Luftwaffe Bomber Codes Colour

[fishplanebeer]

My understanding has always been that the Geshwader code letters on Luftwaffe bombers were generally painted in black, with a few exceptions, however in this photo of a Heinkel He111H-8, G1+EM, which crashed in May 1941 the code appear to be in a light colour possibly.

 

 

The temporary distemper has been partially removed after the crash to reveal the cross, swastika and codes and as such the GI is now just visible but it definitely doesn't appear to be black so does any one have any examples/photos where another colour was used? I've gone through all the books and photos I have of Heinkels during this period and can't find any which have anything other than black code letters although I know there was considerable variation.

 

Regards

Colin.

[jimmaas]

My suspicion is that, since black distemper was applied to the fuselage bottim and sides, the codes had to be repainted in a light color to be seen.  There was use of 77 gray later in the war for this sort of thing but the date here is a little early;  maybe some home mixed light gray.  The aircraft letter is still in a bright color -yellow or white - but it's hard to make out what it is.

[Seawinder]

33 minutes ago, jimmaas said:

My suspicion is that, since black distemper was applied to the fuselage bottim and sides, the codes had to be repainted in a light color to be seen.  There was use of 77 gray later in the war for this sort of thing but the date here is a little early;  maybe some home mixed light gray.  The aircraft letter is still in a bright color -yellow or white - but it's hard to make out what it is.

If orthodox, it would have been white for Staffel 4?

[fishplanebeer]

I'm reasonably confident that the E individual letter is yellow as the machine had very recently been transferred from 9/KG55 to 4/KG55, although strictly speaking it should have been in white. However it also retained yellow spinners as well from its 9 staffel days so a bit of a hybrid in terms of colour.

 

The only photo I have of a Heinkel during this period with all the codes letters in a light colour is a H-5 on test at Rechlin but as yet no image of one on active duty with anything other than black Geshwader code letters so I'm not sure which way to go with this one at the moment. I may have to default to black, even though the photo would suggest otherwise, or go with white toned down with a black overspray.

 

Regards

Colin.