Hood Marhings,

[Colin Britton]

Well I thought I was going to get lucky and find the original serial number under all those layers of paint. And while the left side was sanded down to bear metal, more than likely during the crconditioning at Rootes in 55. As I started on the right I uncovered the Blue "S" and eventually all the blue U.S.A. hood markings on the right side. But Alas the rest of the numbers were sanded through, and all I found were some blue lines and streaks...... So close, so far from happening. But I at least know that my hood numbers were blue. And will remain that when she is repainted.

[armydriver]

That is a lot more than most of us get when sanding on the hoods. Have fun with the numbers. Either find an old photo of a WWII truck in the theater you want yours to be or use a significant set of numbers that mean something to you personally.

[Jeroen Sleijpen]

All US vehicles that left the factory plants for military use and built under military contract, had blue army reg numbers on the hood!!!
After being recieved by a division, the division numbers where painted on the bumpers and the blue number was repainted in white!
So it is a crap story the blue numbers where "early".... Remember that!

When you do your paint job you can choose to keep the blue and restore it without stars unit markings etc.... so you have a truck as it left the factory. But if you restore the truck with unit markings you have to repaint the number in white paint. Although you can leave the blue underneath as was done by several units during war. Others repainted first with OD and after that the white was applied.

[rhinexing]

All US vehicles that left the factory plants for military use and built under military contract, had blue army reg numbers on the hood!!!
After being recieved by a division, the division numbers where painted on the bumpers and the blue number was repainted in white!
So it is a crap story the blue numbers where "early".... Remember that!

When you do your paint job you can choose to keep the blue and restore it without stars unit markings etc.... so you have a truck as it left the factory. But if you restore the truck with unit markings you have to repaint the number in white paint. Although you can leave the blue underneath as was done by several units during war. Others repainted first with OD and after that the white was applied.

The same goes for the "W" prefix on the hood number. The number was preceeded by a "W" (which stood for war department), and did not include the "U.S.A.". When units received the vehicles, some would paint out the "W" & repaint the numbers in white, adding the "U.S.A."; while others would retain the "W" and repaint it in white, along with the rest of the number.

[Hardbird]

All US vehicles that left the factory plants for military use and built under military contract, had blue army reg numbers on the hood!!!
After being recieved by a division, the division numbers where painted on the bumpers and the blue number was repainted in white!
So it is a crap story the blue numbers where "early".... Remember that!

When you do your paint job you can choose to keep the blue and restore it without stars unit markings etc.... so you have a truck as it left the factory. But if you restore the truck with unit markings you have to repaint the number in white paint. Although you can leave the blue underneath as was done by several units during war. Others repainted first with OD and after that the white was applied.

Jeroen,

I do agree with your statement about the blue drab letters "only being an early feature" is a bogus story. There is a picture of a beautiful factory fresh Autocar M3 half-track the is on page 44 of the Hunnicutt book "Half-Track, A history of American Semi-Tracked Vehicles". This picture would date after November 1942 since it is equipped with both mine racks and pedestal headlights.

However, I disagree with the statement of having to repaint your blue drab hood serial numbers white if you paint on stars and bumper markings.

Documented history shows otherwise:

Look at the book "M3 Infantry Half-Track" by Steven Zagola. On page 10 there is a photo of a M3 assigned to the "Big Red One". This half-track is motoring through a town in Sicily (July 1943). This would place it at the unit level, and in combat as well. It clearly has blue-drab hood letters and numbers, an it also has white "Salerno" stars and white bumper markings. As does T30 on page 20 in the same book, also on Sicily 25 July 1943.

On page 158 of the Hunnicutt book "Half-Track, A history of American Semi-Tracked Vehicles", there is a medical M3 half-track that was assigned to the 6th Armored Field Artillery Group (again, unit level) dated 12 November 1942, that has the red cross on a white background medic markings, a white name marking "Maternity", and blue drab hood lettering. On page 159 there are at least seven M3A1 half-track with the 3132nd Signal Service Company that have white stars , no bumper markings, and blue drab hood numbers. On page 203 an M2 half-track at the Desert Training Center has white bumper numbers and blue-drab hood numbers. Page 101 also shows a M3 75mm GMC of the 801TD unit with white stars, white bumper numbers, and blue drab hood numbers.

I just want to keep the record straight.

Ron

Check out the over-spray around the star on the louvered radiator armor on the half-track (on the lower right) on page 101 of the Hunnicutt book!

[Kees51]

I recently visited a friend who is restoring a Dodge WC-43. When he sanded the hood, the only registration numbers that were there were blue. But the Dodge did have white stars on the doors.

Maybe they sometimes didn't get around to repainting the numbers and just started driving the thing?

Furthermore, why was it that the factory put on blue numbers that the units in the field later had to repaint in white. Wouldn't it make more sense to put the white numbers on at once?

[oldreliable9_47]

I ran across this bit of info while reading through TM 9-883A 1 Ton Cargo Trailer manual. Dated March 1943...on Page 84 Stenciling. "White stencil numbers on vehicles have been eliminated because they can be photgraphed from the air. A blue-drab stencil enamel is now used which cannot be so photographed. It is illegible to the eye at distances exceeding 75ft."

kind of interesting i guess...

[Kees51]

"White stencil numbers on vehicles have been eliminated because they can be photographed from the air. A blue-drab stencil enamel is now used which cannot be so photographed. It is illegible to the eye at distances exceeding 75ft."

Now that turns the story around.

I went to the digital document collection of the Army Heritage Collection Online site and did a Boolean search for "blue-drab" AND stenciling.

I found eight manuals that had the exact same sentence in them, in the chapter about painting the vehicle.

TM 9-617 Generating unit M18, 19 january 1944
TM 9-618 Generating unit M7, 30 july 1943
TM 9-705 Scout car M31A1, october 26 1942
TM 9-726 Light tank M3, july 15 1942
TM 9-740 Armored car T17, november 2 1942
TM 9-741 Medium armored car T17E1, december 15 1942
TM 9-782 Tractor, light, wheeled industrial type (A-C Model B), June 12 1942
TM 9-787A Heavy tractor M1, december 21 1942

Also, TM 9-306 "75 mm gun M1987A4 mounted in combat vehicles" mentiones blue-drab used for stenciling but says that manual TM 9-850 has the details. I didn't find TM 9-850 on the site.

Other vehicle manuals do not mention blue-drab at all.

Something must have changed later. The TM 9-801 manual says painting is covered in the TM 9-2851 manual. Which I also couldn't find on the site.

Does anyone have TM 9-2851?

[Kees51]

I forgot to look in the obvious place. Exerpts of a manual on vehicle markings are right here on the cckw.org site, in the Bumper Numbers page under the Techical Info tab. There are pages from the AR 850-5 manual of August 6, 1942 and pages of the AR 850-5 manual of February 15, 1945.

The 1942 manual says about the registration markings: "The markings on the vehicle will be with blue-drab lusterless enamel by means of a stencil."

The 1945 manual says about the registration markings: "Registration markings will be applied with approved white lusterless, stenciling, synthetic enamel."

So it seems they ceased to worry about being photographed from the air.