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US WW2 Navy "Great Speckled Bird" Nose art jacket

Wed Jul 20, 2016 11:30 am

Hi,

I have had a B-1 US Navy "Empire Express" flying jacket with artwork to "The Great Speckled Bird" on the back for many years and I am hoping to find some addtional info and better still a photo of the aircraft itself. From my google searching "The Great Speckled Bird" which was a folk song from the Southern United States. The jacket shows a Japanese sailor in a submarine with a large bird of prey (Eagle I assume) swooping down and grabbing the sub, there are a number of bombing mission symbols at the top and what I assume are "kills" including 1 Sub, 2 x Cargo Ships. 2 x Japanese Fighters and a Japanese bomber. The front has the badge "Empire Express" with the rising sun and a bat symbol and the number 4 at the top. Again from googling it seems that this may have been a PV Ventura/Harpoon that operated in the Aleutians but cannot confirm for sure.

I have some photos to assist but I cannot see any option of uploading them??

Thanks again for any help you can provide.

Dan
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