Hello to all. I have a question regarding the marking of the 2nd BG B-17Gs related to the color of the bands on the wings and the color of the rudder and elevator of the NMF machines:
1) in the book "B-17 Flying Fotress in Color" by Steve Birdsdall I read following:
- 2 feet wide
blue stripes on all the machines (outlined by white on machines with camo)
-
moving parts of the tail (rudder and elevator) in blue on the machines without camo and in white on the machines with camo
2) in the book "B-17 Flyin Fortress Units of the MTO" by William N. Hess I read that the
rudder was blue and wings stripes black (!)
3) in the book "Air Force Colors Volume 2 ETO & MTO 1942-1945" by Danna Bell she says the marking were black
Based on the b&w pics most of the people believe it was black and I also used to belong among them but the more info I´m gaining the more I believe it was really blue.
Could anyone bring a light on this? What was the real color? Black or blue? Also modellers seem to be confused as I´ve seen the models both with the black and blue rudder/elevator and stripes on the wings.
Some of you maybe saw the same request of mine on another forums like ww2aircraft.net or on FB but becuase I still didn't come to a clear conclusion I´m trying to ask here. I also asked here in another thread but because there was no reply at all I decided to create a separate request related only to this topic. Thank you for understanding.
Roman
Capture from Steve Birdsall's book.
Caption from the publication "Camouflage & Markings Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress 1937-1945
Profile of 44-6542, source
https://www.markstyling.com/mto_b17s6.htm
The only to me known color pic of the 2nd BG Fort. Kingman, AZ, post war pic.
Although the rudder is dark, when you increase the pic and compare the bottom part of the rudder with the T symbol on tail the rudder seems to be a different color, maybe blue. Even the star on the fuselage doesn´t seem to be blue although it 100% was dark blue, so it's very hard to decide from this picture.