Donald Allen, a Cleveland native, graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1941. His job in the air force was to ready planes for sorties. he avoided painting nude women, unlike many others doing "Nose Art."
He painted more than fifty designs on P-47 Thunderbirds and P-51 Mustangs. Reproductions of his "Nose Art" are on display at Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, N.C., where a street is named for him.
He volunteered as a waist gunner on a B-17 shuttle of bombers from England to Italy to Russia in 1944 to service aircraft on each stop and was awarded the Air Medal for his role.
--GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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