Invasion Stripes on Allied Aircraft in the ETO in 1944

[Rajay]

Mark Allen recently piqued my curiosity and spurred me to some further Grumman Goose research by posting a photo of a Goose with "invasion stripes" and a national insignia star, but no other identifying markings whatsoever and he said that the photo was labelled on its back saying it was an Army OA-9 in England. The kicker is that my research indicates that there were very few Army OA-9's left actually in service by 1943, much less 1944 prior to D-Day, and those that were still in service (maybe 4 or 5) were stationed far away from England, mostly in the Caribbean and Central or South America, or CONUS. That also includes the 5 later model JRF-6B's that were built for the British but diverted to the US Army prior to delivery.

In researching other Gooses that may have been operated in England, I came up with only 3 (based on the service records in Fred Knight and Colin Smith's book The Grumman Amphibians - Goose, Widgeon, and Mallard) and only 1 of those, JRF-5 serial no. B-58, was built and delivered prior to June 6th, 1944. It's service record is as follows:

JRF-5, BuAer. Serial 37805. Acc 08May44 and del. 09May44; FAW-5 Norfolk; records missing but allocated to Hedron 7, FAW-7 Plymouth, NAF Dunkeswell 04Jly44 having been shipped to the UK as deck cargo on USS Albemarle (AV-5) Allocated to Commander, US ports and Bases, France 12Aug44 (records show location a/o 31Aug44 as ‘unknown’); Hedron 7 FAW-7 Plymouth/NAF Dunkeswell 30Sep44; ComNavEu RAF Hendon July45; ComNavEastLant RAF Hendon Mar47.

The other 2 Gooses, JRF-5's serials B-92 and B-93 (BuAer. serials 84797 and 84798) were not built and delivered until the end of October and early November 1944 respectively.

So, my question is - for how long after June 6th, 1944 (if at all) did they continue to paint "invasion stripes" on Allied aircraft operating in the ETO?

[Mark Allen M]

That's a good question that if I recall has/ had been addresses somewhere here on WIX. If I recall it wasn't a straight forward end date.

M

[Clifford Bossie]

So, my question is - for how long after June 6th, 1944 (if at all) did they continue to paint "invasion stripes" on Allied aircraft operating in the ETO?

They didn't continue to paint invasion stripes after D-Day. Those stripes would have been painted approximately the night of the 3rd of June. While replacement aircraft might have been a different story. I am not around my reference, so I am relying on memory (that could be a mistake). By early July they were ordered removed from the upper surfaces and in the fall of 1944 they were removed completely. "Removed" in many cases was accomplished by over painting.

That Goose is an interesting case. I would not be surprised to find that the caption on the original photo is wrong in more ways than one.

[junkman9096]

One source, the Ducimus Camouflage and Markings series, says the stripes were removed from all top surfaces after July 1944 and left only the fuselage bottoms from Sept to Jan 1945. The photo shows the top stripes overpainted so July to Sept 1944? OTOH, nothing is as uncertain as wartime aircraft markings and nobody follows all the regulations.