wartime aircraft wearing either this or a similar scheme. I know the USAAF generally kept their aircraft in olive drab while in North Africa and the Mediterranean area, but there were exceptions and I only need just one P38.

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To the best of my knowledge no P-38 wore a desert scheme. However the USAAF studied a number of desert camouflages for use in the Northwest African theater and produced drawings for a number of aircrafts, including the Lightning. I've yet to see a picture of a P-38 in one of these scheme though !

Maybe not a desert scheme but there's footage showing a 14th FG P-38 with an unusual scheme here:

http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675069415_Royal-Air-Force-33-Squadron_British-bomber-aircraft_in-flight_drop-bombs

The P-38 numbered 77 appears at around 25 secs into the video and is visible for 15 secs or so. It seems to have some lighter paint applied in squiggles over the standard olive drab

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Bit discussion found here, plus a clear photo:

79-05b6171ec4a_zpsd7ca94d0.jpg

regards,

Jack

Hi

I love it when a photo turns up for the really rare camo schemes.

Good to prove it actually existed.

Might do one myself in these colours, would look nice next to an A-20 havoc in the similar scheme

Cheers

Jerry

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With Jack's picture we now have 2 different aircrafts wearing this unusual camouflage. They would make for very interesting models, the only problem is understanding what camo scheme is used

Yes exactly, I would love to be able to find a decal sheet for these.

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  • 2 months later...

As luck would have it I stumbled across an Airfix P-38F kit while at a car boot sale this morning, the kit dating from about 1980 includes markings for the 48th squadron, 14th fighter group based in Algeria 1942. The Airfix kit includes only yellow bordered USAAF markings together with ES-L fuselage codes, with no serial numbers or other details, standard olive drab is suggested for the upper surfaces.

The 14th fighter group contained two other squadrons beside the 48th, these being 37th and 49th fighter squadrons and from what I can gather desert camouflage was only used by the these two squadrons and not the 48th.

The plot thickens, I have since discovered that the owner of Scatterbrain Kid (a well documented desert camouflaged P-38 that crashed in the early seventies) was a former member of the 49th FS. With this in mind could it be that the camouflage scheme worn by Scatterbrain Kid was not fictional but in actual fact based upon a camouflage scheme known to the owner from his days as a wartime pilot? To back this theory up the Scatterbrain Kid camouflage pattern does share a likeness to a suggested official scheme.

From my understanding P-38's used in North Africa had both nose and tail markings with one squadron of the 14th FG having red bordered stars rather than yellow.

How close to the truth does any of this sound?

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This is one of several "patterns," issued by Spaatz's H.Q., in May 1943. There was no official pattern, as such; units were told to make up their own designs, but containing no clearly defined shapes, like circles or ovals, and there was to be a 4" blending overspray between colours.
SPAATZ2_zpsb614460f.jpg
While there were set colours, on the drawings, it was permissible for the colours to be changed, depending on the background surface on which they were parked:-
SPAATZ1_zpsc6a5254c.jpg
Whether these were ever used is not known (to me,) but it shows that there were plans.

Edited by Edgar
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Thanks Edgar. One other thing I need to know is were there any squadron or group specific colours involved with the P-38s used by the 14th FG at this time? I suspect the spinners or at least the front half of the spinners may have been painted a different colour, possibly some kind of blue? I don't think the Americans really got into using distinctive colours to mark their various units until after the North African campaign.

I am venturing into an area that previously I have had only a passing interest in here. I may be better off asking on a forum where there are more Americans present, most of the books available on this topic are not on general sale in the U.K., plus there doesn't seem to be much interest in P-38s over here.

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I am thinking the P-38s would most likely have received sand over olive drab. The 14th fighter group was originally part of the 8th Air Force but was transferred to Africa to take part in the Torch landings, so I reckon it was just a case of painting a disruptive sand pattern over the existing olive drab.

The P-38 Scatterbrain Kid was half owned by Revis Sirmon, a former 14th fighter group P-38 pilot. This aircraft had some custom markings which I am guessing to be the company logo of the oil firm that he owned.

According to the Lightning at war book it was the aircraft of the 48th squadron that had red borders to their national markings while the 37th and 49th had yellow.

From pictures in the same book a stripe is in some cases visible on the aircraft tail, upon which can be seen the serial number.

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The "olive drab" and "field drab" chips are interesting. They look very like Humbrol 66 and 155 respectively.

Also interesting is the spelling mistake in the body text of the document: "Dessert".

Must've been close to meal time when the article was written...............

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Wouldn`t the P-38`s have had red spinners as a theatre marking?

Cheers

Tony

Maybe, some of the photos look as though the spinners are a different colour to the rest of the aircraft. It is impossible to tell what colour they are on account of the photos being black and white though. Wasn't a yellow stripe across the wing also used as a theatre marking?

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This is one of several "patterns," issued by Spaatz's H.Q., in May 1943. There was no official pattern, as such; units were told to make up their own designs, but containing no clearly defined shapes, like circles or ovals, and there was to be a 4" blending overspray between colours.SPAATZ2_zpsb614460f.jpg

While there were set colours, on the drawings, it was permissible for the colours to be changed, depending on the background surface on which they were parked:-SPAATZ1_zpsc6a5254c.jpg

Whether these were ever used is not known (to me,) but it shows that there were plans.

Edgar, it is amazing what you can dig up. Did you work for the MOD at one time? Maybe MI5? You constantly amaze me my friend.

Cheers

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Red spinners and RAF-style fin flashes were authorised for all Allied aircraft in North Africa, as an identification feature much like the Sky trim and Yellow leading edges of the Day Fighter scheme, or indeed the D-Day stripes. Yellow bands are seen on some but by no means all US aircraft, but do seem to have become most common in 1944/45 in Italy.

Edited by Graham Boak
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I've been asked this before; I just say that I'm naturally nosey.

Please consider writing a Spitfire book, I think you cold give Alfred Price a run for his money!

Cheers

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Having looked at the old b and w photos and films once more I now feel pretty confident that Edgar's drawings were the pattern used, and if they weren't it then it has to be something close.

I am now thinking about the stripe I keep noticing on the tail plane. I don't see this stripe in all the pictures but in a few the serial number seems to be applied to a stripe of some description, possibly though this stripe could be the result of weathering or even grime thrown back from the superchargers?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Having now had the time to do a little more research I have discovered the following. The 14th fighter groups 48th and 49th squadrons both departed Atcham in the U.K bound for Algeria via Gibraltar in 1942. The 14th fighter groups third unit the 37th FS did not arrive until February 1943 becoming active in March of that year, unlike the 48th and 49th squadrons the 37th arrived in Oran directly from the USA by sea. Until mid 1943 the squadron codes used on P-38s in North Africa were two letters in heavy print (ES, for the 48th squadron) followed by a single letter to identify the individual aircraft, after this time the code letters were removed and replaced by numbers alone, 1-30 for the 48th FS, 31-60 for 49th FS and 61-90 for the 37th FS.

Most if not all of the few pictures I have seen showing P-38s in desert camouflage belong to the 37th FS, it now seems likely to me that it was this squadron alone that wore this distinctive camouflage scheme. Having read a little about USAAF P-40's in North Africa I have discovered that these aircraft also arrived directly from the USA by ship and were in some cases delivered painted in sand/od camouflage. I now suspect a number of 37th FS Lightnings were delivered to Algeria already camouflaged in sand/od as this would explain why it was only the 37th FS that had aircraft painted this way.

At some point following their arrival the P-38s gained red spinners as a theatre marking but either towards the end or after the end of the campaign each squadron had it's spinners painted in different colours, 37th red, 49th blue and 48th white (changing to black after nmf aircraft were received). Tail fin bands in squadron colours were added to later model P-38s.

Edited by old thumper
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