Bombs Away

When I become obsessed with something, usually that affliction is for keeps. WWII bomber jackets are a good example. In high school I was at a book store one day browsing and I picked up a book that had a ton of photographs of WWII bomber crews wearing their leather jackets. I though they were the coolest things I'd ever seen. What made the jackets stand out is what the crews painted on them. Bored between missions, the crews would decorate their jackets with all kinds of borderline obscene stuff --- naked women, pictures of bombs dropping on Hitler and various cartoon characters tossing bombs and flipping the bird. It was a way of showing a bit of well deserved swagger. Half the guys who wore those jackets --- at least in 1941 in the European theatre when the fighting was most intense --- got killed. I got my first bomber jacket in 1986 when they were real popular. I've worn them ever since. I started replicating actual WWII bomber jackets from vintage photos several years ago. The jacket on the left with the grim reaper painted on it was worn by the 375th Bomb Squadron. They flew B24 Liberators --- lumbering boxy four engine bombers --- in the Pacific theater and hunted Japanese submarines and bombed naval yards. The one in the middle is from the 100th Bomb Squadron which flew B-29 Super Fortresses --- huge bombers developed late in the war that eventually dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The one on the right was worn by the 350th Bomb Squadron which flew B-17 Flying Fortresses --- the coolest looking and most durable bomber of the war. That squadron flew in Europe and lost over half of their men to anti-aircraft fire and German fighter planes.