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Thought you all might like this foto of a WWII airman, Sarkis Bartigan, who painted nose art on a lot of the bombers. He was in New Guinea, at Port Moresby with the 43rd Bomber Group, about the same time as my Uncle Bob Miller, who was a co-pilot. Here's a pic of Bartigan and a couple of his jobs.
[ January 29, 2012, 07:45 PM: Message edited by: Dennis Kiernan ]
-------------------- dennis kiernan independent artist san francisco, calif, usa Posts: 907 | From: san francisco, ca usa | Registered: Feb 2010
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-------------------- dennis kiernan independent artist san francisco, calif, usa Posts: 907 | From: san francisco, ca usa | Registered: Feb 2010
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Thanks Dennis - that's one of the best posts I've ever seen on Letterville. My Dad was a navigator on a B-24 and flew 52 missions over Sicily and North Africa. I wish I had a picture of his nose art and the guy who painted it.....
-------------------- joe pribish-A SIGN MINT 2811 longleaf Dr. pensacola, fl 32526 850-637-1519 BEWARE THE TRUTH.....YOU MAY NOT LIKE WHAT YOU FIND Posts: 11582 | From: pensacola, fl. usa | Registered: Nov 1998
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Sonny, if you know your Dad's organization, search it on Google. A lot of them have been putting tons of stuff online the last few years.
-------------------- dennis kiernan independent artist san francisco, calif, usa Posts: 907 | From: san francisco, ca usa | Registered: Feb 2010
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My dad was a navigator on a B-24 in the Pacific theatre. About twenty years ago, he looked up his crew and the entire bunch was still alive and they had a reunion here. Since then, most have died off. His flight engineer, "Kit" Carson, lived about fifty miles north of here. After he died, his widow paid to have a sign installed at the senior center she and Kit had funded. I superimposed a B-24 on the state of Texas for the sign. The flight engineer's position is where the town of Valley View is. The picture shows Kit's widow, Regina, and my father in front of the sign. The sign is sandblasted granite and marble on an aluminum structure.
Time flies! It's hard to believe I took that photo eleven years ago.
[ January 30, 2012, 05:56 PM: Message edited by: David Harding ]
-------------------- David Harding A Sign of Excellence Carrollton, TX Posts: 5084 | From: Carrollton, TX, USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Great color in that doodlebugger collection.
-------------------- dennis kiernan independent artist san francisco, calif, usa Posts: 907 | From: san francisco, ca usa | Registered: Feb 2010
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OK, that usaaf-noseart.co.uk/bartigian-sarkis link clears up some misinfo I had. Seems Sarkis was in the Pacific a little later than my uncle. and the outfit had moved on from Port Moresby. My job during the year I was stationed in Korea was doing art work for the base but the F-86s we had didnt have nose art (that I know of). I did paint a couple pilots' jackets and helmets but I have no pix of them. Stupid of me because I had a camera with me. The guys that did fabulous decorations on leather flying jackets were the Japanese and Korean artists, with their tradition of highly stylized and ferocious tigers and dragons, and fully colored all-over tattoo art. We used regular oil paint with some stuff mixed in to make it permanently flexible. I forget the name of the additive. Flexo or something.
I never had a sense of the temporariness of everything until I got to be old and suddenly looked around and realized that most of the world I'd known had disappeared. WTF? How cd it just vanish like that?
[ January 30, 2012, 08:36 PM: Message edited by: Dennis Kiernan ]
-------------------- dennis kiernan independent artist san francisco, calif, usa Posts: 907 | From: san francisco, ca usa | Registered: Feb 2010
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