Color of crews clothes on WWII Japanese BB's

Modeling Subjects Ships
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I have finished (if you can ever say that) my Nichimo 1/200 Yamato and have a nice set of Z-scale Preiser figures to put on it. The only reference I’ve seen has the crew in all white during the summer. Somehow that doesn’t seem practical.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Paul

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Officers would wear black, enlisted would wear khakis while at sea in fair weather.

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

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Jeff,
Thanks for the response. This is the link that I got my information from:

http://www.geocities.com/dutcheastindies/Japanese_Uniforms.html

It seems to indicate whites and blues. How do you account for the differences? Is this link showing dress uniforms (that’s what they look like) and the working uniforms would be black and khakis as you indicated.

Here is a link to photos of my Yamato:

http://www.modelwarships.com/gallery/bb/ijn/yamato-200-pb/yamato-index.html

Thanks,
Paul

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Hi Paul,

I’ve seen your Yamato, I’m the guy that uploaded it… :slight_smile:

In the photos I’ve seen, and of the uniforms I’ve seen in Japan on display, the officer’s uniforms were black…I have a few photos I will email you.

Regards,

Jeff Herne
Modelwarships.com

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Greetings: While the previously discussed white and blue uniforms appear to be accurate for non-combat wear, references in the book “A Glorious Way to Die” ( Spurr, Russell / New Market Press, New York, 1981) indicates "Officers wore regulation green battle dress … " p.44; also on p.120 it states that during a speech made by Rear Admiral Ariga on the deck of the Yamato on April 5, 1945 - prior to departing on the last sortie - the deck below was filled with men, “Soon it was carpeted with ranks of green uniforms, division upon division, stretching right up into the bow.” For Yamato modelers I can share some other information; wartime blast-bags were brown (canvas) not white (Skulski, Janus “AOS Jamato”, p.22 ; the wooden deck was “coated with inflammable gray camouflage paint” (Spurr p. 44) to retard burning ; all combustible material was removed from the Yamato, including launches and seaplanes before Aril 6 (except two that left the ship the second day of sailing); there were no personnal life vests or life belts on board. Hope this helps. Best regards.

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minishipyard,
Yikes - thanks for the note - I read that book and I don’t remember any of that. I read it a long time ago tho. Now I’ve got a lot of khaki and black uniformed little guys running around my Yamato. I even have three of them refueling one of the planes - and that shouldn’t be there. But I also don’t have any of the deck edge aa guns installed yet so I guess this will have to depict the ship a month or so before it’s final voyage.

I gotta tell you tho - I’m not going to repaint 80 1/200 scale little guys. They will stay in their khaki and black. I also have a ships launch sittiing on the back deck because I didn’t want it dangling from the hoist mechanism under the aft deck fairing - too fragile for a rc ship.

That was a good book as I recall - thanks for the information. As I recall from reading it - the crew pretty much knew that they weren’t coming back - and they weren’t very happy about it. They knew that they were being sacrificed to save their leaders face and as I recall they (for the most part) would have liked to turn around and go home.

Anyway - thanks for the help - from everyone,
Paul