27 Sqn Blenheims at Singapore IN COLOUR!

[Dave Fleming]

What was RAF Sky Blue used for? The only aircraft use I've ever seen suggested for it was pre-war/early war target aircraft (Can't recall where) but I've looked at other colour standards before wondering 'why is that there' then found an obscure part of a spec that requires a part or label in that colour.

[Steven Eisenman]

What was RAF Sky Blue used for? The only aircraft use I've ever seen suggested for it was pre-war/early war target aircraft (Can't recall where) but I've looked at other colour standards before wondering 'why is that there' then found an obscure part of a spec that requires a part or label in that colour.

This?

This from April 1940- Blenheims mentioned

Then there is this from June 1940

[mhaselden]

I always thought Sky Blue was used for Day Fighter bands on the fuselage of Fighter Command aircraft in late 1940 and early 1941.

Edited February 9, 2011 by mhaselden

[dancho]

It's sky blue. Sheesh.

[Dave Fleming]

I always thought Sky Blue was used for Day Fighter bands on the fuselage of Fighter Command aircraft in late 1940 and early 1941.

It appears to have been (at least on some) but IIRC there is no actual AMO or signal been found to that effect.

What I was hinting at earlier was 'would there have been sufficient stocks of Sky Blue in Singapore to paint the underside of these aircraft?

Edited February 9, 2011 by Dave Fleming

[mhaselden]

The lack of an AMO presumably leads us back to the theory that Sky Blue (if it is Sky Blue) was the closest approximation to the letter of the law that was available in Singapore?

The question of whether sufficient Sky Blue was available is an interesting one. If not, what other options would have been more available? Azure Blue? RAAF Sky Blue? Some other locally-mixed shade?

Edited February 9, 2011 by mhaselden

[Dave Fleming]

Another point (and Nick may have a view) is the long noted difference in shade between the Buffalo undersides and the Sky band - the usual explanation being that the underside was a US applied 'blue' and the band was Sky. But what if the band was THIS shade?

[The Lazy Builder]

Here's another showing an interesting yellow leading edge to the tailplane. Never seen that before!

27 Sqn L66?? Yellow Tailplane Leading Edge

Interesting cable knit jumper too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mhaselden]

Another point (and Nick may have a view) is the long noted difference in shade between the Buffalo undersides and the Sky band - the usual explanation being that the underside was a US applied 'blue' and the band was Sky. But what if the band was THIS shade?

Dave,

That's what I've been thinking. The lighter tone of Sky Blue fuselage bands relative to Sky undersides seen on Fighter Command aircraft in late 1940/early 1941 would seem to support this logic (assuming, of course, the Buffalo undersides were a reasonable approximation of Sky).

[Steven Eisenman]

Dave Fleming Posted Today, 02:33 PM

QUOTE (mhaselden @ Feb 9 2011, 06:32 PM) *

I always thought Sky Blue was used for Day Fighter bands on the fuselage of Fighter Command aircraft in late 1940 and early 1941.

It appears to have been (at least on some) but IIRC there is no actual AMO or signal been found to that effect.

What I was hinting at earlier was 'would there have been sufficient stocks of Sky Blue in Singapore to paint the underside of these aircraft?

----------------------------------------

Dave, I would agree that absent a very special reason, there would be virtually none of that specific colour of blue (Sky Blue). Do we have a deep blue "mix"? The only other reference for a mix of blue and white would be the SEAC markings. The other possibility is that Sky was adopted in Spring 1940, and this is a year later, perhaps a an approximation of Sky paint produced in India, or Sky itself from the UK stretched by adding another colour, more roundel blue. What other colour would have been in Singapore maintenance depot stock? The other issue is that we need to remember there is that the Commonwealth nations were not involved directly in a war in the Far East at the time, so the compelling need to have the "exact colour" may not have existed.

Other would find this to be a useless discussion, but a good debate of possibilities is good, IMO.

This is beginning to look like "what are the colors used on JG 54 Fw 190s.".

Interesting cable knit jumper too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here ya go..

http://www.orvis.com/store/product.aspx?pf...subcat_id=11206

Edited February 9, 2011 by Steven Eisenman

[Nick Millman]

Another point (and Nick may have a view) is the long noted difference in shade between the Buffalo undersides and the Sky band - the usual explanation being that the underside was a US applied 'blue' and the band was Sky. But what if the band was THIS shade?

It would seem possible that it was. PO Bingham-Wallis of 67 Sqn described the Buffalo colours as follows (my emphasis):-

" Our aircraft in Rangoon were painted pale blue under colour. Of the original 30 aircraft there, approximately 20 were painted half black and half blue beneath, ie. on the mainplane. Shortly after they were assembled and painted, (we painted the black) the Air Ministry orders were changed and the remaining aircraft were left as delivered from the manufacturers, pale blue underneath. The band of blue forward of the tailplane would be a shade lighter than the sky blue ".

Now he was using "pale blue" and "sky blue" as descriptive terms, not official designations, but it is useful in ruling out the probability of MAP Sky or, heaven forbid, shades of grey. And what he writes gives the impression that the under surfaces were not re-painted from the factory colour.

MAP Sky Blue is cooler and paler than the (typical) US equivalent duck egg blue so if a Sky Blue-type colour was being used to apply the bands the effect would be exactly similar to that described. I'm not sure this colour as seen in the Blenheim pics would have that same effect but will try it. What still intrigues me is the nature of this FE colour, when, where and why it was introduced - because it simply does not fit the accepted chronology and requirements. Prior to the appearance of these photographs FE Blenheims were being depicted with standard MAP Sky under surfaces - way back to Frog's kit even. And back to the point made earlier - the under surfaces appear to have been re-painted. But would they have re-painted Blenheims delivered with Sky under surfaces with a poor match "local duck egg blue"? Why? Mark will need to remind us whether all these Blenheims arrived with Night under surfaces which would have required it - I forget now. Also the application of the bands suggests at least some attempt to comply with requirements - so I don't think "anything goes" goes. It might be that a local match to "duck egg blue" is the most likely explanation after all. Certainly Bingham-Wallis didn't seem to think pale blue/sky blue was out of the ordinary and doesn't mention Sky at all.

SEAC markings and the adoption of MSG undersurfaces with the Temperate Land Scheme was much, much later.

[mhaselden]

Blenheim MkIs were delivered with undersides painted black with white serial numbers. Given the overspray visible on a couple of these pics of 27 Sqn airframes, it makes sense that the pale blue starboard underside and fuselage band had only been applied recently, probably when the unit was re-tasked with the fighter role after its arrival in Singapore.

[Steven Eisenman]

It would seem possible that it was. PO Bingham-Wallis of 67 Sqn described the Buffalo colours as follows (my emphasis):-

SEAC markings and the adoption of MSG undersurfaces with the Temperate Land Scheme was much, much later.

I know they were much later, but it was a reference only. A mix of blue and white. Time is not relevant, mixing is.

[mhaselden]

It would seem possible that it was. PO Bingham-Wallis of 67 Sqn described the Buffalo colours as follows (my emphasis):-

" Our aircraft in Rangoon were painted pale blue under colour. Of the original 30 aircraft there, approximately 20 were painted half black and half blue beneath, ie. on the mainplane. Shortly after they were assembled and painted, (we painted the black) the Air Ministry orders were changed and the remaining aircraft were left as delivered from the manufacturers, pale blue underneath. The band of blue forward of the tailplane would be a shade lighter than the sky blue ".

Now he was using "pale blue" and "sky blue" as descriptive terms, not official designations, but it is useful in ruling out the probability of MAP Sky or, heaven forbid, shades of grey. And what he writes gives the impression that the under surfaces were not re-painted from the factory colour.

Nick,

I agree that none of the Buffalo records indicate repainting of the factory-applied underside colour. However, I don't believe application of black to the port undersides ceased because of Air Ministry directive. Bingham-Wallis's unit, 67 Sqn, deployed to Mingaladon in Oct 41. Upon arrival they were confronted with 32 Buffalos that had been shipped from Singapore, a few of which had already been assembled and were in use by 60 Sqn but hadn't had any fighter markings applied. By the time of the first Japanese bombing raid on, IIRC, some 30 Buffalos had been fully assembled but the remaining 2 airframes were apparently destroyed in the early bombing raids. This means that any directive referred to by Bingham-Wallis would have come out in November 1941 at the earliest, and we already know that the Air Ministry had ceased all interest in black port underwing markings for fighters long before then, indeed the available information (and practice evidenced by AHQFE), indicates overseas commands were allowed a fair degree of latitude over local identification markings. Rather than "Air Ministry orders" being changed, I suspect it was more that the unit didn't have the time/capacity to complete all airframes with the black port undersides (or they simply couldn't be bothered finishing off all the "spare" airframes because they already had more than a squadron's worth of (largely) correctly-marked aircraft. We see similar marking variations in the replacement aircraft allocated to the Singapore Buffalo squadrons during January 1942 - there simply wasn't time to apply unit and full identification markings to aircraft taken from reserve stocks.

MAP Sky Blue is cooler and paler than the (typical) US equivalent duck egg blue so if a Sky Blue-type colour was being used to apply the bands the effect would be exactly similar to that described.

And there's the rub. It's not an unreasonable assumption that the colour applied to these Blenheims was also applied to Buffalos. After all, there were 2 Buffalo squadrons sharing the airfield at Kallang, Peter Bingham-Wallis's 67 Sqn and 243 Sqn. I just don't see the station paint shop saying, "Let's paint the fuselage bands on the Blenheims one colour and those on the Buffalos another colour." What concerns me here is that if we're discounting Sky Blue because we think it wouldn't have been available in sufficient quantities (or because these images show a perceptibly darker tone), we are left with 2 options: it's either Azure Blue or a locally mixed colour. For either case, that suggests a very dark factory-applied underside shade for the Buffalos which seems rather a stretch. Also, if it's Azure Blue, which was (relatively speaking) an "off-the-shelf" standard colour, then that flies in the face of all precedents either before or after April 1941 for usage on fighter fuselage bands. Taking the Buffalo into account, both scenarios lean towards the "anything goes at US factories" theory which just doesn't make sense to me. I wish I knew more about photography because these images do seem rather dark, particularly given the strong shadows which indicate they are in direct sunlight. However, I'm massively nervous of adjusting them towards a particular personal bias as that won't help this discussion. One thing I do know is that looking at the wider context of these colour images leaves us with no easy single answer.

Cheers,

Mark

Edited February 10, 2011 by mhaselden

[Nick Millman]

I know they were much later, but it was a reference only. A mix of blue and white. Time is not relevant, mixing is.

Yes, it is possibly a mix of dull blue and white. The "SEAC white" mix did/does result in a colour similar to a pale Azure Blue. In another thread Edgar wrote:

"The order to cover the black wing (again) with Sky, was made on 7-4-41, with effect from 15-4, but, due to shortages of Sky (again) it was delayed until 22-4-41."

So, a shortage of Sky paint immediately before this time (April, 1941) might indeed translate to ad hoc arrangements in Singapore if the Blenheims were to be hastily re-painted from Night to the required Sky. A mix would explain why the colour does not obviously match any one MAP standard and bring us back to Dave's point about matching to "duck egg blue". Occam's Razor - possibly.

[Nick Millman]

And there's the rub. It's not an unreasonable assumption that the colour applied to these Blenheims was also applied to Buffalos. After all, there were 2 Buffalo squadrons sharing the airfield at Kallang, Peter Bingham-Wallis's 67 Sqn and 243 Sqn. I just don't see the station paint shop saying, "Let's paint the fuselage bands on the Blenheims one colour and those on the Buffalos another colour." What concerns me here is that if we're discounting Sky Blue because we think it wouldn't have been available in sufficient quantities (or because these images show a perceptibly darker tone), we are left with 2 options: it's either Azure Blue or a locally mixed colour. For either case, that suggests a very dark factory-applied underside shade for the Buffalos which seems rather a stretch. Also, if it's Azure Blue, which was (relatively speaking) an "off-the-shelf" standard colour, then that flies in the face of all precedents either before or after April 1941 for usage on fighter fuselage bands. Taking the Buffalo into account, both scenarios lean towards the "anything goes at US factories" theory which just doesn't make sense to me. I wish I knew more about photography because these images do seem rather dark, particularly given the strong shadows which indicate they are in direct sunlight. However, I'm massively nervous of adjusting them towards a particular personal bias as that won't help this discussion. One thing I do know is that looking at the wider context of these colour images leaves us with no easy single answer.

Cheers,

Mark

Agreed. Looking at the AMO's in context I'm not sure Azure Blue would even have been thought of at this time. I've sampled the Blenheim pics to the extent of averaging the overall pixelation and cherry-picking the best blues but although the images look "blue" the resultant colour values are all greys (like US Compass Grey - my first choice ;-)! Setting the various samples as bands over several chips of US equivalent Sky the result is consistently darker. The Dark Earth and Dark Green in the images, which can be benchmarked, is definitely darker. I am going to experiment with what happens when Sky Blue is darkened but currently I'm leaning towards Dave/Steve's suggestion of a locally mixed Sky expedient using dull blue and white.

[mhaselden]

And the local mix may well be correct but where does that leave us as regards Buffalo undersides? What colour would conceivably have been used at the Brewster factory?

Edited February 10, 2011 by mhaselden

[mhaselden]

So, a shortage of Sky paint immediately before this time (April, 1941) might indeed translate to ad hoc arrangements in Singapore if the Blenheims were to be hastily re-painted from Night to the required Sky. A mix would explain why the colour does not obviously match any one MAP standard and bring us back to Dave's point about matching to "duck egg blue".

When one ponders the whole Sky question, it perhaps shouldn't come as a surprise that it wasn't available in the Far East. Until March 1941, the primary aircraft in the Far East was the Blenheim which had black undersides. The RAAF Hudsons and Wirraways wore aluminium and the painting of the Vildebeests was a wartime expedient to tide them over until the replacement Beauforts arrived. So there simply wasn't a need for Sky to be held in stocks at Singapore in early 1941 particularly when there were shortages of the colour back in the UK where it definitely was in extensive use.

[Nick Millman]

And the local mix may well be correct but where does that leave us as regards Buffalo undersides? What colour would conceivably have been used at the Brewster factory?

Duck egg blue I should think. Which must have been a colour blue enough for Bingham-Wallis to describe it as both "pale blue" and "sky blue" and for Japanese pilots to describe as "sora iro" (sky blue) which is entirely consistent with the extant paint found on the Martlet, etc., (turn wheel 360°).

[mhaselden]

Which leads us back to the relationship between Duck Egg Blue and the colour applied to these Blenheims, and whether they were sufficiently different to account for the lighter fuselage band relative to the undersides seen on monochrome pics of Buffalos.

[Daniel Cox]

Hi All,

I have nothing to add with respect to colour at the moment, although since Australian colours were briefly mentioned I decided to take a look at Aircraft Design Memorandum No. 332 (Issue 3) for any mention of Sky Blue and found nothing of interest since the relevant Air Diagrams 1157 and 1159 are not found coincident with the Memorandum. While the latter Aircraft General Instruction No. C.11. (Issue 4). which Baker's article in SAMI Feb 1997 explains in reasonable detail as mentioned earlier by Steven, dates from July 1942 so unfortunately is not of great significance in this instance. I will take the time however to look for Air Diagrams 1157, 1159 and others the next time I visit the National Archives of Australia in the next few months if anything interesting turns up I will let you know.

I did find something else that may be of interest regarding Far East Blenheim and Buffalo aircraft etc during May 1941 which I have included below;

For larger images of the above visit; https://picasaweb.google.com/studioCox/RAFR...eat=directlink#

Cheers,

Daniel.

Edited February 13, 2011 by Daniel Cox

[Dave Fleming]

Which leads us back to the relationship between Duck Egg Blue and the colour applied to these Blenheims, and whether they were sufficiently different to account for the lighter fuselage band relative to the undersides seen on monochrome pics of Buffalos.

Which bring me back to my original thoughts that the colour we are looking at is a locally procured (or mixed) colour to imitate 'Duck egg blue/Sky' as someone would understand it - and that may not be exactly the same as the Buffalo underside

[mhaselden]

Which bring me back to my original thoughts that the colour we are looking at is a locally procured (or mixed) colour to imitate 'Duck egg blue/Sky' as someone would understand it - and that may not be exactly the same as the Buffalo underside

Agreed Dave but I still wonder if the Buffalo undersides were such a dark tone.

[Test Graham]

Have you considered the possibility that the Life photo we have in this thread may be too dark - a variation has been posted on Hyperscale that is noticably lighter.

There also seems to be an accepted assumption that in 1941 the Far East would have shortages of colours that had been standardised in the UK an entire year previously. I don't see why this should be taken for granted: there has been quite long enough time for stocks to arrive. Certainly enough stocks of Sky Blue, which was established earlier than Sky. Remember Sky was around for Blenhiems before it was adopted for Fighter Command. If there was no Sky in the Far East in mid-1941, butt here was a light blue, the reason need not be taken as being inability to supply, but some other factor.

[Test Graham]

Have you considered the possibility that the Life photo we have in this thread may be too dark - a variation has been posted on Hyperscale that is noticably lighter.

There also seems to be an accepted assumption that in 1941 the Far East would have shortages of colours that had been standardised in the UK an entire year previously. I don't see why this should be taken for granted: there has been quite long enough time for stocks to arrive. Certainly enough stocks of Sky Blue, which was established earlier than Sky. Remember Sky was around for Blenhiems before it was adopted for Fighter Command. If there was no Sky in the Far East in mid-1941, butt here was a light blue, the reason need not be taken as being inability to supply, but some other factor.