In the process of researching a carrier tail color question, I was surprised to discover that the practice before 22 October 1935 was that tail colors were assigned to squadrons, not ships. For example, at that time, Langley squadrons had either insignia red or true blue tails. Thereafter, tail colors were assigned to a specific aircraft carrier, e.g. all aircraft aboard Langley to have red tails, to be done at aircraft overhaul. Lexington squadrons were to have lemon yellow tails, Saratoga’s white, and Ranger’s, willow green. The latter was a no-brainer, since all its squadrons had green tails already.
As part of the 1935 changeover, Yorktown aircraft were to have true blue tails, and Enterprise, black, but with the redesignation of Langley as a seaplane tender in February 1937, when put into service in late 1937, Yorktown aircraft got red tails. Enterprise was assigned true blue and Wasp, black.
In March 1937, all squadrons on an aircraft carrier were to be renumbered effective 1 July 1937 to correspond to that carrier’s number, e.g. VF-6B on CV-3 Saratoga became VF-3. With the exception of VF-2 on Lexington, every carrier squadron number changed, and they went from VF-2B to simply VF-2. (The B had meant that the squadron was assigned to the Battle Fleet, as opposed to the Scouting Fleet, and wasn’t marked as such on the aircraft anyway.) Ranger and Lexington swapped three squadrons but all the other squadrons remained with the ships they had been operating from.
The only marking continuity in most cases seems to have been a squadron’s badge, like “Felix the Cat”.