good stuff... thxChode; part of the answer to why they dropped the dazzle camoflage is revealed by a closer look at the two photos you posted. You can tell that the ship went through an extensive overhaul which included a reconstruction of much of the superstructure. Most of the major surface units of the USN did during the war. In fact, the Indianapolis had just completed her overhaul when she left for Tinian. Looks like they just didn’t repaint her with dazzle.
Very good pictorial history of the Indianapolis can be found here:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/035/04035.htm
A resource worth bookmarking.
By the way, the overhaul process was one of the many advantages we held over the IJN. Our shipyard capacity was so great, we decided to use the east coast yards for new construction and the west coast yards for repair, overhaul and reconstruction. At the navsource website, look at the reconstructed West Virginia and Tennessee for example. They went from looking like WW1 dreadnoughts on Dec. 7 1941 to looking like modern battleships in 1945. The Japanese couldn’t begin to match that.
good stuff... thx