Info needed: ARN stencils- Size and style

[Tony Wheeler]

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Is it dark blue, or faded black?

Hi Mike,

It's definitely dark blue to the eye but less obvious in photos. I figure the applicators used 2-digit paint for convenience, rather than stock an extra colour Black purely for use as background. Just a guess of course.

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

Anyway, most Americans don't seem to comprehend that the colour bar/USN system is a British invention

haha...Americans don't like to believe they borrowed from the British. For goodness sake don't mention their flag origins!

East India Trading Company flag 1668-1801 cf. Grand Union Flag 1776.png

Originally Posted by Mike Cecil

However, as it is the visual cue that the colored bars provide, rather than the actual number, the difference in colors matched to numbers did not matter anyway. What freight handlers were looking for was a like set of color bars on each package, not the actual unit number.

Excellent point. Thanks for the article, a very interesting and informative read. Just to confuse matters - I found this Life magazine colour photo, one of a series by Robert Capa depicting men of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion: "most probably taken between December 1942 and June 1943 when the 509th trained in Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco in preparation for the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943." As such it predates the POM-ETO instruction of 21 July 1943, and I notice the USN is four digit with alpha suffix. Is this an earlier system of some kind? Or maybe a separate 'A' for Airborne subsystem?

Cheers,

Tony


US Paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne preparing for a jump, North Africa (2).jpg