Colorized Bomber Nose Art

[Arlo]

Mount 'N Ride 42-31585 OR-B Nose Art (323rd Bomb Squadron)

This aircraft was one of several 91st BG planes that flew into Switzerland to be interred until the end of the war.

After two previous aircraft were damaged beyond repair this crew was assigned to a new B-17G which had just arrived from the States. The enlisted men of the crew named her Mount ‘N Ride and Tony Starcer painted her nose art. The crew would fly the rest of their missions in Mount ‘N Ride.

On their 6th mission, originally scheduled to Hamburg but diverted to Dusseldorf because of weather, they took a direct hit to their #3 engine. They were unable to feather the prop and had a runaway. They lost the formation and made it over the North Sea at altitudes under 100 feet and speeds of 115 to 120 mph. They made landfall and landed at a RAF Base. The RAF covered their nose art because it was too suggestive.

In late February on a mission to Leipzig the 323rd supplied 9 aircraft. By the time they reached the target they had lost 8 of the nine aircraft. With no one to form up on they adlibbed the rest of the mission. They  avoid attackers by going high and then low to keep the formation between them and the attackers.

Their last mission was on the 16th of March 1944. The target was Augsburg. As they approached the target they were hit and lost their #3 engine. They began to loose the group and another FW190 took out their #2 engine. With the help of 2 P38s they were able to make it to c cloud deck.  Knowing they could not make it back to England they plotted a course to Dubendorf, Switzerland.  They were able to navigate in the clouds to Dubendorf where they landed and were interned in Adelboden, Switzerland.

The crews 13 missions were:

Bremen

Wilhelmshaven

Hamburg

Kiel

Hanover

Düsseldorf

Frankfort

Munich

Ludwigshaven

Nancy, France

Berlin

Leipzig

Augsburg

They had 6 confirmed fighter kills.

This information came from the War Time Memories of Doyle E. Bradford, the pilot of Mount ‘N Ride.

(http://www.91stbombgroup.com/photo_history/mount.html)

[Arlo]

B-17 42-5734 / Seymour Angel aka Red Balloon aka Old Ironsides
(Seymour Angel was its original nose art/name. It was renamed when transferred to other units.)

[Arlo]

This was nose art of the Korean War.

Martin-Omaha B-29-25-MO Superfortress 44-65306:Built under licence by Glenn L. Martin Company, Omaha, Nebraska. Assigned to 52nd Bomb Squadron, 29th Bomb Group, Re-Assigned to 28th Bomb Squadron, 19th Bomb Group, Andersen AFB, Guam. Deployed to Kadena AB, Okinawa for Korean War Operations. Named ‘The Outlaw’.

Written off (damaged beyond repair) 2 October 1951: According to Earl "Mac" McGill, the co-pilot on the B-29s final flight day, the aircraft had taken a hit from a Soviet MiG 15 cannon to the right outboard engine on a previous combat mission. The engine had been replaced, but several test flights thereafter were aborted due to failed run-up checks.

Just after take off from Kadena AB, Okinawa, flames came from the #1 engine. The left wing clipped a storage tank located on top of a slight hill at the air base. The plane smashed through a scrubby, sub-tropical forest, the nose gun mount and bomb sights broke off and were flung into the cockpit, the nose gear strut sheared and was driven into the cabin ceiling, and the fuselage broke in two. The crew was five men that day and all escaped injury.

[Arlo]

Looky, looky indeed! Many a homesick airman or ground pounder must have looked at Cowan's languishing girl and longed to return home to such a treat. The underwear looks to have been added as an after thought with little of the brush work of the figure, or possibly as the result of an order to "cover up" before the plane headed back to the USA. Many returning crews recall receiving such as order as they prepared to fly home and some remember hastily painting on some skimpy item of clothing to spare the modesty of the nose art girl and the blushes of the civilians back home. Some mischievous crew men retell how they used a water based paint for such a task, receiving official approval for departure only to find that the water soaked atmosphere of a North Atlantic crossing soon washed off the artwork to reveal, upon landing in the US, the nude's full glory! No signature can be seen on Looky Looky but the style is unmistakably Cowan's. This Douglas built Fort was a late arrival in the war zone, not reaching England until 7th January 1945 and being assigned to 851st Bomb Squadron. It too survived the combat in the skies over Germany and returned to the USA on 12th December to be passed onto to RFC Kingman for scrapping.

(http://www.usaaf-noseart.co.uk/plane.php?plane=cowan-looky#.X7QqUGhKi00)

[Arlo]

Assigned to the 5th Air Force, 90th Bombardment Group, 321st Bombardment Squadron. Nicknamed "Little Chief" with the nose art of a woman wearing a leather jacket with a 90th Bomb Group patch, her legs resting on boxes stenciled "Gin Cairns" and her head on a parachute with "521" below her arm. This A-20 was used as a "fat cat" for flight from New Guinea to Australia for fresh food and alcohol.

(https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/a-20/little_chief.html)

[perdue3]

Decolorized during the war to save money:

[Nefarious]

(Image removed from quote.)

Assigned to the 5th Air Force, 90th Bombardment Group, 321st Bombardment Squadron. Nicknamed "Little Chief" with the nose art of a woman wearing a leather jacket with a 90th Bomb Group patch, her legs resting on boxes stenciled "Gin Cairns" and her head on a parachute with "521" below her arm. This A-20 was used as a "fat cat" for flight from New Guinea to Australia for fresh food and alcohol.

(https://pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/a-20/little_chief.html)

That's an IL-2 Great Battles Screen.

[Arlo]

Decolorized during the war to save money:

(Image removed from quote.)

Somehow the posts I share with this group seem to hurt your feelings the same way they hurt Dolby's. 

[Arlo]

This aircraft participated in the first large daylight raid on Berlin on 6 March 1944. It was later passed on to the 323BS in early April and subsequently downed by flak over 'Big B' on April 29. Only half the crew survived. The art work was done by Tony Starcer modelled after the September 1943 Varga calendar girl.

(http://www.fightingcolors.com/b-17_page.htm)

[MiloMorai]