Nose Art: Boeing B-29A Superfortress "Straight Flush"
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
"Straight Flush" is B-29A Superfortress 44-86408, delivered to the USAAF on the same day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945. It did not see combat and was retired in 1953, to be used as a target for chemical warfare at the Dugway Proving Ground. It was recovered, cleaned and restored for the Hill Aerospace Museum in the late 1980s, and went on display as "Haggerty's Hag." Since the markings on the "Hag" were rather plain, it was repainted as 44-27301, "Straight Flush," one of the B-29s built specifically as atomic bomb aircraft and assigned to the 509th Composite Group. "Flush" dropped five "Pumpkin Bombs" in combat--5-ton bombs identical to the "Fat Man" nuclear device, but with the atomic warhead replaced by standard conventional explosives. On 6 August 1945, "Flush" flew ahead of "Enola Gay" to report on weather over southern Japan. The real 44-27301 remained in operation after World War II, and was retired and scrapped in 1954. "Haggerty's Hag" was repainted as "Straight Flush" in 2015.
Though the term "Straight Flush" is a poker term, it was used as a visual pun on the aircraft, depicting Uncle Sam's arm flushing a caricature of a Japanese soldier down a toilet. Though racist by modern standards, it was common for Americans to depict Japanese as buck-toothed, wearing thick glasses; this stereotype also led Americans to badly underestimate the Japanese ability to fight at night, since it was assumed Japanese were all nearsighted! (Japanese depictions of Americans during the war was equally racist.) After the horrors of the Pacific campaign from 1941 to 1945, the desire of American airmen to "flush" the Japanese Empire was certainly understandable. The six "fat man" mission markers behind the cockpit windows indicate the five Pumpkin Bomb missions and the single atomic mission, in which the fat man is painted red.
Nose Art: Boeing B-29A Superfortress "Straight Flush"
Though personalized art appeared during World War I, and occasionally grew to incorporate the entire aircraft, most pilots carried a saying or a slogan, or a family crest, or squadron symbol. Some were named, but nose art was not common. During World War II, nose art not only saw its true beginnings, but its heyday.
No one knows exactly who started nose art first--it appeared with both the British and the Germans around the first time, with RAF pilots painting Hitler being kicked or skulls and crossbones on their aircraft, while German nose art was usually a personal symbol, named for a girlfriend or adopting a mascot (such as Adolf Galland using Mickey Mouse, something Walt Disney likely didn't approve of). It would be with the Americans, and a lesser extent the Canadians, that nose art truly became common--and started including its most famous forms, which was usually half-naked or completely naked women. This was not always true, but it often was.
The quality of nose art depended on the squadron or wing artist. Some of it was rather crude, while others were equal to the finest pinup artists in the United States, such as Alberto Vargas. For men thousands of miles away from home and lonely, a curvaceous blonde on a B-17 or a P-51 made that loneliness a bit easier. Others thought naked women were a little crude, and just limited themselves to names, or depicted animals, cartoon characters, or patriotic emblems, or caricatures of the Axis dictators they were fighting.
Generally speaking, there was little censorship, with squadron and group commanders rarely intervening on names or pictures; the pilots themselves practiced self-censorship, with profanity almost unknown, and full-frontal nudity nearly nonexistent. After the loss of a B-17 named "Murder Inc.," which the Germans captured and used to make propaganda, the 8th Air Force, at least, set up a nose art committee that reviewed the nose art of aircraft--but even it rarely wielded its veto. For the most part, nose art was limited only by the crew's imagination and the artist's ability. The British tended to stay away from the lurid nudes of the Americans, though the Canadians adopted them as well. (The Axis also did not use nose art in this fashion, and neither did the Soviets, who usually confined themselves to patriotic slogans on their aircraft, such as "For Stalin!" or "In the Spirit of the Motherland!")
When World War II ended, so did nose art, for the most part. In the peacetime, postwar armed forces, the idea of having naked women were wives and children could see it was not something the postwar USAF or Navy wanted, and when it wasn't scrapped, it was painted over. A few units (especially those away from home and family) still allowed it, but it would take Korea to begin a renaissance of nose art.
"Straight Flush" is B-29A Superfortress 44-86408, delivered to the USAAF on the same day the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on 6 August 1945. It did not see combat and was retired in 1953, to be used as a target for chemical warfare at the Dugway Proving Ground. It was recovered, cleaned and restored for the Hill Aerospace Museum in the late 1980s, and went on display as "Haggerty's Hag." Since the markings on the "Hag" were rather plain, it was repainted as 44-27301, "Straight Flush," one of the B-29s built specifically as atomic bomb aircraft and assigned to the 509th Composite Group. "Flush" dropped five "Pumpkin Bombs" in combat--5-ton bombs identical to the "Fat Man" nuclear device, but with the atomic warhead replaced by standard conventional explosives. On 6 August 1945, "Flush" flew ahead of "Enola Gay" to report on weather over southern Japan. The real 44-27301 remained in operation after World War II, and was retired and scrapped in 1954. "Haggerty's Hag" was repainted as "Straight Flush" in 2015.
Though the term "Straight Flush" is a poker term, it was used as a visual pun on the aircraft, depicting Uncle Sam's arm flushing a caricature of a Japanese soldier down a toilet. Though racist by modern standards, it was common for Americans to depict Japanese as buck-toothed, wearing thick glasses; this stereotype also led Americans to badly underestimate the Japanese ability to fight at night, since it was assumed Japanese were all nearsighted! (Japanese depictions of Americans during the war was equally racist.) After the horrors of the Pacific campaign from 1941 to 1945, the desire of American airmen to "flush" the Japanese Empire was certainly understandable. The six "fat man" mission markers behind the cockpit windows indicate the five Pumpkin Bomb missions and the single atomic mission, in which the fat man is painted red.