U.S. Navy Ships in WWII Dazzle Camouflage 1944-1945

Destroyers

View by Design Number

Fletcher Class

View by Design Number

for DD-445

Design 13D

for DD-445

Design Number Silhouette Ships Wearing Design
for DD-445
Measure 31
Stanly (DD-478)Morrison (DD-560)
Robinson (DD-562)Bennion (DD-662)
Richard P. Leary (DD-664)Hunt (DD-674)
McGowan (DD-678)Norman Scott (DD-690)
Irwin (DD-794)Porter (DD-800)

Measure 32
Hudson (DD-475)Anthony (DD-515)
Kimberly (DD-521)Prichett (DD-561)
Sproston (DD-577)Sigourney (DD-643)
Picking (DD-685)Preston (DD-795)
Drawing

The Design 32/13D drawing for Fletcher class destroyers, probably dated no later than January 1944. The vertical colors were dull black (BK) and light gray (5-L), either ocean gray (5-O) or haze gray (5-H) could be substituted for 5-L to become Measure 31. Note that the roof of the shield on the aft torpedo tubes is shown to be dull black from the sides, but is deck blue from the top view. From the photos, it appears that most ships painted the shield top deck blue. Note also, the stern view shows a stripe to starboard. This is really the 5-L panel under the aft turrets viewed edge on. Some ships mistakenly added stripes to their sterns in an effort to match this drawing.

The first drawing for Design 13D was attached to the July 15, 1943, memo to PacFleet for Gridley class destroyers. Design 13D was drawn for the Buckley class detroyer escorts on December 30, 1944, as well as for the New Orleans class heavy cruisers on February 3, 1944, and used by the cruisers USS Tuscaloosa (CA-37) and USS San Francisco (CA-38) in Measure 33 colors. These later versions of Design 13D differed in the area of the port bow from the destroyer escort design.

Original drawing source: NARA 80-G-160562 and 80-G-160563.

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