Aircraft Carriers

This is the drawing for Measure 32 Design 4A for the carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) that was included in the March 1943 supplement to SHIPS-2. The vertical colors were specified to be haze gray (5-H) and ocean gray (5-O) with navy blue (5-N) over those with some edges sprayed and feathered and the horizontal color was deck blue (20-B). This version of Design 4A may then have been redrawn and labeled 4Ab having all solid edges instead of feathered edges as do the other 4A designs.

The First drawing for Design 4A was as above for USS Enterprise (CV-6) in March 1943. An August 1943 memo from the Pacific Fleet to the Bureau of Ships recommended: “Soft, graded patterns should be avoided until expert supervision for application may be made available.” The 4A Design for CV-6 was redrawn and labeled 4Ab possibly because the design’s panels all had solid edges instead of the soft feathered edges of many panels of Design 4A. It is possible that the original Design 4A was modified to be 4Ab to comply with the PacFleet recommendation. Then on March 21, 1944, Design 4A was produced for the Bogue class of escort carriers and later on March 25, 1944, for the Casablanca class escort carriers and finally for the Charger class of escort carriers on May 8, 1944. Most of the escort carriers that wore Design 4A were in the Atlantic Fleet.

Original drawing source: March 1943 Supplement to SHIPS-2 Plate XXV.