"Nose art"
Section on "nose art"
In an effort to 'personalize' their aircraft in the Government Issue uniformity of the army, American aircrews often painted graphics on the nose section of their aircraft. This gave the aircraft a 'personality', instead of being just a number it bacame part of the crew, a member of the crew. Owen Hughes was one of the first to start painting scantily clad women or sharks teeth on aircraft at his base in England as a moral booster. Hughes started painting nose art in exchange for rides in the aircraft and some paintings took several days to complete. Some of the graphics were quite original and some used existing characters / names of the period. Some were very elaborate, some very simple, most were very impressive! A lot of nose art was quite 'Naughty' by 1940s standards, but what could officers do to the offenders, send them off to war???
"Bombs and Boobs" Nose Art Section
B24 "Hangover Haven"
B24 "Bourbon Boxcar"
B24 "Twin Nifties" 2 of the names (below girl to the right) are 'Gary Cooper & Andy Arcari'
P38 "Pudgy lV" note 22 'kill' markings! (this was 'Mac' McGuire's second to last aircraft. A member of the 475th Fighter Group, 'Mac' was the USA's top scoring ace behind Dick Bong. 'Mac' was killed when his drop tank laden P38 Lightning plowed into the ground during a dogfight over the Philippines, on January 7th, 1945. His last P38, 'Pudgy V', had 38 'kills' painted on it, 2 less than Dick Bong.)
B25 "Mexican Spitfire"
The ubiquitous 'Sharks Teeth!'
The 89th squadron used Damon Runyons books as a basis for these caricatures of four of their crewmen
P40 'Bucket o' Bolts' (note drop tank under fuselage)