Searching for Bong's Plane

From the March 26, 2024, CBS News "WW II ace pilot Richard Bong's plane crashed in 1944.  A team has launched a search for its wreckage in the South Pacific."

The Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior, Wisconsin, (far northern part of the state) and the nonprofit World War II historical group Pacific Wrecks announced a search for the plane's remains on Friday according to Minnesota Public Radio.  

Bong grew up in Poplar, Wisconsin and is credited with shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft during World War II-- the most ever, according to the Air Force.

He flew a Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighter plane nicknamed "Marge" in honor of his girlfriend, Marjorie Vattendahl.  He plastered a blowup picture of her on the nose of his plane (known as nose art).  At the time, Bong said that Vattendahl "looks swell, and a hell of a lot better than these naked women painted on most airplanes."

Bong was not in the plane when it crashed.

--GreGen

Unknown Utahn Remains Found and Returned

Robert Hatch is the latest person from Utah whose unknown remains have been found and returned to home.

  Earlier this year the remains of Army Air Forces 2nd Lt.  Lynn W. Hadfield were buried at Utah Veterans Cemetery and Memorial in Bluffdale.  German anti-aircraft fire hit his A-26B Invader on March 21, 1945, crashing the plane and killing the 26-year-old and his two crew men.

In 2017, Navy Musician 1st Class Elliott Larsen was buried in Monroe, almost 76 years after he  died on the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941.

The U.S. Department of Defense identified the remains of Army Air Force 1st Lt. Bryant E. Poulsen, of Salt Lake City in 2015.  He was a 22-year-old and the pilot of one of a dozen B-24s that took off from New Guinea on a mission to attack a Japanese anti-aircraft site at Hansa Bay.

His B-24 was nicknamed "Hot Garters."  Four of his crew parachuted out, but reportedly died while in captivity.

He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

--GreGen

Volunteers Building a Vintage B-17 Bomber in Ohio

From the  March 2, 2014, Register Guard "Museum volunteers building vintage WWII plane" by Mitch Stacy.

Urbana, Ohio.

One part was found under an elderly woman's front porch and another part was hanging in a Colorado bar after it had been a prop for a 1960s TV show.  The tail section was salvaged from a wreck deep in the Alaska wilderness.

None have been built in nearly 70 years, that is, until now.

Volunteers at the Champaign Aviation Museum will buy or barter for parts and even build parts if necessary, but they intend to build a B-17 bomber they call the "Champaign Lady."

Completion is years away, but even now, it has the familiar lines of one of the famous World War   II bombers being built in a hangar.  It is 74 feet long and has four engines.

Volunteer Frank Drain designed the nose art which features a leggy 40s pinup girl against an outline of Ohio.

More than 12,700 B-17s were built.  There are around 40 left in the world and of those, fewer than a dozen are in flying condition.

The volunteers are designing the "Champaign Lady" so that it will fly.  The initial parts are from five different planes and about  100 volunteers are working on it.

Go "Champaign Lady."  --GreGen

Donald Allen, WWII "Nose Art" Artists Died in 2013-- Part 2

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

Donald Allen, World War II "Nose Art" Artist Died in 2013-- Part 1

From the September 21, 2013, Cleveland.com "Donald Allen, 'nose art' artist of World War II, dies at 93" by Brian Albrecht.

Died August 15 in Rocky River, crew chief with the 4th Fighter Group, 334th Fighter Squadron, based in England.  he was commissioned by pilots to paint depictions of their wives, girlfriends, favorite cartoon characters and other subjects on the noses of their planes.

A Golden Gloves champ from Missouri got a boxing mule.  A pilot from Idaho flew the "Bosie Bee.  The practice of painting the noses of airplanes was common in the Army Air Force and came known as "Nose Art" for its location on the planes.

--GreGen

Bits of War: Nose Art-- $25 Million-- USS Missouri

Bits of War: news of World War II.

1. NOSE ART-- From Oct. 6, 2009, Anonymous Arts. Four pictures of World War II nose art on the site. Nose art was the term given to the paintings near the front of US aircraft.

One featured was Nancy and another was Leapy Time Girls.

http://anonymousworks.blogspot.com.


2. $25 MILLION--

October 7, 2009, The Department of Defense has an appropriations bill for $25 million in funds to go to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans to build the U.S. freedom Pavilion and Homefront exhibition.

3. USS MISSOURI-- From the Columbian Missourian-- The USS Missouri was the nation's last battleship and it has been towed two miles from its spot as a memorial in Pearl harbor near the USS Arizona Memorial to a dry dock where it will be sandblasted, fully repainted and hull repaired for $18 million.

It was scheduled to leave dry dock in early January, 2010 and have a grand reopening Jan. 29th, the 66th anniversary of its launching at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Some News. --GreGen