Same with the red cloth the RAF glued over the gun ports on their fighters.
Here's an interesting sequence, showing why you can't lower elevators during a recovery (landing) evolution. In this case, aboard a CVE.(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)(Image removed from quote.)
That set up was a blast, remember shooting storchita down over and over many times in my British skinned F6.
I would suggest this guy dropping into the open elevator had a few choice words for whomever lowered it. You can almost see the WTF moment in pic 2.It'd be like pulling into your garage and there being a 20 foot deep hole.Hope he survived!