EAA Nose Art Exhibit A Reminder Of What We Were Fighting For

The EAA Museum in Oshkosh is featuring a special World War II art exhibit that will remind visitors what bomber and fighter plane crews were fighting for. Dick Knapinski of EAA says thanks to the Commemorative Air Force Headquarters in Dallas, Texas they have more than 30 pieces of nose art. He says the nose art depicts slogans and places, but a lot of them had young women in poses that were both chaste and provocative. He says the young men who went up in those planes faced long odds at the beginning of the war. After the war many of the planes ended up in scrap yards. Knapinski says a railroad employee in Texas who also owned a hog farm went to a scrap yard in Arkansas and cut away the nose art from planes using it for fencing until he neared retirement. He then donated it to the Commemorative Air Force. Knapinski says the art has been restored, but there are still signs of battle underneath some of that artwork. He says you will see where the crews patched over the flak and bullet holes so the planes could go back out. The exhibit is on display at the EAA museum’s Eagle Hangar for the next year.

EAA photo.