The incident apparently had an impact on Washington. The embarrassment caused the United States by the Nazi propaganda prompted AAF commanders to look for, and eliminate, any similar ill-chosen inscriptions or pictures on jackets and aircraft.” The Germans declared it was tantamount to a US admission that its air forces deliberately engaged in terror bombing of residential areas. Kenneth Williams wearing such a jacket and claimed that the saying was an official slogan carried by all members of bomber squadrons. “The German press carried photographs of Lt. “Three of the crewmen were wearing A-2 jackets with ‘Murder Incorporated’ and the AAF insignia painted on the back,” wrote Mr. Sweeting, a former curator at the National Air and Space Museum, writes in Combat Flying Clothing that artwork and slogans on the jackets “seemed innocent enough until November 26, 1943, when the crew of a B-17 heading for Bremen was shot down near Eggese, Germany.” These decorated jackets did not always help their wearers when shot down. Markings announced in Chinese that a reward would be paid to anyone who helped a downed American airman return to Allied lines. Pilots of the Flying Tigers, the 14th Air Force, and crews flying the Hump in the China-Burma-India (CBI) theater had an “escape flag” or “blood chit” sewn on the back, along with US and Chinese Nationalist flags. The backs of some jackets sported beautifully painted artwork-a copy of an aircraft’s nose art, a squadron slogan, or a picture of some sort. Leather name tags were issued to be sewn above the left pocket. Many pilots had their rank insignia sewn on the shoulders.
#Wwii bomber crew jackets Patch#
When issued during World War II, it usually bore a decal of the Army Air Forces patch on the left shoulder some flyers replaced this with their numbered air force patch sewn on the left shoulder and added an American flag on the right. The original article, known officially as the Type A-2 Summer Flying Jacket, was made of seal-brown horsehide and lined with light brown spun silk.
The A-2 jacket was reborn in 1987 for a new generation of pilots and flight crew members to commemorate the Air Force’s fortieth anniversary and to rekindle esprit de corps. The jackets were comfortable, yet snug, and never wore out, except maybe around the knitted cuffs and waistband.įlyers liked them, and many kept them after the war, never dreaming that two later generations would prize them and that a number of companies would sell copies at prices many times their original cost to the government. Sometimes owners kept theirs when they transferred because their names and unit insignias were sewn on them.
Nobody who got one had any idea that the nice new leather jacket issued for flying duty during World War II would be a status symbol widely sought and highly valued fifty years later.
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