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» Forum Name: PT Boats - General
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» Topic: Color of boats in Ron 9 movies
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Greetings all,
The color of the boats in this video caught my attention. The color has badly shifted in many cases. But I thought the boats at the early part of the video looked like 5N (Navy Blue). I did notice that some of the boats were green in color too. You could see the green hue fade in and out.

It leads me to my conversations with Mr. Keresey and Mr. Iles, both skippers of PT-105 who both told me independently that the boat was "battleship gray" and "gray".

I was wondering what you all thought about this. If the veterans, Dr. Ross, and John Snyder are listening I would appreciate you looking at these movies and providing your thoughts.

Thanks everyone!
Dave

David Waples

Posted By: David Waples | Posted on: Apr 20, 2010 - 9:11pm
Total Posts: 1679 | Joined: Jan 2, 2007 - 9:55pm



No doubt that when viewing this short film, you can clearly see different shades of colors on the boats. Some of the shots are pretty clear as to the color. The first series of shots do appear to be a blue/grey color, then shifting back and forth you can see shades of green. In one of the scenes with two of the boats tied together you can see the torpedo tubes of both boats which show that those boats have two differnt paint schemes. Of course, this might have been caused by the shadows of the day. In the scene were Cmdr. Kelly stages his departure in a small dingy, you can clearly see the color of the boat, as the dingy seems to be a darker grey color. In viewing this short film, I see more of the boats in the blue/grey schme then of the overall green...................



Posted By: Frank J Andruss Sr | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 2:46am
Total Posts: 3497 | Joined: Oct 9, 2006 - 6:09am



I've only watched Dick's video three or four times[:-bigeyes2-:], but they all look gray to me, even the canvas covers of the SCR-517A radars.

The differences in hues seem to me to come from both the age and aforementioned "shifting" color tones of the film and the varying differences in the particular angles of the light and shade at the moment (of filming).



Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 3:53am
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am



David,
With respect to the painting of PT boats do not look for any kind of consistency, as there was none after the boats left the factory. The early 80 foot ELCO boats (103 series) were factory painted light gray (5-L) on vertical surfaces and deck gray (5-D) on horizontal surfaces (except those painted in the deception pattern, zebra stripes). The best I can determine is that the boats maintained this scheme through 1942 and into early 1943. Beyond that point things start to get very fragmented. I believe this is due to two factors: foremost the availability of paint (and a need to do so), secondary a desire by the crews to create as much stealth as they could.

A number of the boats were painted "green", shades thereof . The base color was readily available from the Marine Corp and was modified by the boat crews to meet their own personal requirements. One account I read suggested they mixed in “lots of white”. You can really use a literary license on what you think this color looked like on any particular boat. Other colors may have potentially been available:

5-L (light grey, could be called Battleship grey)
5-D (dark grey)
5-O (Ocean grey, a dark blue grey color)
5-H (Haze gray, a light blue grey color)
5-N (dark blue, refered to as Navy blue)
20-B (deck blue)

These dolors could have been used by the crews either out of Navy supply stock or obtained from larger ships. As for your question regarding 5-N, it could be possible. I recall reading that 5-N was in short supply in 1942 because of the heavy demand for blue pigment. PT crews might have been hard pressed to get 5-N in a forward operating area, but it might have happened. The reality is things were chaotic and the PT Squadrons struggled with getting priority for delivery of their supplies, paint was probably down the list of things to get. I would suspect that gasoline, ammunition and food where the top concern.

Regardless of my thoughts on the subject, take a look at Coastal Forces Volume II. Al Ross provides a very nice list of the color schemes on specific boats that he could document. The rest of the details are most likely lost to the fog of war and the ravages of time.


Bill Smallshaw

Posted By: smallwi | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 12:27pm
Total Posts: 130 | Joined: Jun 21, 2007 - 3:02pm



Some stills from the RON 9 footage showing the colors of the boats.

RON9_still_01.jpg

RON9_still_02.jpg

RON9_still_03.jpg

RON9_still_04.jpg

RON9_still_05.jpg
RON9_still_06.jpg

RON9_still_07.jpg

RON9_still_08.jpg

RON9_still_09.jpg

RON9_still_10.jpg

RON9_still_11.jpg


ALEX



Posted By: Alex Johnson | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 1:51pm
Total Posts: 70 | Joined: Mar 2, 2007 - 12:07pm



Thanks guys,
I think I'm going to go with 5D for my 105 boat. More faded on the deck than on vertical surfaces. Unless somebody can offer up a very convincing color photo of the 105 boat in green I have to honor the memory of these two great skippers. I know the 105 ultimately became camouflage on the hull but neither skipper recalls this while under their command.
Dave

David Waples

Posted By: David Waples | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 6:12pm
Total Posts: 1679 | Joined: Jan 2, 2007 - 9:55pm



You'll notice in Alex Johnson still shots the PT-160 front (with the cartoon of a sailor in a boat with binoculars) that the artwork has a line around it indicating ti was masked off during the re-painting of the boat. That says that boat (the 160) is no longer grey.

Unfortunately when I spoke to Captain Liebenow today (PT-157) ....he knows his PT was grey when in Panama during the 4-months of training but he's not clear about when it was re-painted after arriving in the Pacific. His torpedo man (Welford West] said yesterday however he thought it was at Talagi when it was in dry-dock. Welford thought that was early on however Captain Liebenow today he said he only recalls being in Talagi once for repairs after getting pretty shot-up and needing an engine replaced. So it might have been that the early PTs ran original grey until some opportune time that would require the PT to be dry-docked (which is really the only time to paint a boat) and then they were painted with whatever scheme and whatever color/s they had on hand at that moment.

At their ages today (90-years old for Captain Liebenow and 88 for Welford) its hard to press harder fro detail and I suspect these moments were not remarkable ones for them so it is what we make it out to be in our forensic research.

Bridge



Posted By: TheBridge | Posted on: Apr 21, 2010 - 8:39pm
Total Posts: 315 | Joined: Nov 22, 2009 - 3:04pm



Added some screen shots from the direct transfer of VHS tape to Macintosh files.
I then open the images in to PhotoShop and applied its "Auto Color" adjustment. As you can see the 160 is could be a camo version, there are two shades of green clearly shown (not completely sure it's just a shadow effect - its a big switch). in another angle shot the same green patterns can easily be seen. The 159 as probably a green color based on the cabin shot. In both you can clearly see as mentioned before, the masking line a round the boat art with the masked area being a painted artwork over a medium gray.

You'll note that when the original VHS from Camera Film was done (in the 80's) they had the film loaded in backwards in the film projector, hence the backward appearance of the boat numbers. When I made my VHS to DIgital Computer file I flip the the video in "MPEG StreamClip" (a free video editing/conversion program for both Macs and PC's - excellent, excellent program).

Late last night i hunted down and hauled down the original VHS Tapes to refresh my mind about color. As a note, remember these original transfers were made back in the 80's with the current technologies and budgets in mind. Typically in those days transfers were made by projecting the filmed movie images to a projector screen and place the VHS camera in front of the projector just out of the projectors lens view. This would be done in a darkened room. The actual VHS tapes vary widely, very widely and more then likely the same with the various film clips. Unfortunately there isn't any happy medium, it's eight very dark with wild color shifts, or very washed out with little color at all. When I made my first cut with the digital file I created, I changed the color saturation and brightness to alleviate some of these issues. For what it's worth, below are some of the Screen captures. I added the shot with the two grounded boats only because in one of the posts mention was made.

In other words COLOR is open to one's wild imagination. Must remember, this was war time, no formal state side naval bases, and I'm sure paint was what ever could be, made, begged, borrowed or stolen from what ever navy, army, marine or local sources they had.

Dick . . .






Posted By: Dick | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 9:25am
Total Posts: 1417 | Joined: Aug 27, 2006 - 6:36pm



Looks like a darker gray painted over a lighter gray, to me.

I don't see green anywhere...



Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 11:20am
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am



The color you see really depends on the age, quality/type of your computer monitors, video cards, and video card software as well as temperature of the monitor - a whole lot of stuff dictates the color each one of us see from our monitors. However the colors I referenced was analyzed by PhotoShop was typical for med gray range in the center unmasked area of PT-160, the left side was in the light medium green range and the right side varied from medium dark green to very dark green/black.

My monitor clearly shows the range as mentioned above from green to gray to very dark green/black. Does it show the range that photoshop called out - I don't real know, however it does shown the difference I mentioned. Since I'm in the Graphic Arts/Publishing business, my monitors are color corrected every morning with a Spyder monitoring puck and Adobe calibration software. When/if working with photographic images for a long period of time during the day I do a recalibration in the early afternoon. it just SOP for us.

Dick . . .



Posted By: Dick | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 1:06pm
Total Posts: 1417 | Joined: Aug 27, 2006 - 6:36pm



Dick

For what it is worth, I spotted the green colors before you did your magic with the photos. I think this is one of the reasons that many of our models are green or grey. Green in the Pacific, gray out of the Factory, Gray in the Med, Gray before being painted Green. I now have a headache. Unless you know for sure the colors of the boats, you would not be wrong, in painting them gray or green. Depends on the time frame that the boats were there. It would have been so much easier if they had color film in the field in those days........................Oh Well and so we move on..............



Posted By: Frank J Andruss Sr | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 2:20pm
Total Posts: 3497 | Joined: Oct 9, 2006 - 6:09am



David,

To follow up on Dick's comments, a dark green (with dark grey content) would be close to what is refered to as Marine Corps Green. This paint was more available to the boat crews at Tulagi and the Solomons than would have been 5-D.

Dick,

I looked at the film a bit yesterday and recall seeing shots of trucks bogged down in mud. These would have been painted what I am refering to as Marine Corps Green. You may want to look at these parts of the film and do a similar analysis of the color of the trucks.


As mentioned in an earlier post Kenneth Prescott described the painting of the PT 61 in his book A PT Skipper in the South Pacific. He describes his use of "Army Green" adding white until "we thought we had reached what we thought was an acceptable shade." He further stated that the boat took on a "bluish-green" shade. There are color photographs on the dust jacket of the book showing the green with olive drab helmets sitting on the trunk, providing a perspective of the PT 61 color against the known color of the helmets. Another boat in the back ground (77 foot ELCO) is a darker shade of green, more reflective of my idea of Marine Corp Green. The point is the boats were all over the place from a color perspective, but lots of green references.

As for 5-D, I have reservations about this paint being on the boats in 1943. The major US Navy warships started to go away from the Measure 1 scheme (5-D) in late 1941. It was pretty much eradicated from the fleet by April of 1942. Although anything is possible, I would bet that there was no ready supply of 5-D in the South Pacific. Looking at the posted stills from the video I would lean towards 5-O (Ocean grey). Most of the fleet auxilaries (tugs, barges, troop transports, etc.) were painted 5-O. Major warships used 5-O in the measure 12 scheme common in the Pacific in early 1942. But given Dick's comments about green content that choice would be in doubt.

I think I will go engross myself in the physics of planing hulls for a while. This color stuff makes my head spin.

Bill

Bill Smallshaw

Posted By: smallwi | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 4:04pm
Total Posts: 130 | Joined: Jun 21, 2007 - 3:02pm



Dick - Thanks for the Photoshop analysis. I went down that path his morning but realized I don't have good enough Photoshop expertise or color corrected display and was hoping that someone (you :-) ) would have done this.

There is a definite tie between this subject (color of PTs) and my post on the PT-157 and when the boat numbers were painted over from white to a dark grey. For sure the boats were painted (green or camo) after their arrival in the south pacific; not before. Whether they were done immediately on arrival or at some time when the boats were dry docked (at the main base in Talagi which is maybe the only place that had dry-dock facilities) for routine maintenance or emergency work. Although not clear on this point Captain Liebenow believes the PT-157 may have received its paint job when they had to have emergency repairs (at Talagi) after getting an engine shot-up and 60+ holes in the boat from a mission.

We maybe can converge on a few solid working assumptions about PT's painting:

1. PTs were painted when dry-docked. Difficult to do so at any other time. Definite that the PT-157 was painted by a land based paint crews (which again points to Talagi) and not by the PT crew (as I once thought it might have been).
Also it appears the PT-157 was painted when they put into Talagi for emergency repairs. Surprising the change from gray to green did not leave any notable moment in the the minds of either Capt. Liebenow or Welford West of the 157.

2. PTs were dry-docked only when other purposes required it and not just to be painted. Why? Well dry-docking is a valuable resources and a time consuming process. To do so just for painting when you have other PTs limping in needing the dry-dock for one of a myriad of reasons would say priority to major repairs.

3. To my point about the white boat numbers being painted....it appears MOST were repainted to a dark gray during the re-paint process. I do note that there is the appearance of red letters in a few photos. So far that seems very rare and maybe done by the PT crews themselves. As mentioned in the PT-157 post when I asked both Liebenow and West about the boats numbers being in red (this was in an early conversation with them and since then and I am now very convinced the PT-157 numbers were dark gray based on the color video evidence) they were very clear, and seemed almost replused, as to the PT-157 having red numbers.

4. I agree with Dick's comment that schemes and colors were at the mercy of supplies and paint crews officer's directions. Indeed it would be most effective in camouflage terms, to have different colors and schemes to avoid a standardized look that could be more easily spotted. I'm not sure the paint crews knew that really and it just turned out what the did was for the best!

I've just sent a note to Captain Liebenow asking if there is anything else he remembers about the color. If he recalls anything I'll post that.

Bridge



Posted By: TheBridge | Posted on: Apr 22, 2010 - 5:26pm
Total Posts: 315 | Joined: Nov 22, 2009 - 3:04pm



Bill had a good idea about comparing the PT Boat colors with the colors of clothing and equipment in other scenes of the film. Here are three stills.

[image]http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p249/ptboats/Alex%20Johnson/RON9_still_12.jpg[/image]
[image]http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p249/ptboats/Alex%20Johnson/RON9_still_13.jpg[/image]
[image]http://i130.photobucket.com/albums/p249/ptboats/Alex%20Johnson/RON9_still_14.jpg[/image]

ALEX



Posted By: Alex Johnson | Posted on: Apr 23, 2010 - 1:00pm
Total Posts: 70 | Joined: Mar 2, 2007 - 12:07pm



Alex,

I forgot to thank you for posting those original screen captures --

Thanks!

-- Drew



Posted By: Drew Cook | Posted on: Apr 23, 2010 - 2:34pm
Total Posts: 1306 | Joined: Oct 19, 2006 - 10:44am



Welford West (torpedo man on the PT-157 (1942-44) said yesterday in a call with me that the PT-157 was 'a pea-soup color..maybe just a hair lighter'. He said is someone were to gives him color samples he could assuredly pick-out the very shade of the 157.

Bridge



Posted By: TheBridge | Posted on: Apr 23, 2010 - 3:32pm
Total Posts: 315 | Joined: Nov 22, 2009 - 3:04pm