"RAF Boston Paint Schemes for Normandy?" Topic

Does anyone have any details of RAF paint schemes for Normandy? I've found one plain green scheme with a wavy-edged grey underside, but was that typical?

And am I right in thinking that the rear-gunner's position was still an open affair with two MGs? Or had they stuck turrets on them (the beautiful AiM 1/100th model includes both options)?

Not sure about the colours, but still open gun positions.

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Oh maybe a mix – low profile turret on this invasion striped 88 squadron one:

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Thanks Dom,

The colour-schemes are somewhat confusing, however. Some say that they were painted in the original US colours of Olive Drab & Neutral Grey, while others say that these colours were repainted in RAF shades, while yet more sources state that they were camouflaged in RAF Dark Green & Dark Earth, with Sky undersides (some say grey undersides).

I'm inclined towards the US colours – earlier in the war they certainly were earth / green / sky, but to my eye the underside in the invasion striped photos looks too dark to be sky, and I can't really see a camo pattern, when dark earth / dark green is usuallly an easy demarcation to spot in black and white photos.

As an afterthought, at least some 88 squadron birds had white noses too; seems to have been a marking for D-Day smoke layers.

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Cheers Dom,

Yes, those white noses seem to have been used as a recognition marking for the D-Day smoke-laying op (where they flew parallel to the beach, spraying smoke), as an extra measure to stop landing craft brassing them up. However, some photos of 88 Sqn from later in the Normandy campaign show them without, so I guess they were painted out after D-Day.

Any idea if the RAF used their own version of olive-drab, or did they simply us US paint stocks? US OD always seems excessively drab – it'd be nice to paint them a bit more green.

I can't recall encountering either – I suspect anything delivered on OD would simply get a coat of dark green when it needed a repaint, so would be entirely happy going with that.

It looks as if the Bostons in service during June 1944 were Mk III or Mk IIIA with the open rear-gunner position, with some Mk IV with turrets entering service in July or August – still early enough to have fuselage invasion stripes, but maybe not wing ones.

It's possible that the IIIA and IV were finished in the greener ANA 613 Olive Drab rather than the older Dark Olive Drab 41, as the new colour had been introduced in 1943. The Mitchell III aircraft supplied to 2TAF around the same time are often reported as being in a greener shade, and there's a fair amount of discussion on this in issues of Scale Aircraft Modelling from about ten years ago.

A couple of recent references are 2nd Tactical Air Force Volume 4 by Christopher Shores and Chris Thomas, and Airfile Operation 'Overlord' June-September 1944 Volume 1 by Neil Robinson.

That's brilliant information. Thanks very much indeed.