USA/Japanese Pacific color pixs.

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

GreyGhost,

So you are saying the thousands of GIs, and other service personnel on Ieshima are color blind? There are many published eye witness testimonies, many black & white photos sent home with handwritten notes on back describing "Betty bombers painted white with green crosses".



Remember that as of the 19th August 1945 the Surrender terms specifying that Japanese aircraft be painted white with green crosses had not been ratified or told to all Japanese Air Force personnel. This requirement was only known to high ranking Japanese HQ officials and communicated to the unit supplying the Betty transports to ensure the surrender delegation's safety. The eye witnesses weren't just parroting what they had heard about the painting of Japanese aircraft after the surrender.

As the owner of the Jeffrey Ethell Collection, with nearly 30 color photos taken of the Bettys at Ieshima, I can say there are only 2 or 3 showing a pale olive green vegetation next to the glaring white coral strips. Go to Flickr.com and search with term - G4M surrender JEC, As I said previously, because the Kodachrome dyes were incapable of rendering that dark green hue with a green tint, means the crosses always appear black.



I rest my case.

Darryl
 
Last edited:
I question Darryl's idea that Kodachrome cannot get the green hue correct. As a retired Kodak employee with 40 years and an aircraft photo collection of my own, the green would not photograph off color without some other color shift. I have slides old enough that they were ASA 8 and do not show a color specific shift. The ones that show slight fading do so evenly through the spectrum. Kodachrome has always shown full color saturation as opposed to Ektachrome's slightly less so. It is possible some paint will reflect less light but to assume all the green paint used across Japan is from the same batch is impossible. I suspect some green was made by mixing black and that may photograph closer to black. If the slides in the Ethell are original, the color can be considered accurate, but if duplicates are made, some color shifts will occur.
 
Your attached photo proves nothing, rest your case all you want.

During the Battle of Britain, RAF pilots were shooting down Heinkel He113 fighters - people's observations are not alway spot-on.

With the broad range of green colors the IJN and IJA had at their disposal, why would they not use any of them?

And Kodachrome dyes were most certainly capable of color range definition in the RGB spectrum.

Oh...and lo and behold, the blue cross on this KI-46 shows up fine against the greens (not blacks) in this color photo.
 
mokyme said:
As the owner of the Jeffrey Ethell Collection, with nearly 30 color photos taken of the Bettys at Ieshima
Click to expand...
Perhaps you could show some more of these to support your point?
mokyme said:
I can say there are only 2 or 3 showing a pale olive green vegetation next to the glaring white coral strips
Click to expand...
Not a real photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but wouldn't the bright light only amplify the green color as compared against a known constant such as the black shadows of the interior wheelwells by way of comparison? By way of my poor example, in my original post img133.jpg, the dark blue of the US insignia on the C-54 in the background and the crosses on the Bettys which are darker.
 
Last edited:
Special Ed,

Thanks for your discussion about the Kodachrome process having the ability to render all hues across the color spectrum. That might be correct but the problem here is there is only one original Kodachrome slide of the Betty at ieshima in the Jeff Ethell Collection (the other 20 odd are dupes). That is the one I posted originally.



That slide was drum scanned at 4800 dpi to give a 6000 pixel wide scan at 72 dpi. While it was professionally scanned with the software available to the technician I doubt the scanner was calibrated to a Kodak IT8 target that corrects for Kodachrome slide film. You will notice a slight reddish tint to the scan that can't be easily corrected in Photoshop.

Of course, the real problem with this image is it was taken very late in the day without the correct Kodak filter. Had the photographer used the Wratten 82C blue filter to remove reddish cast in early morning or late afternoon sunlight we would see an entirely different color on the "black crosses". The red is over saturated which affects the green to some extent.

Normally as Kodachromes age the green & blue dyes become more pronounced and what is often seen in WWII color images is desaturated reds. But that appears to have not happened in this case.

Unfortuantely I sold that original Kodachrome slide for $800 so am not in a position to rescan with a scanner corrected with the Kodak Kodachrome IT8 target.

Color perception is probably the "blackest" of the Dark Arts, if you will pardon the pun. You cannot rely on any film process to give an accurate rendition of all hues across the spectrum. I agree with Special Ed that greens are not desaturated or under represented but respectfully point out that we are dealing with a very dark green on a white contrasty background which suppresses the green hue considerably in my opinion. Perhaps one day a color image will surface that shows the cross in closeup without too much of the white contrasty background.

Finally, the fact that IJNAF and IJAAF had a range of green paints available does not count for much. These are IJN Air Force transports and the main camouflage color available at the time was IJN Dark Green. The transports started from Kisarazu airfield, a Naval Air Station near Tokyo. The only green they would have had was IJN Dark Green. Besides that the exact hue or shade of green was not specified in the surrender terms. You are right it could have been light, mid or dark green or even blue-green as some photos show. But on the 19th August 1945 at Ieshima it was dark green.

The Jeffrey Ethell Collection is hosted at Flickr.com. Enter in the Search box at top the search string: G4M surrender JEC

Darryl
 
Last edited:
Shinpachi,

What is really interesting is that neither of the usual two colorrs, red and green, has been used for the crosses on these old First Aid boxes. Post war they were usually red but use of the red cross is banned worldwide by Red Cross society. Typically, closer to modern age, the color was green.

Do you think that Japanese had a preference for black crosses and perhaps this spilled over when they had to paint the crosses on the surrender Bettys?

Nothing would surprise me.

Darryl
 
Last edited:
mokyme said:
Do you think that Japanese had a preference for black crosse and perhaps this spilled over when they had to paint the crosses on the surrender Bettys?
Nothing would surprise me.
Darryl
Click to expand...

Absolutely Yes.
As Japanese respected Germans, those 'black' closses would be a message to Germans like "We fought well".
This is my natural impression as a Japanese to see them.
 
There were many official photographers waiting for the two aircraft to land and I suspect some were using movie cameras. As by 1945 Kodachrome movie film was increasingly available, perhaps those historians among us with contacts at the Library of Congress could do research into long unseen color movies of the surrender. I have seen color movies of the ceremony on the Missouri, so I suspect there are others considered less important by the documentary producers.
 
Although not exactly in keeping with this thread, this does involve Japan and paint. My buddy's father told of an incident when he was a very young GI in Japan. He was a PFC on board a ship to Japan when the war was ended. His duty in Japan was mostly boring guard duty. The GIs were instructed not to insult the Japanese, or take revenge, or assault them under threat of severe military punishment. On one occasion he was assigned to guard the cargo in an LST which was lumber, mostly 2x4s, and 5 gallon buckets of olive drab paint. His shift was 24 hours and was to stay on board and was allowed to sleep there as a cot was provided. He was issued an M-1 carbine and one 15 round clip of ammunition. He couldn't remember if at this time he had been promoted to corporal. Late in the night, he was lying on the cot reading by a small light, when he heard noises. Investigation revealed three Japanese men removing two buckets of paint each trip down the gangway to the dock. The Japanese were critically short of building supplies. My friend's dad knew he was in a serious situation as he didn't speak Japanese and couldn't shoot them for fear of court marshall. It came to him that these were older men and most had been in the army so he knew they would recognize the sound of a round being chambered. He chambered a round which echoed through the ship. The men froze, then returned all the paint up the gangway into the ship and left. Problem solved.
 
Good story Ed
Penicillin was the most popular item for the burglars as sold ten times more expensive than the market price.
 
Last edited:
This is the cover of Ventura Publications "Classic Warbirds number 7", printed 2007...


​
In it there is a 10 page article called "Pacific Surrender Schemes" and the opening paragraph is as follows...


​
Admittedly, the cover is colourized. Here is the actual photo from the book, note the fuselage cross is lighter than the hinomaru

​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

R
Japanese aircraft in transit.
Replies
1
Views
1K
Snautzer01
B
B-25's in Color
Replies
7
Views
2K
DDonSS3
D
Air Ministry Plane pixs
2 3 4
Replies
76
Views
10K
Snautzer01
Looking for pics of late war FW200 transport camo/colors
Replies
4
Views
950
MG3
Luftwaffe color pixs
Replies
5
Views
1K
Tieleader
Menu
Log in
Register