Painting My Hood Invasion Star

During WW2, GPWs and MBs were delivered from the factory with only their USA numbers painted on the hood. These were generally painted in blue drab, with only Willys changing to white hood numbers very late in the war.

Hood and body tub stars, along with unit IDs on the bumpers, were painted at the service level once the jeep was assigned to a unit.  Here’s a great video where you can see brand-spanking new MBs roll off the production line, without stars or markings: Toldeo MB Production Line

AR 850 is the administrative regulation document which covers the markings applied to military vehicles, amongst other things. Here’s a link to JeepDraw’s AR 850-5 pdf document. AR 850 states that the hood star on jeeps should be 15 inches in diameter and placed an inch and a half from the edge of the cowl, so that the star can be visible with the windshield both up and down. Here’s a great example which follows the AR perfectly.

Invasion stars, with the star surrounded with a solid or broken circle, were introduced for the invasion of Sicily and Italy. They were designed to provide Allied Air Forces with stronger recognition of Allied vehicles when strafing and bombing. These invasion stars where carried over to the invasion of France. During the war there were at least five types of stars painted on our jeeps’ hoods. Here’s a good summary from the G503.com forums. Correct Invasion Star Size on Hood.

There were many combinations of both solid and broken invasion stars mixed with both the factory original blue drab USA numbers as well as with white service-painted USA numbers.

My GPW is painted in honor of my father, a heavy gunner in the XXth Corps’ 689th Field Artillery Battalion of Patton’s Third Army. Without any information on the actual hood painting for his jeep, I like the look of a broken invasion star and original blue drab USA numbers, something like the photo below. Another reason is that I enjoy photography and the history of blue drab numbers and black / white film is quite interesting.

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Here’s how she tuned out. I’m using a 20″ stencil which I purchased from Scott Watson at Ron Fitzpatrick Jeep Parts. The paint is Rustoleum’s 7790 Flat White Enamel in a can. I thinned the paint with acetone and sprayed through a Harbor Freight air gun at 40 psi, but turned way down on pressure and paint volume. The hood was painted while laying flat with 4-5 thin passes, waiting for the paint to flash off before each successive coat. I screwed up when removing the stencil and it folder back on itself, marring the finish. No worries, though. I gave the paint a few days to harden, masked off the affected area, wet sanded with 600 grit, and re-shot the area with a modeling airbrush.

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