Excellent article. The nose art is "outstanding" on so many levels!
But there is one minor caveat that should be noted. The girl in the original sketch is referenced several times as a "Varga" girl....whether you use Varga or Vargas...neither applies to her.
She is not an Alberto Vargas girl by any stretch. Vargas did a very finite grouping of pinups that appeared in Esquire. Miss Belle--as seen here--is not one of them. Aside from the fact that AV did not do any 'full monty" pinups while at Esquire, the general figure and pose is not even close to any of the Vargas work of the period. All Varga(s) girls wear clothes--and as a testament to his talent, the art reviewer from The New Yorker wrote in 1940, "Mr. Vargas could make a girl look naked if she was rolled up in a rug..."
The design concept is very neat, though!