Interesting Spitfire Mk I profiles

[Ed Russell]

And yet they found a panel of Gas detecting paint on the FAA Museum's Corsair - and it was used on vehicles available in Khaki - can't find the references (Ian Huntley perhaps) but somewhere I have a note of a direction on GD paint being available in camouflage colours.

If it's NOT GD paint, then I wonder what it could be - ia similar splodge appeared on more than one aircraft type, that's for sure

I think this is the reference.

General Order No 2161 of 1941 gives the colours as follows:

( a ) Detector Paint No 1 - Greenish-yellow.

( b ) Detector Paint No 2 - Khaki.

My understanding from an American whose father was a US Army supply officer attached to the USAAF is that the anti-gas paint was applied as paint to vehicles and aircraft by slopping it on with a brush. The discussion came up as a follow-on from biological warfare. I wish I had got more detail from him. I was told the paint was thick and commonly yellowish green in colour and reacted to mustard gas.

The rationale for having it on the tail (or more commonly on the rear fuselage) is that it was readily visible to the ground crew who would decontaminate the aircraft before the pilot disembarked.