USS Wasp (Essex-class) just before departing Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, United States bound for San Francisco, California, 9 Jun 1945. Note new Measure 21 paint scheme, all over sea blue. Photo 1 of 5

Caption     USS Wasp (Essex-class) just before departing Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington, United States bound for San Francisco, California, 9 Jun 1945. Note new Measure 21 paint scheme, all over sea blue. Photo 1 of 5 ww2dbase
Photographer    Unknown
Source    ww2dbaseUnited States Navy National Museum of Naval Aviation
Identification Code   1996.488.053.047
More on...   
Puget Sound Navy Yard   Main article  Photos  Maps  
Wasp (Essex-class)   Main article  Photos  
Mark 12 5-inch/38 caliber   Main article  Photos  
Photo Size 974 x 1,024 pixels
Photos in Series See all 5 photos in this series
Photos on Same Day 9 Jun 1945
Photos at Same Place Puget Sound, Washington, United States
Added By C. Peter Chen
Licensing  Public Domain. According to the United States copyright law (United States Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105), in part, "[c]opyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government".

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Colorized By WW2DB     Colorized with Adobe Photoshop



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Visitor Submitted Comments

1. Commenter identity confirmed David Stubblebine says:
15 Mar 2014 09:34:49 PM

This is an interesting photo. Note that the deck numbers on the bow are painted upside down. Deck numbers fore and aft should be painted so they are upright to someone facing forward. Earlier in the war, Yorktown (Essex-class) also had her bow numbers painted this way for a short time. One of the design specifications for the Essex-class was they had to be able to recover aircraft on the bow while steaming backwards as fast as they could go, the idea being this could be necessitated by battle damage. Early Essex-class carriers (probably including Wasp) had to demonstrate this capability during initial trials. This was why Yorktown’s ‘10’ was initially inverted on the bow but this reverse recovery was never employed operationally and Jocko Clark had the ‘10’ repainted pretty quickly. This photo is the only other time I have seen the forward numbers painted this way and I bet they did not last long here either.

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WW2-Era Place Name Puget Sound, Washington, United States
Lat/Long 47.5322, -122.4714
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