Let’s talk about bomber Nose Art that appeared during World War Two. This art reflected a special moment in history. For each piece of aircraft nose art created is a window into the history of the plane and a window into the lives of these air crew and ground crew guys of those planes – there’s a story that goes with each one. If you visit the Bomber Command Museum, you will discover an impressive database of nose art images and replica paintings from World War II.
Such artwork gives every individual plane an identity. If I give you the number of a ship, you have no idea what vessel it is, it means nothing. But if I say Titanic – everybody in the world knows what I’m speaking about and that’s the simple power that nose art had. It’d give an identity to a pilot or a crew and a particular aircraft – an aircraft these men depended on for their very lives.
World War II is when this art form really picked up its name. Early in the war, when preparing for the Battle of Britain, the Royal Air Force was receiving young men from all over the world and they started to paint on their crafts – art reflecting their nationality. Then the first official order appeared during the start of the Battle of Britain which allowed all these pilots to paint in the section of the plane what they called pilot position.
After the Battle of Britain, the artwork which was okayed at the pilot position gradually moved to the front. And by the beginning of 1941, it took the name “nose art” for the simple reason it was the one position of the aircraft you could paint an art form without interfering with official markings – identification, serial number, etc.
The number one subject in the Second World War became the pin up girl. The average age of the bomber crews were 22 and they were mostly single and away from home – so ladies were on their minds, I suppose.
A lot of cartoon characters, Walt Disney type characters, like Goofy also appeared on planes. Walt Disney started creating, free of charge, insignia that could be copied or used. The Disney Studios had 5 artists that did nothing through the war, but create insignia. I suspect that Walt Disney had the greatest impact with his artwork and cartoon characters, because these young men that went to war had been brought up with Walt Disney.
One of the most famous movies is Dumbo. It had a huge effect on these young men because Dumbo was a success story. That affected morale. That Dumbo ranked high in insignia usage He came number 6.
70 to 75% of the men who had artistic talent and painted were ground crew. They were not trained artists, they had just natural talent. Some of the nose art is was quite professional looking, but much was less sophisticated.
In 1943, there were so many Canadians being killed they lowered the enlistment rate to the age of 17. So then you have young men leaving high school and leaving university at 17 years of age to go and fight.
A year later they’re in combat and they’re 18 years of age. These young men connected with the nose art on their respective airplanes – be it portrayals of beautiful woman or funny cartoon characters. It gave them a sense of security as, you know, “this is our airplane” and “it’s going to bring us home.” It was just a way ofthem connecting to the airplane and a source of some security for them in a time of war…
As found on Youtube
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