nose art – Curious as a Cathy

Good morning, kittens and dawgs! I’m glad to see yesterday’s cliffhanger brought you back. In researching today’s topic, I found oodles of interesting links and info, so if you don’t have time to read this then I invite you to bookmark this page for All Things Vintage.

Nose art is painted designs on an aircraft. The Italians and Germans started this art expression in WWI. Somewhere along the line nose art moved from snarling teeth, shooting flames, dragons, and such to provocative images of scantily clad to nude women who are often called Bomber Girls.

Scroll through these images of WWII fighter planes that are literally and figuratively heavenly babes.

Jean Hays of Reveille with Beverly was asked to be a pin-up model for GI listeners and some of her artwork wound up as nose art. Read Jean’ s interesting story, here.

NightieMissionNoseArt — Nightie Mission/nose art on a Northrup P-61A Black Widow of the 6th Night Fighter Squadron, at East Field, Saipan, Mariana Islands, probably late 1944. (info source: 20th Century Man source)

Little Gem B-29 Superfortress Isley Field Saipan February 1945 — U.S. Marine Randall Sprenger putting the finishing touches on “Little Gem”, on a B-29 Superfortress at Isley Field Saipan February 1945. (information borrowed from Pinterest)

Memphis Belle B-17 — 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”. (info borrowed from Wikipedia)

Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby — U.S. Army model B-17 Flying Fortress from WWII

Honey_Bunny_P-38 — Lockehead P-381 one of the most beautiful and deadly planes to take to the sky during WWII.

Huckberry_World_War_II_Fighter_Jet_Pinups_2 — Don Adams admires his artistic work dubbed “Blondie” according to cleveland.com article.

The Pink Lady B-17 WWII Flying Fortress — The Pink Lady

b25_georgies_gal_angela_02 — Georgie’s Gal Angela on a B25J. Image borrowed from William McFadden Photographs.

b25_georgies_gal_helena_01 — Georgie’s Gal Helena on a B25J. Image borrowed from William McFadden Photographs.

Yankee Lady B-17 Flying Fortress — Yankee Lady nose art on a B-17 Flying Fortress. Read a little of her history on Wikipedia.

Victory Girl B-29 WWII plane — The Victory Girl nose art originally placed on a WWII B-29.

South Sea Sinner nose art B29 bomber — South Sea Sinner nose art on a B29 bomber. I believe I found this image on Pinterest at this location.

"Hard to Get" nose art on a B26 — “Hard to Get” nose art on a B26. Image borrowed from mysightpictures.

Briefing Time nose art — Image source for “Briefing Time” nose art B-25J Mitchell Bomber now resigns at Mid-Atlantic Air Museum.

I’m unsure if this image was actually used on any aircraft or not, but I did find an airplane kit with a similar design and thought you would like to know some history about the type of plane that might have had the “Bombs Away” nose art.

Bombs Away — The B-17 Flying Fortress, a Boeing-manufactured heavy bomber introduced in April of 1938, was chiefly operated by the USAAF in the European Theater during their strategic bombing campaign over Germany. Of the 1.5 million tons of weaponry dropped on Nazi-occupied territory during World War II, 640,000 came from B-17s. More than 12,000 units manufactured and ten remain airworthy as of 2015.

While scouring the net for Bomber Girl nose art, I stumbled across MessyNessyChick. There you will find a few of these photos and a few others I did not include due to the sensitive nature of the images.

I love everything about being a woman and while some think this is demeaning, it makes me euphoric. I understand military men were lonely for their wives and girlfriends and this gave them an outlet to express their feelings, but I think it’s something much deeper than what meets the eye. I believe they see women as treasures or good luck charms or maybe a little of both.

Did you know that Betty Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was the most popular pinup model during WWII?

In the 40s, Grable was one of the top female box office draws earning her $300,000 a year making her one of the highest-paida women in America. Here’s an interesting piece of trivia, Betty Grable insured each of her legs for one million dollars. Think about that now. We’re talking a million bucks for each leg in the 1940s. I used dollartimes.com to convert this for today’s value. Are you ready? 1M dollars is about $16.9M and don’t forget to multiply that by two. It makes perfect sense why Grable (also featuring Marilyn Monroe and Lauren Bacall) starred in the 1953 film How to Marry a Millionaire. lol By the way, this was a fabulously fun movie.

A special thank you to the incredibly gifted A2Z Team who many are now my good friends.

Arlee Bird @ Tossing it Out
Ninja Captain Alex J. Cavanaugh
Heather M. Gardner
Jeremy @ Hollywood Nuts
AJ Lauer
Pam @ An Unconventional Librarian
Damyanti Biswas @ Daily Write
Zalka Csenge Virág @ The Multicolored Diary
Joy Campbell @ The Character Depot
John Holton @The Sound of One Hand Typing

Now, I invite you to hop with me in checking out some of the amazing A2Zers playing along this year and I hope you’ll come back on Monday to read Cab Calloway.

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Tag: nose art

All Things Vintage: Bomber Girls #AprilA2Z

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