Milbicycleman , Thanks for posting the photos of your yard bike. the actual military lock is accurate! The sailors would "borrow" the workers bikes when left unattended and ride off with them to be funny. It is amazing you have one of these. I spent considerable time in the philabelphia naval yard but I never noticed any bikes.
As far as color goes, the yard bikes although owned by the government, the workers were under civilian management and could paint their bikes whatever they wanted. It is true the U.S.N. did order almost everything that was painted in dark or light grey color. That being said, other then specific requests everything came grey, and if altered would be done later by the command.
As far as military bikes used during the 60s and 70s I never saw any, but I am sure it would be perfectly correct to paint them any color you wanted, as the sailors and even the officers had a rebellious attitude to the command and would do things to individualize things to protest , or sort of "stick it in the eye " of the command. Certain divisions within a particular command would paint over the grey painted items large or small, in any color they wanted. My Repair division painted all our tools pink . the command was not happy with this. It was not uncommon to find "peace" stickers affixed or drawn on military equipment . Allthis was done in protest to the war, and in support for the changes that Admiral Zumwalt was trying to bring about in the U.S. Navy at that time. thanks for sharing your yard bike!
