Gary M. Valant

Photo study of nose art from WWII and Korea. At the end of the day thats all it is, nothing great but not horrible either.

This is a great book for photographs, but, alas, the captions are often scant and sometimes misleading. It is a collections of the nose art as displayed by the US Army Air Corps in WWII in fighters, bombers and transports. Hundreds of examples of great nose art. I'd give it a solid 4.5 just for the photgraphs.

Featuring almost exclusively bomber art and bomber jackets, this book examines the rarely seen artistic aspect of war machines. 30 pagers of color photos and 160 pages of b/w photos. The planes are WWII vintage. The short introduction lists Alberto Vargas as the inspiration for the "morale boosting" American designs. The final photo is of Commander Tibbits of the Enola Gay which became the iconic/infamous plane of the war. Index to plane art included.