Douglas Aircraft directed to proceed with deletion of camouflage, January 13,1944

Material Command on January 13, 1944, directed Douglas to proceed with the deletion of camouflage on A-20G, A-20H, A-20J, and A – 20K aircraft, in accordance with their earlier letter dated December 8,1943. They told Douglas that a contract change would be initiated when Douglas told them the effective point of the change, and requested that Douglas expedite comments and date of the effective point. On January 17, 1944, Douglas advised Material Command by teletype that immediate results could be obtained by refinishing A-20 series aircraft in an aluminum color, as outlined in AAF tetter dated December 8, 1943. They had been unable to find any satisfactory stripping material that would allow them to delete camouflage without causing serious production delays. They requested permission to produce bare-mctal A-20 series aircraft, as requested in the letter dated December 27, 1943. The Douglas letter dated January 8, 1944, made no mention of eliminating primer on A-20 aircraft. Douglas’s effective point was contingent on an answer to the letter of December 27,1943, and upon receipt of allocations for AAF P-70, Moth and Mink aircraft a minimum of three months in advance of delivery dates. This was so that Douglas could make satisfactory arrangements for the deletion of camouflage with subcontractors. They concluded by requesting authority to proceed signed by an AAF contracting officer.

On February 8, 1944, Douglas received an air mail letter from Material Command, which stated that this letter was to be considered the final directive, superceding the letter dated December 8, 1943, for the deletion of camouflage on A-20 series aircraft. Douglas was directed to take immediate action to delete all exterior camouflage from subject airplanes without causing a delay in production. It went on to direct that prior to delivery, all A-20 aircraft allocated to Mink, Moth and those destined for conversion to P-70 airplanes would be camouflaged on exterior surfaces only, in accordance with present camouflage schemes. A primer coat of zinc-chromate primer was required on Mink, Moth and P-70 aircraft. All A-20 series aircraft delivered to the AAF were to be delivered without camouflage and other exterior coatings, except for Moth, Mink and P-70 aircraft.

This exchange concluded that started on December 8,1943, and serves to show the reasons for some of the typical delays and misunder­standings that arose in implementing new AAF policies on the production lines.