Nose art

And again

 

And the last

 

WOW!! Michelle great stuff!

Thank the Lord for LT. Lindsay!

 

View attachment 2523

 

I think this is a P-61 with art that shows how different times were. This seems racist to me and everyone I've shown it too, but if you interpret it differently please speak up. I guess you could loosely relate it to the planes night fighter role.



***EDIT***
Several hours after originally posting this I must say that I deeply regret using the term "racist" here. It's the wrong way for me to describe it.
I do believe it's derogatory, but I have no right to judge it as racist. My apologies. The explanation for why I beieve it's derogatory is 3 posts below this one.

 

The phrase Spook referred to a Ghost! It's language of origin is Dutch, a country particularly known for its lack of racism.

Spook has also been used as a slang for spy as in the CIA type.

 

Racist? What's racist in this? Damned PCness, now everybody has to be more popist than the pope, everyone has to self-censor her/himself to the utmost. Self-castration kits, anyone?

 

I should not have used the term "racist" when viewing something form the past. Dumb, dumb ignorant me. Perhaps I should have just said derogatory.
In America "spook" is(and always has been) an extremely derogatory term for a black person.
spook: Definition, Synonyms and Much More from Answers.com
It also is those things you say.
I only mentioned it because I knew that it's American slang, and that folks in other countries would not know that the term is used that way in America.
Where the plane is painted in black face(exagerated nose and lips) I think it's named for the derogatory definitition, but arguments can definitely be made for the other definitions based on the roles of these particular planes. This plane was a night fighter, not a camera plane as some of the other p61s were used or modified.
This plane is also known as "Anonymous III"
Sorry that I sidetracked this thread, I knew I was going to regret posting it. I can't seem to stop editing this post.
Cheers

 

I still fail to see the similarity between the nose art and for instance Luis Armstrong or Rosa Parks. I think you are reading too much into this.

Look, this particular vehicle was called an Aunt Jemima.


Any racial connotation? Not any that I can see, this name was given in reference only to a physical attribute.

 

Blackface is theatrical painting of the face, not literally the face of a black person. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface It was completely acceptable in it's time. I certainly could be misreading it. What about a resemblence to Al Jolson? Maybe they were honoring him. Or maybe it's just a face on a plane.

 

Al Jolson as we all know was white. Take it easy, we know of discrimination etc, and that Blacks did not get the best treatment so to speak, but in this case to me it just looks like a face in a plane, nothing more.

 

Ok, back to nose art!!

 

Some of it can be fake...

 

as a former member of the US night fighters assoc I can tell you that nothing in the world like was spoken even crossed their minds whether in the ETO or the PTO where these rather small NFS units were stationed. In fact I am a bit surprised that some of you guys have such a limited sense of persepctive with replies like you do...........

the NFS theme was night visits/missions so it was easy enough to depict anything in black dress code, women, mens characters, the moon, cat figurines - you get the picture easily enough, or like many crews of day time ops using their home town, song titles, etc............

 

I confirm: the ethymology "Spook" comes form the Dutch word "Spook" (same spelling !). It means a phantom. Therefore the world is probably related to darkness-night , rather than race.

 

One of those ads we are saddled with was interesting after all

World War ll Airplane Nose Art Collection

 

A good site for nose art is B-24 Best Web >6800 PICs - ...Liberator Bombers from WWII

 

thanx I make noseart for My planes in the pc game il-2 1946. always looking for new stuff

 

excuse the ebay logo in the corner as I have not placed the original in my pic-files yet ..........Lt. William Kennedy of the little known 356th fg and the 359th f.s. his Mustangs prop-spinner is yellow along with the tail ~ rudder. top of nose is the famed red/blue diamonds as ID for the fighter group. His OC*E was quite a colorful A/C for a P-51.