The Nose Art Story - Part One
Hello readers. I posted my Dad’s mission diary from WWII yesterday and promised to tell you the nose art story.
Like many veterans my Dad wasn’t one to talk too much about his war experience. The bomber crews survived as high a casualty rate as anyone in the war. Dad survived thirty missions and his crew only lost one man in that time.
It wasn’t that Dad couldn’t talk about those times. He didn’t carry any life long trauma like some of the guys bore, he just wasn’t that interested in the past. As a little boy I watched my share of war movies. Twelve O’Clock High was one certainly and one that opened my eyes to what my Dad had gone through.
So I one day I asked him what the name of his bomber was and what was the nose art.
“Bomb Baby” was the name but Dad said he couldn’t remember what the nose art was. I was disappointed but what can you do? Over the years I’d occasionally wonder about it. I even looked through a few books on Aircraft Nose Art in the hopes that someone had taken a picture of Bomb Baby. No such luck. It was a mystery for much of my life.
Then . . . one day many years later I got a note from my Dad. We didn’t write often so I wondered what was up. First out of the envelope was the crew photo I posted yesterday, which on the back noted which one of the guys was killed by a piece of flack.
Then out of the envelope was a picture . . . of the nose art on Bomb Baby. Then I knew why he hadn’t shown it to me when I was a lad.
Tomorrow I’ll post the picture of the Bomb Baby nose art and tell you the rest of the story (it’s a hoot).
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