A very good friend of mine was a bomber pilot ( B-25 )
during WWII and he told me that as the war went on,
and the losses of air crews mounted, the censors eased
up on the air crews about the nose art. I have seen
pictures of some nose art that would be considered to be
somewhat risque by todays standards, let alone 60 years
ago. Wish I could remember where I saw them..........
On a side note, I just thought I would share this with the
group. After WWII, my friend stayed in the Air Force ( Army
Air Corps then ) and started to fly fighters in Korea and
Vietnam. His last stint was in the F-4 Phantom over the
skies of Vietnam. As this was one of my all time favorite
airplanes, loud as hell, I decided to do something very
special for his 79th birthday. Using this thing called the
internet, I started doing research into his last stint in
Vietnam and more importantly his squadron back then. After
many months of effort, I found the correct tail markings,
color scheme, etc. for his last F-4 and I commissioned the
building of a highly detailed model to exact specifications,
right down to the inclusion of his name on the canopy. I
did this all without his kowledge as I wanted to present it
to him as a total surprise on his actual birthday.
In any event, I went to Florida with the model in tow and
unveiled it at his party. He was so overcome that he
cried. I later learned that he had also commissioned
replica's of each & every plane he flew during the wars.
Unfortunately, they were all lost to a fire sometime in the
late 1970's. He never thought he would see one again.
It was a touching moment.
Steve
This is his original squadron patch ( found via. research )
This is a vintage image of a F-4C from his squadron ( 1968 - Tan Son Nhut airbase ):
This is a "not so complimentary" image of the finished model:
By the way, the tail number was an ad-lib as I could not
find that information anywhere. So, I opted instead to
assign his age as the tail number.