Aircraft Carriers

These are the two drawings for Measure 33 Design 4A for the Charger class escort carriers dated May 8, 1944. The vertical colors were specified to be navy blue (5-N), haze gray (5-H) and pale gray (5-P) and the horizontal color specified to be deck blue (20-B). Like other Design 4A drawings, some edges of the dark color 5-N were intended to “feather” or slowly blend into the ajacent lighter color.

The First drawing for Design 4A was 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 on February 23, 1944, 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 as above 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: NARA 80-G-109643 and 80-G-109644.