WORLD WAR 2 IN REVIEW: Friend or Foe: World War II U.S. Warship and Aircraft Recognition Slides and Manuals

by Matthew M. Peek, Military Collection Archivist, State Archives of North Carolina

Prior to 1941, the U.S. Navy and Army Air Corps was using a system for recognition training of aircraft referred to as the WEFT System, standing for "Wing, Engine, Fuselage, and Tail." It typically used silhouettes of only three-plan views (bottom view, head-on view, side view) for the analysis of features training. This type of training did not test the trainee's ability to identify other views of the aircraft that he might encounter in the natural world during combat.

In 1942, a Recognition School was established at Ohio State University by psychologist Dr. Samuel Renshaw, where his method of identification of aircraft and ships was developed. Initially, Renshaw studied ways to improve reading speed. In his lab, subjects would be exposed to a series of numbers flashed on a screen for increasingly shorter durations of time. After the subjects were trained, Renshaw claimed that they could read faster with the same level of comprehension.

In 1942, a naval officer and former Ohio State University employee named Howard Hamilton came to believe that Renshaw's research could be applied within the U.S. Navy to save lives. The Allied forces were losing hundreds of soldiers and equipment because Navy personnel were either too slow or inaccurate in identifying planes and ships as an enemy or friendly vessel. If Renshaw's techniques could help subjects more quickly recognize reading stimuli, then perhaps the same could be done for naval personnel in recognizing incoming planes or ships.

To find out, Renshaw trained college students on aircraft and ship recognition. He found that they could indeed identify such targets more quickly and with greater accuracy than the Navy's own personnel. Renshaw's method essentially proposed involving presenting the aircraft in a brief flash on the screen until the military trainee was able to identify it accurately.

In June 1942 after a review of Renshaw's work, the Navy established a "recognition school" at the Ohio State University, eventually known as the Renshaw Training System for Aircraft and Ship Recognition. The "Renshaw System" or "Flash System of Instant Recognition" would eventually become the standard recognition training practice during World War I for the U.S. military. Data revealed that Navy officers going through this training had dramatically improved recognition abilities.

In 1943, the U.S. Army Air Corps (later the U.S. Army Air Forces) also accepted a modified version of the Renshaw system. However, the controversy over the merits and deficiencies of each system continued until official recognition and identification requirements for the combat situation and some experimental evidence were applied. During World War II, the Three Dimension Company of Chicago, Illinois, a manufacturer of stereo equipment, slide projectors, and tape recorders, was contracted to create the Navy's recognition training slides. They reported produced millions of such recognition slides for the Navy during the war.

Bibliography

U.S. War Department, FM 30–30: Aircraft Recognition Pictorial Manual 1943.

U.S. Navy Recognition Training Slides, WWII 143, World War II Papers, Military Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, N.C.

"Time Capsule: Spotting the Enemy," Monitor on Psychology, American Psychological Association, March 2010 (Vol 41, No. 3).

Arthur C. Vicory, "A Brief History of Aircraft Identification Training," Professional Paper 27–6, August 1968, George Washington University Human Resources Research Office paper produced for U.S. Department of the Army.

Recognition training page for the Vought F4U Corsair, an American and British fighter aircraft during World War II. Note the angles of the aircraft shown, which would be common views servicemen would see from the ground, from ships, or from the air — particularly the underneath silhouette [from the U.S. War Department's FM 30–30: Aircraft Recognition Pictorial Manual 1943].

Page featuring the silhouettes of common U.S. and British World War II military aircraft for studying by U.S. military service individuals [from the U.S. War Department's FM 30–30: Aircraft Recognition Pictorial Manual 1943].

Page from manual FM 30-50: Recognition Pictorial Manual of Naval Vessels.

Making model airplanes for the U.S. Navy at the Armstrong Technical High School. Washington, D.C. March 1942.

Official U.S. Navy glass recognition training slide of a U.S. Navy Martin PBM Mariner bomber airplane, taken on June 25, 1943 (Slide No. M 172A) [Slide produced by Three Dimension Company, Chicago, Illinois].

Official U.S. Navy glass recognition training slide of nine U.S. Navy Douglas SBD Dauntless scout and dive bomber airplanes in formation for identifying counterattack by enemy aircraft, taken on June 25, 1943 (Slide No. M 144A) [Slide produced by Three Dimension Company, Chicago, Illinois].

Official U.S. Navy glass recognition training slide of the U.S. Navy battleship USS North Carolina (BB-55) at sea, taken on November 1, 1943 (Slide No. M 1198). Training slides were also created by the U.S. War Department for U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, so aviators would be able to recognize them from the air or the horizon while flying over water [Slide produced by Three Dimension Company, Chicago, Illinois].