Skin reference help - P-47D-20 371st FG "Mumblin' Joe"

[oboe]

Curious about this picture - for olive drab razorback P-47s, the standard ETO paint scheme included white cowl rings and white theater recognition stripes on the tai l assembly.   In the photo below, however - does it almost look like the white cowl ring is actually bare metal?    The lower cowl flaps and oil-cooler doors look to have be stripped of paint also, but the metal is much darker here, so that makes me think the cowl ring is actually white paint as I would expect.    I'm also wondering if the later model ETO razorbacks carried US star insignia on the underside of both wings, as the 56th and 353rd FGs seemed to.



More info about the aircraft here:

https://laststandonzombieisland.com/2021/05/07/happy-75th-brrrthday-190th-fighter-squadron/mumblig-joe-republic-p-47d-20-re-thunderbolt-serial-number-42-76452-405fs-371st-fg-9af-190606-z-xx999-1002/

EDIT:  I wonder, too - if the photo has been colorized, then maybe the colorizer wasn't sure if it was a white cowl or bare metal, and made it look sort of in between?

[Devil 505]

I think it's just an optical illusion created by the low sun angle and the spinning prop blades.

[Greebo]

I skinned "Magic Carpet" from the same Fighter Group using photos that Lyric1 found for me. These included this colour photo which clearly shows the cowl and gills in NMF, "Mumblin Joe" is almost certainly the same. Many 9th AF aircraft had the second lower insignia too including "Magic Carpet".

[oboe]

Thanks guys. 

"Magic Carpet" appears to be from the 366thFG rather than the 371stFG, but the similarity of schemes is evident.    It looks to me like "Mumbling Joe" retained olive drab on the upper wing surfaces.

With "Magic Carpet", the color of the bare metal appears the same in both the cowl and cowl flaps, while on "Mumblin Joe", the cowl ring is much lighter/brighter than the bare cowl flaps.  It could be, as Devil suggests, a trick of the low sun angle.
To me the color of the cowl ring looks closer to the white tail stripe than it does to the bare cowl flaps.

I'll look for some more photos of 371st a/c; perhaps those would help identify if that group standardized on bare cowl ring like the 366th did?
 

[oboe]

Found a picture of another 371st ship in this article:

https://www.142wg.ang.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1868126/the-371st-fighter-group-in-operation-overlord-remembering-normandy-at-75/



Clearly from the same time frame, its easier to see in this photo the white-painted cowl ring, but here the cowl flaps are still OD.

[Devil 505]

I think even the cowl flaps are OD, just catching the light the right way.