Aircraft Camouflage

This was one of the first issues addressed by the ORS. The concept was simple - the U-boats saw mainly the undersides of the aircraft which were painted darker than the sky; making the aircraft a lot more conspicuous.

In September 1941 the undersides of aircraft were experimentally painted white. By December of the same year a scheme had been introduced - of every 3 aircraft, one was to be painted black for use with searchlights and two to be painted white for use at sea. This was soon again amended, and aircraft likely to be flying in areas of strong sunlight such as the Mediterranean were instead painted grey.

Tests to evaluate the effectiveness of this strategy showed that a white aircraft could travel approximately 20% closer to a U-boat without being detected. Also, that 40% more U-boats were sighted by a white aircraft before submerging than a black aircraft. The results of these tests however are not to be over-relied on as the test conditions were very poor.

The concept of artificial lighting on the undersides of aircraft was considered in order to make them appear lighter again - however this resulted in problems with a lack of power available for such lights, and was eventually abandoned.