The Myth of Duck Egg Blue (was More P-40 color confusion)

[Roberto Lionello]

It has been affirmed that Duck Egg Blue was just a myth and that old
sources which quote it among RAF colours of WW2 are wrong. In fact a
modern books such as the IPMS Color Cross-Reference Guide by D.H. Klaus
clearly says that it was just a common name for Sky. What M.J.F. Bowyer
writes in his book Fighting Colours does not seem initially in contradiction
with this:

Usually this Sky tint, which was meant to be blue, was more accurately
a pale shade of green caused by a 4 % addition of yellow to the mix.

But then he continues:

At the time it was commonly referred to as duck egg green, but it
later received the official and less accurate designation of Duck
Egg Blue. Later the shade was re-named Sky. In later years Sky
Type `S' (`S'[...] denoted `smooth' [...]) was a much lighter tone
than that of 1940.

However Bowyer was a direct witness of the events and I would like to know
how he was deceived. Actually if you look at the picture of a 1941 Spit
with its 18 inch band, the colour of the band does seem lighter than
the undersurface. So is it just an optical effect?
Does a smooth colour seem lighter than a matt equivalent?

Another confusing (at least for me :-) topic is the use of Sky Blue.
Was it used only late in the war (as Klaus states) or also earlier
(as M. Ryenolds has in his Camouflage and Markings, RAF 1939-1945)?

I posted an article last year with more or less the same questions,
however my newsreader did not receive this group and I thought no
one knew the answers.
Cheers,
Roberto

--
| / Roberto Lionello <lio...@arcetri.astro.it> \ A Elbereth Gilthoniel,
|/ Dipartimento di Astronomia e Scienza dello Spazio \ J.R.R. TOLKIEN,
|\ Univ. di Firenze, Lgo Fermi 5, I-50125 Firenze ITALY \ The Fellowship of
| \ Tel: +39 55 2752 268 Fax: +39 55 224193 \ the Ring (1954)

[William M Reece]

From what I can gather Duck Egg Blue is a different color than either Sky
or Duck Egg Green. Duck Egg Blue resulted from the mixing of white and
insignia blue to comply with a June 1940 RAF order to repaint the bottom
of RAF day fighters from the older half white, half black scheme. The
squadrons were ordered to paint the bottoms of their Spitfires and
Hurricanes "Sky". A color standard was not issued at the time. The
squadron painters did their best to mix a color which looked to be the
color of the sky. Only later when new factory fresh Spits and Hurricanes
began to arrive in the squadrons did the true RAF standard for Sky become
obvious to the RAF squadrons. This was during the height of the Battle of
Britain. Later, when time permited these planes were re-painted with a
local mix in order to more closely match Sky, hence Duck Egg Green.
1941 Spitfires were painted in the Temperate Land Scheme and were
Dark Green/Dark Gray/Medium Sea Gray with Sky ID bands and spinners.
Perhaps some of our Brit friends can enlighten us more.

William Reece
IPMS Eagle Squadron

[Bill Shatzer]

William M Reece (wmr...@unity.ncsu.edu) writes:
> From what I can gather Duck Egg Blue is a different color than either Sky
> or Duck Egg Green. Duck Egg Blue resulted from the mixing of white and
> insignia blue to comply with a June 1940 RAF order to repaint the bottom
> of RAF day fighters from the older half white, half black scheme. The
> squadrons were ordered to paint the bottoms of their Spitfires and
> Hurricanes "Sky". A color standard was not issued at the time. The
> squadron painters did their best to mix a color which looked to be the
> color of the sky. Only later when new factory fresh Spits and Hurricanes
> began to arrive in the squadrons did the true RAF standard for Sky become
> obvious to the RAF squadrons. This was during the height of the Battle of
> Britain. Later, when time permited these planes were re-painted with a
> local mix in order to more closely match Sky, hence Duck Egg Green.

I don't completely disagree with this - there *were* some field expedient
paint colors mixed up after the switch from the old black/silver
(night/aluminium) to the new 'sky' undersurfaces was ordered but
don't think these local mixes were consistant enought from squadron
to squadron to assign them a specific color name such as "duck egg
blue'. These 'local mixes' were all over the color spectrum -grays,
blues, greens, and all points in between.

Rather, I think 'duck egg blue' (and duck egg green, for that matter)
was merely a 'popular press' description of 'sky', before the official
designation became publically known. I quote from the Admiralty Supplement
to DTD 83A:

"Appendix para 4 (ii). In order to clarify the position of colour
on the under sides with this order and the camouflage drawings which
will be shortly issued, it should be noted that duck egg blue and
Sky Type S are one and the same colour."

I rest my case!

--
Bill Shatzer - bsha...@ednet1.osl.or.gov - aw...@FreeNet.Carleton.ca

"It's useless to fight the forms. You've got to kill the people
producing them." Vladimir Kabaidze

[William M Reece]

Thanks for the info Bill. I think that this pretty well sums up
the debate over Sky/Duck Egg Blue/Duck Egg Green for now. I'm with
Jennings on the P-51 colors in that I'll use Humbrol Duck Egg Blue
sometimes and Gunze Sky sometimes and Tamiya Sky sometimes and dare the
color police to come and get me.
Now for those AVG P-40 B/C's what do we do? Lately I've become
interested in the AVG (though my area of main interest is WWII U.S.
Navy aircraft) and I may want to actually assemble my old Monogram
P-40. What I intend to do is to paint the thing in accordance with the
recent Finescale Modeler article on P-40 camo. This means RAF Dark
Green/Dark Earth on to and Humbrol Duck Egg Blue on the underside. Comments?

William Reece
Fly Navy!