IIRC, and I'm pretty sure about this the fuel drums were black. The tops were dirty white with a light blue stripe for Avtur or a red one for Avgas.
At Sepulot we used to lob our old drums into the river as there was no way of getting them back to Labuan because the river flowed south to Indonesia. The Whirlwind being quite a good oil drum herder. The locals used to fish them out, use the dregs of Avtur for cooking, lighting etc., and use the drums for storage, building or whatever. Then a Sioux detachment arrived when they built a Gurka Company HQ. Allofasudden there were muffled thumps downstream as their cooking fuel detonated. The next day saw two charred remains of longhouses which took a couple of days to rebuild. Nobody hurt, fortunately, but they learned the reason for different colours.
During the last months of confrontation when the Navy took over Sepulot the practice of throwing the old drums into the river stopped. The locals now had to buy the drums and contents off the Petty Officers. A full, unopened drum was available at $50. My second picture above was taken when I went back to Sepulot because both Wessexs pictured were U/S and I was told this by my groundcrew.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 3rd Jun 2012 at 09:42.