Amazing Americana: WWII Painted Bomber Jackets
Stumbled across this amazing article from Collector's Weekly and had to share some of the fantastic images they've pulled together from old WWII Bomber Jackets.
We're definitely saving this in our archive for some Americana inspiration at the right time:
"At the beginning of the war, Army Air Corps members were issued the most badass jacket in the military, the leather A-2—which had been the standard leather flight jacket since 1931. In WWII, these jackets became a canvas for teenage flyers to express their rugged individuality. They’d get the backs painted, and often these images included the plane’s nickname and little bombs to tally how many missions the crew flew. On the front, personalized patches would often indicate one’s squadron or bomb group.
[caption image="5262"]
On the bawdiest of these jackets, scantily clad babes gleefully ride phallic bombs. On others, cuddly cartoon characters charge forward, bombs in tow, driven by a testosterone-fueled determination to kill. Some jackets depict caricatures of Native Americans or Pacific Islanders, usually drawn with bones in their noses. Even rarer are those showing Hitler being humiliated—while the number of bombs designated missions flown, swastikas represented German aircrafts destroyed."
[gallery ids="5265,5267,5264,5266"]
