"Martin Maryland, correct camouflage scheme?" Topic

The following is from a description of a 69 Squadron Maryland from Wings Palette.

"Crew CO P/O Channon, gunner Sgt. Moore. Luqa AFB, Malta, January 1942. This aircraft from batch of 50 a/c from AR702 to AR751. Camouflage: Dark Green, Dark Earth, Sky Blue."

So my question is, would an airacraft in the Med at this time really have been in this scheme?

Probably – 431 flight's Marylands were flown direct from the UK to Malta, and given the pressure on Malta at the time, I doubt they saw a repaint. There are a couple of b&w photos of Warburton's Maryland here.

link

From the tone I'd guess the brown and green's correct, as the sand colour of Desert Air Force aircraft usually looks very light indeed.

Just found a link with a couple more photos:

link

The pranged Maryland is AR733, and certainly looks brown and green. (It's worth mentioning that Warburton had one hell of a record in them too; besides taking the snaps for the FAA attack on Taranto, he also made ace flying them (personally; his crew were credited several kills as well, but he got 5 with the bomber's fixed armament, which is possibly unique….)

Thanks Dom. I was interested in painting one of my Marylands as Warburton's but was originally going to do the desert colour scheme until I saw the image on Wings Palette.

This man certainly qualified for alone and unafraid, but unarmed was another story. I'll have to do some more digging, he definitely sounds like an interesting soul.

While the Dark Green and Dark Earth sounds plausible, I doubt that Sky Blue would have been used for the undersides. The day bomber scheme used on Blenheims and Fortresses at the time had Sky (the duck egg green colour) as the underside colour, but in Bombing Colours 1937-1975, Michael J F Bowyer said that Marylands had Aluminium undersides.