Does anyone know the definitive answer to this question? The Italeri instructions call for olive drab, however I have seen them as bluish gray.
PT Experts please?
5-O Ocean Gray
U.S. Navy bought them in batches from the same places as the War Depeartment. They arrived with the factory green finish.
Now, USN pratice was to paint things the same color as they were stored. So, if you reported to Mount 42, second 40mm mount, your helmet was in a rack alongside that mount, and you donned it when GQ was called away. Since the helmets were in a rack, they were painted the same as the surrounding area. Now, unlike other Service, the helmets were issued to the station on the ship, not the person manning that station.
Now, that was practice in the “steel” navy, the folk in PT’s and the like came from that tradition. So, if the Chief had cadged of comshawed green paint for the boat, then there’d be green paint for the helmets. Those helmets could have been painted any handy color of “grey” at what ever supply depot they were recieved from, too.
Many of the boats were painted green anyway.
They were gray sir.
Garth
I have it on good authority that they were painted BOTH o.d. and shades of grey . It depended on the flotilla or squadron co . as well as the boat captains . the atlantic and pacific boats were both colors at various times . I garnered this info from both the restorers on the west coast and the p.t. boat musuem… TANKERBUILDER
I have seen photos of PT Boats being painted in what appeared to be alternating black and white nonparallel lines in the Mediterranean. I believe that it was called the Zebra Scheme and was used for visual disruption. Revell of Germany released a version of its 109 kit called PT 167 for which the box art depicted this unusual camouflage scheme. I wonder, given the above information, whether the helmets were painted the same? [:-^]
Bill Morrison
They were normally Gray, or if the crews got them from the USMC or Army … Green.
Garth
Please note my “tongue-in-cheek” comment about zebra-stripped helmets; I was in no way being serious!
Bill Morrison
I don’t think anyone took it that way, Bill. I, for one, would have liked a zebra striped hemet to wear during GQ. We pretty much could decorate them (within limits of course) as we wanted.