RARE Original Photo WWII Nose Art Bomber Airplane Twin Nifties II 1943 Girl

RARE Original Photo WWII Nose Art Bomber Airplane Twin Nifties II 1943 Girl
RARE Original Photo WWII Nose Art Bomber Airplane Twin Nifties II 1943 Girl

RARE Original Photo WWII Nose Art Bomber Airplane Twin Nifties II 1943 Girl
For offer, a nice original photo. Fresh from a prominent estate. Never offered on the market until now. B-24D Bomber Liberator, 90th Bomb group, 400th bomb squadron, 5th AF.

Measures 4 3/4 x 3/ 3/4 inches. Light creases to lower rh corner. Please see photo for details. If you collect 20th century American aviation history, military, photography, air force, art, etc. This is a treasure you will not see again!

Add this to your image or paper / ephemera collection. Nose art is a decorative painting or design on the fuselage of an aircraft, usually on the front fuselage. While begun for practical reasons of identifying friendly units, the practice evolved to express the individuality often constrained by the uniformity of the military, to evoke memories of home and peacetime life, and as a kind of psychological protection against the stresses of war and the probability of death. The appeal, in part, came from nose art not being officially approved, even when the regulations against it were not enforced. Because of its individual and unofficial nature, it is considered folk art, inseparable from work as well as representative of a group.

[1] It can also be compared to sophisticated graffiti. In both cases, the artist is often anonymous, and the art itself is ephemeral.

In addition, it relies on materials immediately available. Nose art is largely a military tradition, but civilian airliners operated by the Virgin Group feature "Virgin Girls" on the nose as part of their livery. There were exceptions, including the VIII Bomber Command, 301st Bomb Group B-17F "Whizzer", which had its girl-riding-a-bomb on the dorsal fin.

Placing personalized decorations on fighting aircraft began with Italian and German pilots. The first recorded example was a sea monster painted on an Italian flying boat in 1913. [citation needed] This was followed by the popular practice of painting a mouth beneath the propeller's spinner begun by German pilots in World War I.

What is perhaps the most famous of all nose art, the shark-face insignia later made famous by the First American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers, first appeared in World War I on a British Sopwith Dolphin and a German Roland C. II, though often with an effect more comical than menacing. [4][page needed] The cavallino rampante ("prancing horse") of the Italian ace Francesco Baracca was another well-known image. World War I nose art was usually embellished or extravagant squadron insignia. This followed the official policy established by the American Expeditionary Forces' Chief of the Air Service, Brigadier General Benjamin Foulois, on 6 May 1918, requiring the creation of distinct, readily identifiable squadron insignia.

[5] World War I examples include the "Hat in the Ring" of the American 94th Aero Squadron attributed to Lt. Johnny Wentworth[5] and the "Kicking Mule" of the 95th Aero Squadron. Nose art of that era was often conceived and produced not by the pilots, but rather by ground crews. Count Francesco Baracca and his SPAD S.

VII, with the cavallino rampante that inspired the Ferrari emblem. Eddie Rickenbacker with SPAD XIII (note the "Hat in the Ring" 94th Aero Squadron insignia), France, 1918. Spad XIII pursuit aircraft of the 95th Aero Squadron with the "Kicking Mule" insignia, France, 1918. Hell's Angels, the 3rd Squadron of the 1st American Volunteer Group "Flying Tigers", 28 May 1942. True nose art appeared during World War II, which is considered by many observers[citation needed] to be the golden age of the genre, with both Axis and Allied pilots taking part. At the height of the war, nose artists were in very high demand in the USAAF and were paid quite well for their services, while AAF commanders tolerated nose art in an effort to boost aircrew morale. Navy, by contrast, prohibited nose art, the most extravagant being limited to a few simply-lettered names, while nose art was uncommon in the Royal Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force. The work was done by professional civilian artists as well as talented amateur servicemen. In 1941, for instance, the 39th Pursuit Squadron commissioned a Bell Aircraft artist to design and paint the "Cobra in the Clouds" logo on their aircraft.

Perhaps the most enduring nose art of World War II was the shark-face motif, which first appeared on the Messerschmitt Bf 110s of Luftwaffe Zerstörergeschwader 76 ("76th Destroyer Wing") over Crete, where the twin-engined Messerschmitts outmatched the Gloster Gladiator biplanes of No. [citation needed] The Commonwealth pilots were withdrawn to Egypt and refitted with Curtiss Tomahawks (P-40) off the same assembly line building fighter aircraft for the American Volunteer Group (AVG) Flying Tigers being recruited for service in China.

In November 1941, AVG pilots saw a color photo in a newspaper of a shark mouth painted on a 112 Squadron P-40 fighter in North Africa and immediately adopted the shark-face motif for their own P-40Bs. [7] The British version itself was inspired by "sharkmouth" nose art (without any eyes) on the Messerschmitt Bf 110 heavy fighters of Zerstörergeschwader 76. This work was done by the pilots and ground crew in the field. [8] However, the insignia for the "Flying Tigers" - a winged Bengal Tiger jumping through a stylized V for Victory symbol - was developed by graphic artists from the Walt Disney Company.

Similarly, when in 1943 the 39th Fighter Squadron became the first American squadron in their theatre with 100 kills, they adopted the shark-face for their Lockheed P-38 Lightnings. [6] The shark-face is still used to this day, most commonly seen on the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II (with its gaping maw leading up to the muzzle of the aircraft's GAU-8 Avenger 30mm cannon), especially those of the 23d Fighter Group, the AVG's descendent unit, and a testament to its popularity as a form of nose art. The "Dragon and His Tail" nose art on a B-24 Liberator, Moffett Field, 2004 - from 2005-on, Witchcraft (s/n 44-44052). The largest known work of nose art ever depicted on a World War II-era American combat aircraft was on a Consolidated B-24 Liberator, tail number 44-40973, which had been named "The Dragon and his Tail" of the USAAF Fifth Air Force 64th Bomb Squadron, 43d Bomb Group, in the Southwest Pacific, flown by a crew led by Joseph Pagoni, with Staff Sergeant Sarkis Bartigian as the artist. The dragon artwork ran from the nose just forward of the cockpit, down the entire length of the fuselage's sides, with the dragon's body depicted directly below and just aft of the cockpit, with the dragon holding a nude woman in its forefeet.

Wilson painting a bomber based at Eniwetok in June 1944. Tony Starcer was the resident artist for the 91st Bomb Group (Heavy), one of the initial six groups fielded by the Eighth Air Force.

Starcer painted over a hundred pieces of renowned B-17 nose art, including "Memphis Belle". [12][13] A commercial artist named Brinkman, from Chicago was responsible for the zodiac-themed nose art of the B-24 Liberator-equipped 834th Bomb Squadron, based at RAF Sudbury, England. Contemporary research demonstrates that bomber crews, who suffered high casualty rates during World War II, often developed strong bonds with the planes they were flying, and affectionately decorated them with nose art. [15][16] It was also believed by the flight crews that the nose art was bringing luck to the planes.

The artistic work of Alberto Vargas and George Petty's pin-up girls from Esquire Magazine were often duplicated, or adapted, by air force crews and painted on the nose of American and allied aircraft during World War II. Some nose art was commemorative or intended to honor certain people, such as the Boeing B-29 Superfortress "The Ernie Pyle".

Boeing KC-135E Stratotanker, based with Sioux City Air National Guard, 2007. In the Korean War, nose art was popular with units operating A-26 Invader and B-29 bombers, C-119 Flying Boxcar transports, as well as USAF fighter-bombers. [19] Due to changes in military policies and changing attitudes toward the representation of women, the amount of nose art declined after the Korean War. During the Vietnam War, Lockheed AC-130 gunships of the U. Air Force Special Operations Squadrons were often given names with accompanying nose art - for example, "Thor", "Azrael - Angel of Death", "Ghost Rider", "War Lord" and The Arbitrator. [20] The unofficial gunship badge of a flying skeleton with a Minigun was also applied to many aircraft until the end of the war and was later adopted officially. A-10 Thunderbolt II with shark mouth themed nose art, Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, 2011. Nose art underwent a revival during the Gulf War and has become more common since Operation Enduring Freedom and the Iraq War began. Many crews are merging artwork as part of camouflage patterns.

The United States Air Force had unofficially sanctioned the return of the pin-up (albeit fully clothed) with the Strategic Air Command permitting nose art on its bomber force in the Command's last years. The continuation of historic names such as "Memphis Belle" was encouraged.

Source material for American nose art was varied, ranging from pinups such as Rita Hayworth and Betty Grable and cartoon characters such as Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny, and Popeye to patriotic characters (Yankee Doodle) and fictional heroes (Sam Spade). Lucky symbols such as dice and playing cards also inspired nose art, along with references to mortality such as the Grim Reaper. [1] Cartoons and pinups were most popular among American artists, but other works included animals, nicknames, hometowns, and popular song and movie titles.

Some nose art and slogans expressed contempt of the enemy, especially of their leaders. The farther the planes and crew were from headquarters or from the public eye, the racier the art tended to be.

[1] For instance, nudity was more common in nose art on aircraft in the Pacific than on aircraft in Europe. "Sharkmouth" Messerschmitt Bf 110C of ZG 76, May 1940. Luftwaffe aircraft did not often display nose art, but there were exceptions. [22][page needed] For example, Mickey Mouse adorned a Condor Legion Messerschmitt Bf 109 during the Spanish Civil War and one Ju 87A was decorated with a large pig inside a white circle during the same period. Adolf Galland's Bf-109E-3 of JG 26 also had a depiction of Mickey Mouse, holding a contemporary telephone in his hands, in mid-1941.

A Ju 87B-1 (Geschwaderkennung of S2+AC) of Stab II/St. G 77, piloted by Major Alfons Orthofer and based in Breslau-Schöngarten during the invasion of Poland, was painted with a shark's mouth, and some Bf 110s were decorated with furious wolf's heads, stylistic wasps (as with SKG 210 and ZG 1), or as in the case of ZG 76, the shark mouths that inspired both the RAF's 112 Squadron and in turn the Flying Tigers in China, on their noses or engine covers. Another example was Erich Hartmann's Bf-109G-14, "Lumpi", with an eagle's head. The fighter wing Jagdgeschwader 54 was known as the Grünherz (Green Hearts) after their fuselage emblem, a large green heart. The Geschwader was originally formed in Thüringen, nicknamed "the green heart of Germany".

Perhaps the flashiest Luftwaffe nose art was the red and white viper snake insignia running through the whole fuselage of certain Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers that served with the II Gruppe, and especially the 6. Staffel of Sturzkampfgeschwader 2 in North Africa campaign, the only known artwork on an Axis-flown combat aircraft that could have rivaled the length of that on "The Dragon and his Tail" B-24. The Soviet Air Forces decorated their planes with historical images, mythical beasts, and patriotic slogans. The attitude of the Finnish Air Force to the nose art varied by unit. Some units disallowed nose art, while others tolerated it.

Generally, the Finnish airforce nose art was humorous or satirical, such as the "horned Stalin" on Maj. Maunula's Curtiss P-36 fighter. The Japan Air Self-Defense Force has decorated fighter aircraft with Valkyrie-themed characters under the names Mystic Eagle and Shooting Eagle. Beginning in 2011, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force has AH-1S Cobra anti-tank helicopters and Kawasaki OH-1 observation helicopter named Ita-Cobra and Ita-Omega respectively, decorated in the theme of 4 Kisarazu??? [24] The Aoi-chan first appeared in 2011, followed by the other three sisters in 2012.

Canadian Forces were reported having nose art on CH-47D Chinook and CH-146 Griffon helicopters in Afghanistan. Ian Gleed in his plane with Figaro the Cat.

Pierre Clostermann's Hawker Tempest Le Grand Charles featured the Cross of Lorraine. Brendan Finucane's Spitfires wore a shamrock with a "B" within it. Ireland's top ace in World War Two who also was the youngest wing commander in Royal Air Force history. Adolf Galland was famous for painting Mickey Mouse on his aircraft, and the mascot was adopted by his Gruppe during the early airwar phase of World War II. Don Gentile's North American P-51 Mustang named "Shangri-La", with an eagle sporting boxing gloves.

Ian Gleed's Hawker Hurricanes and Supermarine Spitfire featured Figaro the Cat, from the 1940 Disney animated movie Pinocchio. Erich Hartmann's Bf 109s featured a distinctive "black tulip" design on the very front of the cowling, immediately behind the spinner. Johnny Johnson's Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IX featured the Canadian maple leaf. Landers' P-51D, which sported a distinctive black-and-white checkerboard with red trim.

Lawson, who (along with journalist Bob Considine) famously wrote about the 1942 Doolittle Raid in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, piloted a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber nicknamed The Ruptured Duck, after a minor training accident in which the aircraft tail scraped the ground during takeoff; this was decorated by a caricature of an angry Donald Duck figure with crutches and wearing a pilot's headphones. James MacLachlan, who flew with an artificial arm, had his Hawker Hurricane adorned with a picture of his amputated arm giving a V sign. Werner Mölders flew a yellow-nosed Messerschmitt Bf 109F-2 while with JG 51 during June 1941. Chuck Yeager's series of aircraft named "Glamorous Glennis", with bright letter art. The markings of aces were often adopted by their squadrons, such as Galland's Mickey Mouse and Hartmann's black tulip (still in use until recently on the aircraft of JG 71 "Richthofen" - not known to be in use on the unit's new Eurofighter Typhoons).

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries-including all of the great powers-forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. In a total war directly involving more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources.

Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and the only two uses of nuclear weapons in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, a majority being civilians.

Tens of millions of people died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, massacres, and disease. In the wake of the Axis defeat, Germany and Japan were occupied, and war crimes tribunals were conducted against German and Japanese leaders. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939, when Nazi Germany, under Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland. The United Kingdom and France subsequently declared war on Germany on 3 September. Under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union had partitioned Poland and marked out their "spheres of influence" across Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.

From late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan (along with other countries later on). Following the onset of campaigns in North Africa and East Africa, and the fall of France in mid-1940, the war continued primarily between the European Axis powers and the British Empire, with war in the Balkans, the aerial Battle of Britain, the Blitz of the UK, and the Battle of the Atlantic. On 22 June 1941, Germany led the European Axis powers in an invasion of the Soviet Union, opening the Eastern Front, the largest land theatre of war in history.

Japan, which aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific, was at war with the Republic of China by 1937. In December 1941, Japan attacked American and British territories with near-simultaneous offensives against Southeast Asia and the Central Pacific, including an attack on the US fleet at Pearl Harbor which resulted in the United States declaring war against Japan. Therefore the European Axis powers declared war on the United States in solidarity.

Japan soon captured much of the western Pacific, but its advances were halted in 1942 after losing the critical Battle of Midway; later, Germany and Italy were defeated in North Africa and at Stalingrad in the Soviet Union. Key setbacks in 1943-including a series of German defeats on the Eastern Front, the Allied invasions of Sicily and the Italian mainland, and Allied offensives in the Pacific-cost the Axis powers their initiative and forced it into strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained its territorial losses and turned towards Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945, Japan suffered reversals in mainland Asia, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy and captured key western Pacific islands. The war in Europe concluded with the liberation of German-occupied territories, and the invasion of Germany by the Western Allies and the Soviet Union, culminating in the fall of Berlin to Soviet troops, Hitler's suicide and the German unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945.

Following the Potsdam Declaration by the Allies on 26 July 1945 and the refusal of Japan to surrender on its terms, the United States dropped the first atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima, on 6 August, and Nagasaki, on 9 August. Faced with an imminent invasion of the Japanese archipelago, the possibility of additional atomic bombings, and the Soviet's declared entry into the war against Japan on the eve of invading Manchuria, Japan announced on 15 August its intention to surrender, then signed the surrender document on 2 September 1945, cementing total victory in Asia for the Allies. World War II changed the political alignment and social structure of the globe. The United Nations (UN) was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts, [1] with the great powers-China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States-became the permanent members of its Security Council.

The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the nearly half-century-long Cold War. In the wake of European devastation, the influence of its great powers waned, triggering the decolonisation of Africa and Asia. Most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery and expansion. Political and economic integration, especially in Europe, began as an effort to forestall future hostilities, end pre-war enmities and forge a sense of common identity. It was created on 20 June 1941 as successor to the previous United States Army Air Corps and is the direct predecessor of the United States Air Force, today one of the six armed forces of the United States.

The AAF was a component of the United States Army, which on 2 March 1942[1] was divided functionally by executive order into three autonomous forces: the Army Ground Forces, the United States Army Services of Supply (which in 1943 became the Army Service Forces), and the Army Air Forces. Each of these forces had a commanding general who reported directly to the Army Chief of Staff. The AAF administered all parts of military aviation formerly distributed among the Air Corps, General Headquarters Air Force, and the ground forces' corps area commanders, and thus became the first air organization of the U.

Army to control its own installations and support personnel. The peak size of the AAF during the Second World War was over 2.4 million men and women in service and nearly 80,000 aircraft by 1944, and 783 domestic bases in December 1943. [3] By "V-E Day", the Army Air Forces had 1.25 million men stationed overseas and operated from more than 1,600 airfields worldwide.

The Army Air Forces was created in June 1941 to provide the air arm a greater autonomy in which to expand more efficiently, to provide a structure for the additional command echelons required by a vastly increased force, and to end an increasingly divisive administrative battle within the Army over control of aviation doctrine and organization that had been ongoing since the creation of an aviation section within the U. Army Signal Corps in 1914.

The AAF succeeded both the Air Corps, which had been the statutory military aviation branch since 1926, and the GHQ Air Force, which had been activated in 1935 to quiet the demands of airmen for an independent Air Force similar to the Royal Air Force which had already been established in the United Kingdom. Although other nations already had separate air forces independent of their army or navy (such as the British Royal Air Force and the German Luftwaffe), the AAF remained a part of the Army until a defense reorganization in the post-war period resulted in the passage by the United States Congress of the National Security Act of 1947 with the creation of an independent United States Air Force in September 1947. In its expansion and conduct of the war, the AAF became more than just an arm of the greater organization. By the end of World War II, the Army Air Forces had become virtually an independent service.

By regulation and executive order, it was a subordinate agency of the United States Department of War (as were the Army Ground Forces and the Army Service Forces) tasked only with organizing, training, and equipping combat units, and limited in responsibility to the continental United States. In reality, Headquarters AAF controlled the conduct of all aspects of the air war in every part of the world, determining air policy and issuing orders without transmitting them through the Army Chief of Staff. This contrast between theory and fact is... Fundamental to an understanding of the AAF.

This item is in the category "Collectibles\Militaria\WW II (1939-45)\Original Period Items\United States\Photographs". The seller is "dalebooks" and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped to North, South, or Latin America, United Kingdom, France, Australia, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, China, Sweden, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Africa, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Israel, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Republic of Croatia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, Egypt, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Liechtenstein, Sri Lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Macau, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Reunion.


RARE Original Photo WWII Nose Art Bomber Airplane Twin Nifties II 1943 Girl