If any of nose art guys out there have an image of "Nick's Chick" I'd like to find it. Was my great uncle's ride and my grandfather and I have been looking for an image for a while.
Hi Ryan, My 31 Ford A 5W is in August Streetrodder. p94. The owner was a USN Ensign Pilot shot down twice and survived in the Central Pacifc in WWII. He Flew TBF-1C Avengers. He passed away in 2002. He was my uncle's best friend during and after the War. My Uncle was (still living ) a Lt. Commander Pilot in the USN. My Uncles squadron patch art is on the dash. He flew Helldivers and Dauntless's. The Mouse is my Uncles Squadron ( U.S.S.WASP) The Rabbit on Torpedo is RH Original Owner ( U.S.S. Hornet) Torpedo Squadron VT-2 Full Story in August 09 Streetrodder- Thanks for the thread the patches are awesome..
My old man was a SeaBee, always loved the logo, used the decals on all my stuff as a kid. This represents one of the best sides of the greatest generation. Thanks .
Great art!!I also liked that aeroclothing.com link,something tells me I'm going to be spending some money there.
We use to decorate planes with our Mascot.I was on a patrol plane that was a Sub hunter.Mascot kinda says it all. Being in the orient in the 70's you could get patches made up and there were lots of misc. patches that street vendors sold.
85th Bomb Squadron, 47th Bomb Group, 12th Air Force. i believe this is the squadron my pappy was in, but i'm not positive. cool post ryan!
I have one of the original embroidered patches of the fightin 31. That's the one with Felix running with the bomb. It's a 6" diameter patch. Way cool. Even cooler is the squad it represented. From what I understand it was a strike fighter squadron. My buddy who is a pilot told me that they were one of the squads that took on the Zero fighter plane. I'm no war expert, and I have trouble remembering all the facts. But I do know they were some real badasses. Some may say its disrespectful that I sewed it to the back of my jacket. I say I'm 19 and remembering true American heros.
My Pop was in the 774 squadron 463 bomb group of the 15th Army Air Forces based out of Foggia, Italy in WWII. The squadron was called the Swoose Group. Half Swan and half cooked Goose. The CO Colonel Kurtz was so proud of his B17 group that he named his daughter Swoosey! Swoosey Kurtz is an actess now and I still see her in a bit part every now and then. Everywhere there was an Army Air Corp base, there was a cottage industry of locals making patches for "the Boys". Hand painted on leather and sewed on to the old A-2 jackets. My pop is too "big" to fit in his now but he still prizes that old jacket and probably will to his dying day. They even made little leather American flags with each little star sewn on seperately for the shoulder area opposite the Air Corps patch.
Disney - The War Years has some pretty cool extra which have drawings of walt disney stuff...... I love Don Gentiles' Fighting Eagle
VFA-31 is the second oldest active squadron in the Navy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VFA-31 Cool artwork collection!
I have a book called "Don's Dog Tags" which is dedicated to the art that Disney produced for the military during WWII. There were hundreds of designs.
So, how about some more pictures of cars with nose art inspired graphics?? I love WWII nose art.. I can pour over pictures all day long and never get bored. I've been a Disney fan my whole life as well as an artist and a un-repentant aviation buff. Here's a couple that I did. Rich My sedan this is one the left fender, behiind the wheel well, of a friends '46 sedan. OK, I showed you mine... Lets see yours
My first squadron patch is pretty dull compared to other contemporary units and especially the older ones. "Lance" the cat (Jaguar?) was our mascot. VF-21 (F-4's at that time) had the first Navy kills in Vietnam and transferrred to F-14's after I left. Sad to say they have been decommissioned, for now any way. Gary
Thanks Ryan ! They are really beautiful with a lot of meaning ! He had a great talent for that art that was popular in WW1 & WWII ! Thanks for bringing the "WAR PAINT" to us !
Dudes this thread RULES. Ryan thanks for bringing stuff like this to the front nice and proper like with real thought and admiration behind it . Good threads like this should go a LONG way. I am a super big aviation and militaria buff and have been around this stuff ever since I was knee high to a ducks ass. I have had the pleasure of living my whole life within about a mile or two of General Billy Mitchell Intl. Airport here in Milwaukee , and was brought up with a healthy bit of learning and respect for it. There is so much that is linked to hotrodding from ww2 that it would be a shame not to have a post like this. I always dig on posts like this and the flight jacket stuff because when I am pouring through the details of the Don Montgomery books (for like the 10 gazillionth time) you can see the influence on the real cool stuff just from the clothes that they wear. One photo always sticks with me is the photo of Barney Navarro standing next to his roadster at the dry lakes and he is wearing his A-2..coolness without even trying. The patches you show Ryan are pretty good . A lot of them look like RKO studio patches painted on canvas. They did some for units serving and a lot for the movie industry. Disney had a whole department of artists that just drew insignia and heraldry requests during WW2. Some of the best designs came from that era in terms of logos and composition. YEAH I paint the reproductions for a lot of flight jacket fanatics and this post is pretty cool for me so I wanted to share some of the stuff I did as well and contribute. Original Disney design patch on top with my repro underneath. Disney designed P-38 squadron. All incised 12th Airforce patch grouping. Jimmy Stewarts bomb squadron. Some Flying Tigers AVG stuff. 1st pursuit squadron AVG (Adam and Eve.) 2nd pursuit AVG (panda bears) 3rd pursuit squadron (hells angels) Bitchin little dog with the man's ruin drinking glass. 362nd fighter group. . And finally a neat link to some originals. Plus some more of my stuff below that. www.angelfire.com/md2/patches/other/otherinsaafsquadron2.html
I know I've told this story in my original post but this fits right in with this thread on Hot Rodding, WWII and nose and squadron art. This one of the coolest connections I have to my roadster, in my opinion. Ray Pyle, was my 2nd cousin and the one who raced my roadster after WWII at El Mirage. He was in 8th Division, 381st Bomber Group and 534th Bomber Squadron based in Ridgewell England. I tracked down a lot of information on WWII websites and found all of the nose art for each B-17 Bombers he flew in. He was assigned to "The Fox" though and I've reproduced the artwork. When I get further along in my restoration, I want to incorporate one of these insignias onto my roadster. I just haven't decided which one to use or where to put it. The Fox Nose Art. Ray's assigned ship The 534th Bomber Squadron Mascot (I like this one most). This patch would have been on the left front breast of their bomber jacket.
Most of the nose art on the B-17's of the 385th Bomb Group at Great Ashfield were done by Annie Hayward during WWII. http://www.usaaf-noseart.co.uk/hayward-haybag.htm
Here is my 32 "Spitfire" we are just finishing up on. It is dedicated to the "Few" American pilots who joined the RAF before the US entered the war. They fought side by side in the Battle of Britain and were eventually known as the "Eagle Squradron". http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332610&highlight=32+spitfire 32 Spitfire
GREAT thread.... It's pretty obvious the influence this genre of art has had on following generations since WWII.... More, more, more Rich
Looks as if these aren’t actual WWII squadron patches, but have a different (and no less interesting) provenance of their own: http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?p=818982#post818982 -Dave
The same "Nick's Chick" (B-26 serial #42-95918) that was shot down at the Battle for Arnhem Bridge (aka "A Bridge Too Far")????
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