Why German Planes Were Painted Yellow 

Did you know this was the reason for German planes being painted yellow? If not what did you think the reason was? Welcome back! If you are new here make sure to hit subscribe to expand your knowledge on Military History and join the growing Premier History Community!

The yellow nose started life as just a yellow underside to the engine cowling, whose purpose was to identify a friendly fighter to ground troops, since in the early part of the war, the fighters often operated at low level, carrying out straffing and ground support, when enemy air forces had been eliminated and were no longer operating in any great capacity. The whole yellow nose evolved during the battles for France and Britain, when there were a lot more fighters in the sky and they needed to see quickly who was friend or foe. The yellow nose was not used in the desert, later in Italy or in Russia... but the underside of the engine cowling was still painted yellow for ground recognition. The yellow underside eventually disappeared during the defence of the Reich, presumably because in late 1944 and 45, the concept of theatre markings no longer made sense (the theatre was "Germany") and the yellow markings seemed to have been phased out at the same time. In Russia the yellow cowling underside was used by not just Luftwaffe fighters but also by Italian, Hungarian and Romanian fighters, so it was a generic European theatre Axis thing, not just something confined to the Luftwaffe.

Whatever the reason, those yellow noses are iconic!

The camo pattern on the Messerschmidt at the beginning was beautiful.

The yellow was applied to resemble mustard. It made the aircraft appear like knackwurst dipped in mustard. This made the planes appear to be appetizing and not menacing. Spitfires and Hurricanes had paint the same color as HP sauce. This made the aircraft look more like shepherd’s pie covered in HP sauce. The delicious appearance caused Luftwaffe pilots to crave the British cuisine and would then lessen their aggressive nature.

A B24 liberator gunner told me that the yellow noser 109s were the elite fighter group and they were told to be aware.

My Dad was a WWII nose-gunner with 58 missions on a 15th AAF B-24 bombing Germany. He said the yellow-nose fighters usually came from the squadron named for Hermann Goering and were the most feared because their attacks were more intense than any others---

The yellow rear fuselage Bands and underside Cowling markings as well as Yellow wingtips undersides after 1941 were a THEATRE Marking - Meant to delineate the both European Theatre and Russia. In Russia until 1944, the Yellow markings were quite prominent until a mandated change in early 1944. In the Mediterranean Theatre and North Africa this Yellow ID colour was changed to WHITE, not Yellow - although the Yellow was often retained under the nose as many machines were delivered with it applied in the factories. BTW, They were not delivered in a grey - Camouflage was factory applied and the combats units were expected to adapt this to local conditions in the field. After 1941 that colour was 3 grays, (Called RLM 74, RLM 75 and RLM 76) one underneath (76), & 2 greys (74 & 75) on the uppers in fighters. ALL standard Bombers and other aircraft (eg Recon, Transport) were painted in Dark greens (RLM 70 & RLM 71)above with Pale blue (RLM 65) beneath. After 1944, this was revised.... New standard colours (RLM 81 to RLM84)were introduced, but production was to be continued with the old colours until they were used up - Which means there are quite a few "Anomalous" schemes in reality.

Now that everyone from WWII is dead, we can compliment the look of the German military’s uniforms and equipment without getting yelled at.

Aircraft recognition was hard for some AA gunners. There were probably a number of Axis aircraft that were shot down by their own forces.

Adding the siren to the stuka was an incredible decision. Imagine hearing a squadron of those diving down. Scary.

When the Germans assumed they had air superiority, they used the bright yellow markings to discourage friendly fire. When the USAAF achieved air superiority in the ETO, they discontinued the practice of all Army aircraft being painted olive drab on top with neutral gray undersurfaces, and stripped the flat paints off, going to shiny aluminum. This made them less likely to get fired upon by friends, and also cleaned up the aerodynamics. Under dog air forces tend to use a lot more camoflauge. In the Pacific, the Japanese had hardly any camo in the early war. Natural aluminum for the IJAAF, and a light grey for the IJN. The IJ Navy also used a bottle green. Later, they began to used more tactical camo, but usually just a dapple of spray painted dots over the upper surfaces. They didn't use primer, so a lot of tactical camo flaked off. Conversely the USN started out with light blue/gray, over a very light gray/white. With National Markings of Red/White stripes on the tail, and a blue roundel with a white star, and a red dot inside. Obviously the red dots went away first. Too much like a Hinomaru [or ''meatball'']. Then the striped rudders were deleted, Markings on the upper righthand wing were deleted [sometimes replaced with the service branch] as well as under the left wing. A white stripe was added to the National Marking. First iteration [4/43 - 9/43] had a red outline, followed by blue replacing the red. Naval and Marine Corps aircraft had a 3 tone sea camo pattern; Light Gull Gray undersurfaces/Intermediate Non-Specular Sea Blue on fuselage and tail sides -- and wing surfaces that folded up/ Non-Specular Sea Blue tops. When air superiority in the Pacific was achieved in '44, Naval aircraft were painted an overall glossy Dark Sea Blue. [Except Nightfighters were tactically painted flat black overall.] The PTO USAAF followed the ETO guidelines, ditching the Olive over Gray for bare aluminum with air superiority.

Very good video - clear, concise narration and no annoying background "music". Will look for other "Premier History" videos. Thanks.

The yellow band around the nose was originally ordered so that an approaching German fighter could be recognised as friendly. Some units extended this idea to all extremities, with as much as the whole front end of the fighter being yellow, and all moveable tail surfaces, and the wingtips, as well as a band around the rear fuselage. In the North African desert, white was used for the same purpose, as can be seen on the yellow-nosed Bf109 in the desert revetment in this vid. Wingtips are white, tail band is white, nose remains yellow. In-service planes, you correctly say, rarely had time to be re-painted. Though there are pics of Bf109s being repainted under trees in France shortly before the Battle of Britain began, blue sides overpainting the green and black-green, new larger balkenkreuze, and new cockpit canopies often left in the delivery colour of black-grey. Some aircraft in the Luftwaffe even had red extremities, but this seems to indicate they are ground-attack planes, but this is not universal.

Yellow undersides were also used on RAF training aircrafts. Fighters assigned to training outfits received nice,bright, Yellow noses. Of course they were kept far from front lines but there were recorded instances when they did run into German aircrafts . You didn't mention that luftwaffe used similar white markings on their aircrafts in Mediterranean theater. Those very same white recognition markings were also used in Pacific theater by RAF and RAAF and to much lesser extent by USAAF operating alongside them.

Nice video 👍

Interesting stuff!

Colour markings were also used in the Kriegsmarine to help aircraft identify the friendly ships. Ships operating in the area of german air supremacy in the baltic sea got their turret tops painted red while those operating in the area of german air supremacy in the north sea where painted yellow. For example the Bismarck had red turret tops when it moved from Hamburg to Gotenhafen just before the start of Unternehmen Rheinübung. In Gotenhafen they were painted yellow. In Bergen they started to paint them in the typical grey colour for the operation in open waters. Additionally they were removing the iconic stripes. It is also debated whether they started to paint the turret tops in yellow again just before the final battle.

I always thought it was just JG26... The main reason, I think, was recognition. The Spitfire and the Me109 were well known for looking alike. Recognition markings are actually fairly common, the British yellow leading edges being a good example, as was the white/duck egg green stripe the British put just ahead of the tail.

Fascinating knowledge. Well beyond my immediate needs, but none the less fascinating.

Very interesting. 👍

The ultimate in anti-friendly-fire markings were probably the FW 190 D-9s tasked with covering the Me262-fields during the later stages of the war. Since they would exclusively be operating over and near friendly AAA, they had bright red undersides with thin white stripes. Those paint-jobs almost look comical in their brightness and colorfulness when compared to, say, BoB-era 109 E-4's paint-schemes. Sure: There were four years of experience between the two, but I'm not quite convinced that the yellow noses or rudders were exclusively there for the benefit of Flak-gunners. First concern during the BoB would've probably been air-to-air recognition - either to prevent friendly fire or to facilitate formation-flying and -cohesion. When it comes to friend/foe recognition, the yellow noses may have also been applied to help out defensive gunners in LW bombers to quickly ID those 109s as friendlies - those gunners would probably see and track a potential target looking at its front. In regards to FF-ID, the yellow rudders were probably primarily for the benefit of other LW-fighters who could've spotted them when latching onto a friendly fighter. That said: If you get close enough to spot the yellow rudder with any sort of certainty, you probably also would've seen other tell-tale-signs like the E-series' H-stab struts, the swastika on the tail, the crosses on the wings or the difference in shape of the tail-section compared to a Spit or Hurri. Maybe another reason for those yellow accents was that they simply looked good... :)

Thanks, that was interesting.

the Germans also marked all captured Allied aircraft in yellow, to avoid getting shot during flight testing.

RIP Jug Geschwader 26 and 54...you da real MVPs

I don't know about the yellow noses on Bf109's, but coloured bands around the tail , and occasionally on the slant across the nose of bombers was used to indicate the theatre of war the unit was assigned to. Quite why it was felt that this was necessary, I have no idea. I think it's a reasonabe assumption that on German fighters the yellow was for quick identification of friendlies in a dogfight. From a distance, the yellow wouldnt detract from the camouflage, partly because there's far more area painted in camouflage colours, but also because the landscape in most countries does include some yellow in it (wheatfields, etc).

I didn't know it. Thx. Subscribing now.

Excellent presentation.

Well done. Excellent.

Very interesting, thank you very much! 😊

It wasn't just Germany it was the Axis as a whole, there are many examples of Italian and Japanese aircraft with similar yellow markings.

JG26 were the Abbeville Kids who had yellow nosed Messerschmitt Bf 109E3 and later Focke Wulf 190 fighters. To be in JG26 required much experience. Many of its members were already aces. II/JG54 were known by some of the Allied bomber crews as the yellow nose bastards because their flying skills were extrodinary and well respected. To even belong to this group required experience.

As mentioned below, I had heard that the yellow nose was sported by the 'Abbeville Boys', JG26 which was very highly respected by the Allies.

That yellow nose looks great, I love it!

I often wondered why. Thanks

Gave you a thumbs up for pronouncing "Balkenkreuz" so flawlessly 🙂

I’ve seen yellow nosed mustangs as well, but it is an interesting topic and definitely iconic for german planes.

Looks Cool😊

THANK YOU!!! I didn't know why, BUT I have always wondered. The only reason I figured, since I heard a former U.S.A.C. pilot mention a " yellow nose FW-190, that maybe it was a Nose Cannon Calibre size. Nearly 100 years later, and I'm still learning the little things that i have questioned in my mind MANY times!!!

“Yellow nosed Abbeyville boys “ as the RAF nicknamed them.

In the WW I, fighters often had fairly elaborate unit markings. This was part of unit cohesion and unit pride. Yellow was certainly used. However, I have heard that many black and white photographs don’t show how light the yellow was accurately. This is a quirk of the black and white chemistry. I have heard there are strong disagreements among WW I model,airplane builders about EXACTLY which yellow was used.

They were painted yellow because they looked cool. Dont let anyone else tell you different.

I read in a publication about the BF 109 G/K series, that a few of them were painted light blue and some of the US Army Air Force pilots considered those Messerschmitts difficult to spot at altitude.

very interesting

I love this stuff

fun fact - the British and German roundels is where the inspiration for the game of noughts and crosses came from

Interesting and thought provoking video👍✌️💜😊 Yellow spinners on Eg spitfires often indicated an OTU aircraft. Also the underside of MK1 Spitfires had half a black wing and half a white wing during the BEF/Battle of France era (May 1940 etc?), again to stop friendly fire from allied AAA etc. German (Nazi) AAA was very efficient and pushed to be ruthless, high visibility markings on Luftwaffe aircraft would also avoid friendly fire too.

Good vid thanks. As a child painting my airfix kits I often wondered about this. In my mind at the time I thought they were setting themselves up as targets. This made no sense.

Like most WW II German stuff… just looks great 👍 Don’t tell me 5:03 doesn’t look👌❣️

Tactical reasons. Some Theatre marking were Yellow stripes on the air frame were for Russia and White for North Africa these were help identify friend from foe and likely it assisted German Flak Units as well which were efficient at their job... the ltaliano used the white strip in North Africa as well I believe.

So… to distinguish friend from foe. I didn’t need a five minute video for that. Good selection of images/video.

I enjoy the IL2 footage sprinkled in ; )

Years ago, I read (somewhere) that yellow was a historic Teutonic color, and the planes with yellow markings were a nod to this tradition, sort of like a challenge to BRING IT ON.

I speculated that it was a marking to identify the squadron leader, which would double as an indicator that he was experienced and likely a hot shot that allied pilots would not want to tangle with unless they were very experienced and confident.

Nice video, never asked me this question. Your pronounciation of the german words is quite good, many ppl struggle with eg Messerschmitt. The endboss is Eichhörnchen, if you can speak this flawless, you mastered the german spech. 😄

I thought that it was to identify the squadron leader, as it was the case for Adolph Galland for exemple. I learned something, Thank you.

It appears that for Adlertag and into the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe started painting their aircraft in various temporary formation markings using washable paint to rapidly change them. The colors used were mainly yellow and white with yellow being more common on fighters and white on bombers. Fighters at this point acquired yellow or white rudders and they kept doing it later as the tail was where the Germans tended to paint kill markings and a light color underneath helped show them off. Fighter cowlings tended to be overpainted which meant some units lost their unit badges and the actual area painted varied quite a lot, wingtips were also sometimes painted. Bombers acquired vertical or horizontal bars on either or both wings and tail, sometimes all three. There may have been some sort of system as to precisely how the colors were applied and some have suggested that the markings designated where a plane fitted into a formation but there don't seem to be any surviving records as to how this may have worked. After the Battle Yellow Noses continued to be used in French-based units, yellow or white rudders became standard, and more generally theatre bands around the tail and lower outer wings were adopted, Yellow for the eastern front and white for the Mediterranean. Later in the war, fighters tended often to just have the bottom part of the nose painted in a formation color, not always yellow, and a system of "Defence of the Reich" color bands was adopted.

It's pretty simple. If you have the luxury of controlling the air, you can afford the luxury of bright colours to identify friendly eircraft. If you are the hunted, you have to hide, especially on the ground. THAT's the reason later in the war the yellow noses weren't used anymore. It's also the reason later in the war the colour schemes went back to colours that optimised camouflage on the ground. Those were theater markings. In north africa they were white, not yellow. It's also untrue that the units were responsible for camouflaging the birds. They left the factory in basic camouflage. The units might decide on modifying those (usually with additional mottling down the sky blue sides in early war), or completely re-camouflging as some units did on the eastern front. or in north africa.

Yellow is the colour of the Luftwaffe insignia on their uniform as it represents gold and the sun. USAAF and USN training aircraft (Stearrman etc.) were painted yellow all over to help young flying cadets to recognize and therefore stop crashing into each other which they unfortunately often did. Undersides of experimental aircraft of the RAF were painted yellow too. On the other hand some recce Spitfires were painted pink, of course the pilots hated the colour but it did serve a purpose. Also the desert vehicles of the SAS were painted a pink/sand colour too. Something to do with how the eyes interpret colour in intense sunlight, like you cant look directly at the sun except at sunset, also most aircraft viewed from below just look like a black cross only way to identify them was to look at the wing tips i.e. round, Hurricane, Spitfire, straight cut Messerchmitt 109, Stuka (regarding Battle of Britain) this obviously changed as the war progressed, many P47 Thunderbolts getting shot at by ground fire for mistakenly identified as FokeWolfe 190s as they were introduced in the war at the same time, so they had their cowlings painted white, not that the AA batteries cared, anything flying they shot at anyway, friend or foe.. Interestingly, yellow is the colour of the cavalry in the US. And for more info the big black and white 'invasion stripes' painted on all allied aircraft a day or two before Operation Overlord' (D-Day) so they wouldn't shoot at each other and could be recognized from the ground if flying low enough with the right light conditions

Fuselage bands on Luftwaffe airplanes were theatre markings, generally speaking. A yellow band was used on the Eastern front mostly (see 3:32-3:55, the Fw190 is definitely an Eastern Front plane), white bands were used in the Mediterranean theatre. And finally in the latest stages of war you´ll find the multicolored reich defence bands which were used as squadron identifiers. One remark regarding timestamp 4:29. Luftwaffe airplanes were not delivered in "a standard grey color" to the unit. The factories already applied a standardized three-color (early in the war: four-color) camouflage pattern with light blue on the bottom and two darker shades on top, like greens, greys or brown-ish colors. The squadrons only added their markings, changed the factory-applied code (Stammkennzeichen) to the unit´s, group´s and staffel´s IDs like chevrons, bars or colored numbers in the case of fighters. Indeed some, but not all squadrons altered the camouflage by adding splashes of another color or, more radically overpainting the existant camo to adapt to their surroundings (again, check the aforementioned Fw190 with an absolutely non-standard camouflage modified to fit better in the east.

Thanks for the explanination you guys! It's funny, the HP reference was the one that I did get. Before all the appus crapus that began around '15-'16, and before the internet killed newspapers, I used to be a news junkie. Yeah, I'm in my dotage. 8-)

The April 1941 Greek & Kreta Operations featured Yellow Tails

I didn't know that was the reason, I'd always thought it was to distinguish certain units from others, thanks for the clarification. I wonder if easier identification by ground troops could also be the reason some RAF fighters had the bottom of one wing (and sometimes half the bottom of the fuselage) painted black?

The Italians too had yellow paint, it was to be distinguished from the enemy.

Hey I was just in duxford a few weeks ago and saw that JG 26!

Well alot of german tactic was to dive out of the sun. Or keep the sun to your back. So painting your nose would make it harder to recognize the nose and see if they are lining up if they are behind you. Same reason why the nose spiral was added, as in a head on attempt the nose spiral will distract when someone gets tunnel vision. Colors also help distinguish, same reason why allied aircraft ended up with the three stripe pattern for the wings and tail.

The yellow marks were very helpful on the eastern front. There were the combats in lower altitude. The yellow markings under the nose und the tips of the wings helped the German FlaK-Crews to identify the own planes and not to shoot them down.

As a child I was told, that yellow marking on the wing tips and the engiine was east front identification.

Thanks

"Something about painting my Spitfire yellow. He says I'm not allowed!"

As in modern days it’s about avoiding friendly fire. Ukraine uses blue tape, Russia uses white… Russia uses Z on their vehicles. US used the white inverted V. Good video!

I had thought it might be much like the Red Tails using red to mark their group and stand out from all others. A touch of vanity but backed up with actions.

Those colormarkings were still used in the bundeswehr luftwaffe up until the 90s i think but it was changed to bright neon orange instead of yellow

it wasnt just the noses. the underside of the cowling and wingtips were commonly painted yellow on the 109's too for flak recognition

in the 79s modern Luftwaffe still used signal orange markings. Especially on transports.

Camo trousers & hi-vis vest combo!

I watched this video because when I was growing up, I made a model of a BF-109, and painted the cowling yellow. I never knew why, I just did it to resemble the picture on the box.

If I had to guess, fighters tend to attack other fighters with their back to the sun and from high and behind. Coming out of the sun, yellow would be more difficult to see than a black nose or even grey nose.

On watching some history programmes. The markings on British/American aircraft for D Day ,were put on them to reserve and not to use or touch them.

Actually there has not only been yellow but green, red, white too. Depending on fighters, bombers or ground attack and the part of the plane this could have had different background. On fighters and Bombers a yellow ribbon around fuselage and yellow wingtip indicated that they were used on the Eastern front theatre, white would indicate Mediterranean. Reichsverteidigung/Reichsdefense would have used various other color combinations depending on the wing. During BoB they mainly used yellow and white to enable mire easy distinction from UK fighters. Spinner colors on bombers would normally indicate groups or squads within a wing. So this is actually nor mystery but we'll documented

Watched this video when it released. Just recently was reading about Germany testing aircraft as to select what fighter to go with pre WW2. In the running along with the BF109 was the Heinkel HE 112 which when you view it from Above / Below and certain angles has quite a resemblance to the Spitfire. Though don't think / know if any were used in the Battle of Britain at all or whether it was just sold to nations allied with Germany. Either way the yellow nose would certainly be a plus in this case.

When we were lads during the war we used to reckon that the the yellow circler ound the roundel meant that it was a training aircraft.

i would have guessed it was to confuse the enemy pilots into thinking they were looking at the sun in a daylight dog fight.

Pre 1940 RAF schemes featured contrasting Night and White undersides to aid ground recognition. Same with some late war Luftwaffe aircraft. It's all about identification.

High vis markings on tail and wing tip could make formation flying easier. Much like the formation lights modern planes have.

2:42. My father still has a barrel like that, marked "Wehrmacht". Amazing quality.

sure, it was an early use of a highlighter to reinforce..."don't shoot, I am on your side"

Most markings were for squadron's/fighter wings etc, but the color schemes like the yellow nose on German aircraft and the invasion stripes on US aircraft etc in WW2 were for friendly fire issues/avoidance

Wow !

My father was Major Richard "Pete" Peterson, one of the top guns and triple aces of the 357th FG. He once encountered two Me109's with yellow painted noses flying in a two finger formation, lead and wingman. They crossed his path diagonally from left to right at the same altitude, but evidently didn't spot him because they took no evasive maneuvers. He made a tight right bank into their starboard side and attacked the lead plane. The German pilot reacted and immediately climbed in an effort to hide in a cloud above. Pete hit the Me109 as it entered the cloud, and right away it exited the bottom of the cloud in a dive, exploding on contact with the ground. The wingman had continued on his original path and splitessed to make a 180 degree turn back to pursue Pete's P-51. In the meantime, Pete was pursuing the wingman, and they encountered each other in a head-on pass. They both splitessed again and made another head-on pass. This continued for several passes without hits until both were at tree top level above a forest, circling each other counterclockwise in a Lufbery chase. My father said he was at full throttle, banked nearly 90 degrees, crabbing on the edge of a stall. Looking through the bubble canopy of his P-51D, he could see the Me109 on the opposite side of the circle doing the same thing. He said the first pilot to try to exit a Lufbery chase would be immediately shot down by the other pilot following on his tail. Trying to escape was not an option, and he didn't want to run out of fuel over enemy territory. He opted to drop his flaps 10 degrees to change the dynamics of his plane. In doing so, he got more lift and was able to cut the circle in a shorter radius. Eventually, he gained on the Me109, flying a tighter circle inside of the Me109 until finally, he was flying 'above' the Me109 banking in the circle. He flew slightly ahead of the Me109 until he had him framed in view between his right wing and his fuselage. He could see the canopy of the Me109 below in the bank turn. At that point, he began firing his six 50 caliber guns. Because of the extreme high speed bank of the turning planes, the stream of shells appeared to curve under his P-51, though in reality they were all firing straight ahead and the Me109 was flying into them. He said it was like the shape water takes from a hose that's held out and rotated in a circle. The arcing bullet stream spattered into the top of the Me109 below. Pete pedaled his rudder back and forth, and the stream of shells crisscrossed the canopy of the Me109. The Me109 snap-rolled and exploded in the forest. Pete had always assumed that the two Me109's had been from JG26, the Abbeville Boys of the Luftwaffe because of their yellow noses and the extraordinary capability of the pilots in this dogfight, common traits of the Abbeville Boys. Lord Haw-Haw, British traitor and German radio propagandist, often made jibes about how the "Yoxford Boys" (357th FG) were going to meet their death at the hands of the Abbeville Boys in the skies over Europe. However, recently, I was able to review this dogfight with an expert in history of the Luftwaffe, and he identified the two specific pilots who were downed on that date, in the specific location of Pete's mission, reportedly by a P-51 with the red and yellow checkerboard markings of the 357th FG, and they were not, in fact, from JG 26, but another Luftwaffe gruppe. Thought you might like this perspective of the yellow nose identification. It appears it was used by other Luftwaffe planes to avoid friendly fire and only coincidently associated with the top fighter gruppe JG 26.

Finnish airforce used yellow markings too like Luftwaffe. Markings were called east-front markings.

my 1st guess is for quick visual identification purposes using the Mk.I eyeball method.

The yellow nose makes these planes handsomely striking.

Regardless of the reason, the yellow cowlings look badass.

Not mentioned why just yellow. I may guess it was for high sensitivity of human eye to this color (actually top sensitivity is to greenish yellow having 5500 Angstrom as wave lenght.

Interesting. I thought it was for German aces who wanted you to engage them, a la The Red Baron.

White(ish) under wingtip and fuselage band indicated that those German aircraft operates in the Mediterranean. Yellow-red(dish) horizontal stripes on French aircraft operated by the Vichy French forces. Deleted red dot from the roundel on Commonwealth aircraft indicated that those operated in the Pacific or China-Burma-India Theater (basically against the Japanese forces). Also deleted the red stripe from the fin flash. Yellow border around the "wingless" US roundel indicated that aircraft operated in the Mediterranean / Operation Torch. ...and so on...

Beware the hun in the sun, also good camo if the suns behind you as you dive to attack!

I love how he pronounced "Luftwaffe".

Aircraft recognition was only part of the reason. Yellow was a theater color, it symbolized the western theater. White represents the Mediterranean theater black and green were eastern front and home guard I forget which was which.