Racy, nasty or just plain fun?

[Shay]

B-24 in the NMUSAF "Strawberry Bitch" we actually have had a few complaints over the years over it's name offending some.

"Strawberry Bitch" used to be even more offensive, as originally she had no clothes until she came to the NMUSAF. And from what I'm told, the carpet matched the drapes.

Shay
____________
Semper Fortis

[mustangdriver]

I think that is a myth, as all of the war time pic I have seen of her, have the bathing suit on. Now maybe the original girl didnot have clothes, and the C.O. made the crew apply the bathing suit, but at least at somepoint during the war, she did have clothes. Has anyone seen the pics without?

[tom d. friedman]

how is that so??i know the usaf names some of their bombers / larger aircraft after cities, states etc, spirit of pittsburgh for example, if 1 exists by that name, other wise i doubt that their is a racy bird name such as pittsburgh poontang, with a pin up girl etc.

[mustangdriver]

I didn't mean that the current birds at Pittsburgh hadr racy nose art, but rather carried nose art at all.

[k5083]

We had a disply from disney that had much of the artwork that they were doing for the war. As for the stuff that the enemy found offensive that we painted on our planes, it doesn't stand up against murdering millions of people.

Ah yes, the old "somebody did something worse, so anything we did was okay" argument. More formally known as the fallacy of argument by distraction.

Nobody is comparing racist or ethnic slurs in nose art to any atrocities that the enemy committed (or, for that matter, that we did). Nor does offending the enemy have anything to do with it, since the enemy hardly ever saw, let alone was offended by, any allied nose art. The point, if we can stay on it, is that in answer to Tulio's question, we have a pretty clear sense today of the sexy nose art that used to be painted on the planes, but the racist/ethnically offensive stuff has largely been historically cleansed. If it was so okay, why don't we see more of it in nose art books and on restored warbirds? I think because somebody has the good sense to be at least a little embarrassed about it.

August

[mustangdriver]

embarrassed? I think not. I think that for the most part, the nose art that was appiled is being presented pretty true. I think it depends on the aircraft. Funny, but most of the really bad stuff that you are talking about came from disney. Disney had it applied to more than anything Lockheeds. Well, there just are not a ton of the lockheeds left. There are only a few P-38's, Lockheed venturas, and that whole line. Don't forget that the Flying Tiger nose art the sharks mouth and eyes is indeed a religous themed noseart. Why on earth be embarrassed about it? If some mean nose art inspired fight in the men, then so be it. Remember what is an ethnic slur today was not back then. Could you give me some examples of what you are talking about? Other than the Lockheed stuff I am not sure which aircraft you might be referring to.

[Steve Nelson]

As you said, Standriver, I've heard stories that the SB nose art was originally 'au naturale,' but the only Wartime pic I've ever seen shows her with a bathing suit (and was much better done than the rather amateurish artwork she carries now.) That particular pose was a Varga Girl pinup, and was the basis of nose arts on several aircraft (many sans bathing suit.) If I ever build a model of the SB, I think I'll do the more riske version..just for fun.

SN

[mustangdriver]

Is it me, or am I missing the difference in nose art? It looks the same to me, but I am a bad judge at stuff like this.


I found the pic by doing a fast google search. Not one of mine.

[Randy Haskin]

If it was so okay, why don't we see more of it in nose art books and on restored warbirds? I think because somebody has the good sense to be at least a little embarrassed about it.

How ironic that you start your post talking about fallacies in logic, and then finish your post with a gigantic one yourself.

So, you're saying that if society's values change, then revisionist history is okay??? Just because it's embarassing today, let's pretend that it never happened?

Sounds a little like reading a history book in Japan where they fail to mention atrocities in Manchuria.

Regardless, the 'moral relativism' that you blasted in the beginning of your post is at least more valid than this. I personally can't fathom a moralistic system that deems it okay to go kill civilians by the hundreds-of-thouands, yet we have to cover up or forget that we wrote something that's racially or ethnically offensive about that same enemy on the vehicle we used to deliver that killing.

Where have we derailed in this country where being offensive, or better racist, is worse than killing?

[Jerry O'Neill]

Is it me, or am I missing the difference in nose art? It looks the same to me, but I am a bad judge at stuff like this.


I found the pic by doing a fast google search. Not one of mine.

Actually, there are many many differences. I think the entire nose art and name have been repainted at some point. The #24 is different for starters. "Strawberry Bitch" in the current photo doesn't match the WWII versions as the white shadowing behind the name is different and doesn't continue to be connected from letter to letter.
The girl herself is at the wrong angle, is a bit fatter, and the eyes are smaller and don't have as much white in them as the WWII version.

There are many aircraft that have been painted with "exact, original, nose art" that don't match at all. From a distance they look the same, but they are not. I'm sure it's difficult to get the exact nose art close, but all you have to do is project it on the side of the aircraft, paint inside the lines, and you've got it correct.
Jerry

[mustangdriver]

Interesting, I would have never noticed!

[Steve Nelson]

She was definately stripped and repainted. These pics are from the same book as the wartime nose art shot (The B-24 Liberator, by Steve Birdsall.) The first shows her being pulled out of storage at Davis-Monthan, and the second being prepped for repainting.






In this pic the name appears to be in red, rather than black as it is now. But being a B&W image, it's hard to tell.

SN

[Tulio]

Actually, all I wanted to do, was to promote a thread with images and titles that we don't get to see, but that existed nonetheless.

It was not my intention to promote a specific political point of view, nor to provide a basis for someone to push his or her ideology on the others, when it was already been made clear by many, that this type of activity is not of their liking.

So, if this thread is going to degenerate into another ideological bashfest, Scott, please, delete the whole thing and accept my apologies for bringing the subject up in the first place.


Saludos,


Tulio

[Steve Nelson]

Maybe this will get things back on track..the pic is from Osprey's "B-26 Marauder Units of the 8th & 9th AF."

The caption reads: "Some aircraft names were unusual and only made sense to those in the know, such as this intriguingly named B-26 of the 387th BG at St. Dizier in 1944."

Funny..I figured it out right away..

SN

[k5083]

So, you're saying that if society's values change, then revisionist history is okay??? Just because it's embarassing today, let's pretend that it never happened?

Sounds a little like reading a history book in Japan where they fail to mention atrocities in Manchuria.

Actually Randy you are right to point this out, I was intending to be ironic, and I agree with you completely. I believe that the nose art that, for example, presented Japanese as subhuman primates (Sorry MD, I don't have any examples to post, I've seen the photos but I don't collect them) should be shown and seen. We should NOT copy other countries in trying to erase the less attractive aspects of our past.

I also agree that racist nose art is no big deal in the scheme of things. Heck if you were an natural-born American of Japanese descent circa 1943, I'm sure any insult caused by depictions of Japanese in various media would be trivial compared to the fact that you were living in an internment camp in New Mexico or someplace. Imprisoning people for their parentage is definitely worse than drawing nasty pictures of them. Of course, the nasty pictures reflect the same attitudes that made the camps possible, and perhaps stand to teach us something about why the camps happened; all the more reason why they should be seen and displayed, rather than take the apologize-quietly-and-try-to-forget approach as we have done.

(Yes, I know that at least we did not murder them. Yay for us.)

But Tulio clearly did not intend, when he posed the question whether nose art sometimes went too far, that the discussion head here so I will apologize and return to our regularly scheduled appreciation of the wholesome softcore porny aspects of nose art.

In which connection, it appears to me that the very interesting wartime pic that Steve posted of Strawberry Bitch shows not a bathing suit, but a one-piece sheer body-stocking kind of thing. Anyone agree? Or is it just the tones in the picture that are fooling me?

August