Invasion stripes

Invasion stripes were alternating black and white bands painted on the fuselages and wings of World War II Allied aircraft, for the purpose of increased recognition by friendly forces (and thus reduced friendly fire incidents) during D-Day. The bands, consisting of three white and two black bands usually two feet wide, wrapped around the rear of an aircraft fuselage just in front of the empennage (tail) and from front to back around both the upper and lower surfaces of the wings.

Stripes were applied to fighters, photo reconnaissance, troop carriers, twin-engined medium and light bombers, and some special duty aircraft, but were not painted on four-engined heavy bombers of the 8th Air Force or RAF Bomber Command. The order affected all aircraft of the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, the Air Defence of Great Britain, gliders, and support aircraft such as Coastal Command Air-Sea Rescue aircraft whose duties might entail their overflying Allied anti-aircraft defenses. To stop aircraft being compromised when based at forward bases in France, a month after D-Day stripes were ordered removed from the upper surfaces of airplanes, and completely removed by the end of 1944.

The use of recognition stripes was conceived when a study of the effects of thousands of aircraft using IFF on D-Day concluded that they would saturate and break down the existing system. Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, commanding the Allied Expeditionary Air Force, approved the scheme on May 17, 1944. A small scale test exercise was flown over the OVERLORD invasion fleet on June 1, to familiarize the ships' crews with the markings, but for security reasons, orders to paint the stripes were not issued to the troop carrier units until June 3 and to the fighter and bomber units until June 4.

Marking description

The stripes were five alternating black and white stripes. On single-engined aircraft each stripe was to be convert|18|in|mm wide, placed convert|6|in|mm inboard of the roundels on the wings and convert|18|in|mm forward of the leading edge of the tailplane on the fuselage. National markings and serial number were not to be obliterated. On twin-engined aircraft the stripes were convert|24|in|mm wide, placed convert|24|in|mm outboard of the engine nacelles on the wings, and convert|18|in|mm forward of the leading edge of the tailplane around the fuselage.

In most cases the stripes were painted on by the ground crews; with only a few hours notice few of the stripes were "masked". [D-Day was originally scheduled for June 5.] As a result, depending on the abilities of the "erks" (RAF nickname for ground crew), the stripes were often far from neat and tidy.

Dieppe Raid

For the Dieppe Raid of 1942, RAF aircraft such as the Westland Whirlwind were given two broad white stripes on each wing.

Hawker Typhoon

An earlier use of black and white bands was on the Hawker Typhoon and early production Hawker Tempest Mark Vs. The aircraft had a similar profile to the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and the bands were added to aid identification in combat. The order was promulgated on 5 December 1942. At first they were applied by unit ground crews, but they were soon being painted on at the factory. Four convert|12|in|mm|sing=on wide black stripes separated by three convert|24|in|mm|sing=on white, underwing from the wingroots. From early 1943 the Typhoons also had a yellow, 18 inch wide stripe on each of the upper wings, centred on the inner cannon. All of these markings were officially abandoned 7 February 1944.

Korea

Invasion stripes were re-introduced on British and Australian Fleet Air Arm aircraft operating during the Korean War in 1950.

uez

The stripes were used again by British during the Suez operation of 1956. Single-engined aircraft had yellow/black/yellow/black/yellow stripes one foot wide. The pattern was the same on multi-engined aircraft but the bands were two feet wide.

References

* Robertson, Bruce. 'Aircraft Markings of the World 1912-1967'. Harleyford Publications, Letchworth,. England. 1967.

External links

* [http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/wwii/usaf/html/DDay.html USAAF chronology, mentions invasion stripes]
* [http://kalapanapundit.blogspot.com/2006/06/d-day-invasion-stripes.html Descriptive blog entry, dated june 2006]