WW2 nose art *caution for younger viewers*

[SS427]

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"Shady's Lady" , I *believe* this is gonna be on a P-38

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That is in fact a P-38.

[Chevy454]

Here's a B-25 doin' work...looks like it's from the 500th bomber squadron, the "Rough Riders"...

[Chevy454]

"Frank Buck" , B-17

Another "ta ta" warning, as we've got some "indiginous personel" as the military called them...I only heard my grandfather call them "fuzzy wuzzies". As I said before, not a bit politically correct!

[SS427]

National Geographic at it's finest! Check out the guy in the middle of the picture "hanging the beads".
Rick

[Chevy454]

Here's my grandfather, in the nose of B-25...you can see parts of a falcon's head, denoting that the plane is from the 498th bs...

[SS427]

"Poontang"

another of those words made famous in the 70's but Ted Nugent.

[Belair62]

Whats really sad is today some cry baby sonofabitch would grab an attorney and there would be no artwork because it would be "offensive to _______" .You can fill in the blanks

[Chevy454]

"Last Horizon" , B-24

Here is a piss poor scan of what looks like an intricate portrait of the San Francisco bay and the Golden Gate bridge...this was a negative, and this is about all I could do with...the "Last Horizon" moniker was probably all too true for a lot of soldiers, though...

[Jim_Becker68]

That B-25 of your grandfather is I think a model B-25H. They had the bombadier compartment blanked out and had 8-50 cals mounted in the nose. Plus 2-50 cals on pods on each side of the aircraft. These saw extensive service in the Pacific against Japaneese convoys. According to what I read, the forward fire power could nearly cut a Japaneese transport in half. Then after turning the vessel into swiss cheese.....you drop a few 500lb bombs to finish the job.....

[Chevy454]

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Plus 2-50 cals on pods on each side of the aircraft.

According to what I read, the forward fire power could nearly cut a Japaneese transport in half.

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I can't remember off hand what caliber it was (75mm, 90mm, ?) but I remember by grandfather talking about the HUGE single gun they tried in the nose for a while...said when it fired that it had such a recoil that it would feel like it briefly stopped the plane in the air!

Simply old school trial and error stuff, but it's amazing the amount of technology that came about in those few years...just prior to the start of WW2, if I recall, the US military was only the 14th largest in the world!