| The best known type of nose art was undoubtedly
the pin up pictures that decorated so many World War II aircraft.
Like the beautiful female images used as mastheads on old sailing ships,
nose art frequently used women as subjects. This sometimes took the form
of a painting of a girlfriend’s or wife’s face, along with her name, on
a pilot’s airplane, but more frequently the model used was a “dream girl,”
carefully copied from a calendar, magazine or poster, that served as a
reminder that the current lonely condition of many in service would not
always continue.
Right: Miss Please—This is the only surviving image of one piece of nose art. Despite the pun of its name, the Luftwaffe did not miss this aircraft: the B-24 on which it was painted was shot down over Yugoslavia on October 14, 1944. |
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