What are your favorite Douglas A-20 Havoc Paint Schemes?

[Hemiman]

[jdvoss]

Here are more color profiles of RAF Boston's:

[jdvoss]

More USAAF colour profiles...




More Soviet A-20's (Factoid: The USSR received 3000 A-20's via Lend Lease which was about 40% of total production)

[jdvoss]

The Brazilian AF operated 31 A-20J Havoc aircraft until 1955 when the last one (No. 85) was relegated to their museum where it resides today. The camoflauge paint scheme is worthy of note. The A-20J model was an A-20H modified with the bombardier nose.

[jdvoss]

Oops...Correction. The Brazilian AF A-20 above is an A-20K ! "Old Timers Disease" got me again!

Here are a couple of contemporary photos:

A-20G at NMUSAF, Dayton OH




An A-20G photographed at Fox Field, Lancaster, CA circa 1988 (ex-Howard Hughes?)




An A-20H photographed at Beaver Falls, PA. I believe the aircraft has been relocated to New York




And the saddest (gut wrenching) photo of them all...




I counted at least 27 A-20's thrown into a to scrap pile at Biak, Dutch New Guinea. Note that every aircraft pictured has had their propellors removed. Note the nine P-61's and scads of P-38's.

[SaxMan]

This has been an AMAZING thread! Great pics and great illustrations.

When the U.S. entered the war on December 7th, they only had a few types of aircraft in the inventory available in some numbers that were truly "world class" -- the A-20 was definitely one of those. It could hold its own and then some with any light bomber that any other air force could field.

[Hemiman]

Hey Chris!

Just can't resist an A-20 post! I have more that need cleaned up and loaded on photoshop.!! One of these days!

[jdvoss]

NAVAL USAGE OF THE HAVOC / BOSTON

A. US NAVY / USMC

The USN procured eight aircraft (A-20B's) that were primarily assigned to VJ /VMJ units for the primary purpose of target towing. The navy designated the aircraft as the "BD-1 and BD-2" and were received directly from the factory in USAAF OD paint scheme. At least one A/C was repainted in USN blue camouflage, another was stripped to bare aluminum and assigned to VX-2 at NAS Quonset Point, RI. If any were repainted in hi-vis chrome yellow (e.g. JM Marauder) remains unknown.



Color profile source: "U.S. Navy Aircraft Camouflage and markings 1940-1945" by T. Doll


B. BRITISH ROYAL NAVY

The RN operated 27 ex-RAF Boston's in the target towing role. Still looking for photo documentation for these aircraft.


C. DUTCH NAVY (aka Kon.Marine)

The Dutch navy received 32 DB-7B aircraft all of which were sent to the NEI. The aircraft all had RAF paint schemes ('Sand and Spinich'). See my original posting with the color profile of the Japanese marked DB-7B (a captured aircraft from Java). As a point of interest one of these aircraft RAF s/n AL907 resides at the RAAF Museum Point Cook, Australia and is the only DB-7 in existence.


D. RUSSIAN NAVY

The Russian navy utilized OD marked Havocs in an anti-shipping role utilizing very large torpedos.

[jdvoss]

As a point of interest during WWII my father was a production manager on the A-20 line at Santa Monica. At peak production (A-20G's and beyond) the rate was one aircraft out the door every two hours. With aircraft going to the Russians, RAF, RAAF, USAAF et.al I inquired as how they kept everything organized every day as to which aircraft was going to which customer. "Easy" he said. All aircraft were painted and marked and delivered in std USAAF scheme. The USAAF decided which aircraft were to be allocated to Lend-Lease and those aircraft were then flown to a Modification Center in Barstow, CA (about a 100 miles north in the Mojave desert) where they were revised for the ultimate customer.

[Triplane102]

O.K, I'll make this sweet & short, What about the Lonely P-70? Anything else besides Black? Just asking.

[Mark Allen M]

Speaking of A-20's. Anyone remember this? "Brisbane Town Hall of a ( Douglas A-20 Havoc ) in the final stages of restoration by the RAF and put on display at King George Square. Late 1990's"





















Photos from the flickr account of 'sccart'
https://www.flickr.com/photos/37012880@ ... 6559596373

[Lightning]

Howdy Mark

Thanks for posting the pics of the A-20G 'The HELL'N PELICAN II' in Brisbane Australia
Anyone know why Spell check has changed the name to heck'N ?

Just noting
RAF is Royal Air Force
RAAF is Royal Australian Air Force

What really annoyed me about the RAAF restoring the above aircraft was that they chose to recover and strip the Time Capsule A-20G 'Big Nig' of needed parts.

Lightning

[Mark Allen M]

Howdy Mark
Thanks for posting the pics of the A-20G 'The heck'N PELICAN II' in Brisbane Australia
Anyone know why Spell check has changed the name to heck'N ?
Just noting
RAF is Royal Air Force
RAAF is Royal Australian Air Force
Lightning

The WIX 'auto-spell checker' has a life of it's own. You really have to go back and edit your posts as much as an hour later sometimes to fix edit errors the spell checker screws up. Happens all the time. The auto-spell checker is also rated for 'G' audiences so anything remotely close to 'PG' or 'R' rated is changed to 'G' ... Any of that make any sense?

As for the RAF/RAAF? There's another example of the auto-spell checker doing it's thing. Somehow didn't like two 'capital A's' next to each other

[jdvoss]

As a follow up on "He(sic) n' Pelican" here is an article with BEFORE and AFTER photos:

[jdvoss]

Another BIAK photo taken circa 1948 of USAAF A-20's. The caption is written in Dutch and the only word I can decipher is "Bulldozer"..... ugh.