B-24 Nose Art
photos of B-24s, taken by Richard Powers in WW2
and Capt. L.S. Levy in Korea
By Stephen Sherman, Apr. 2002. Updated January 24, 2012.
This set, Pictures 1 - 16, were provided by Pam Powers, taken by her father, Richard F. Powers, Pacific theater WW2, gunner/photographer, 50 missions for US Army Air Corps.
In 1945, the Marines were on Okinawa, on the Morotai Peninsula. Army Air Force B-24s were located nearby. Presumably many of these photos are of those B-24s. Many from the 22nd Bomb Group, "The Red Raiders."
Photo #17, Hollywood Hangover, is of a B-24 flown during the Korean War. The pilot was USAF Captain L.S. Levy. This photo was likely taken in 1951 as it is included in a series of photographs, mostly of bombing raids, dated from January through March of that year. Prior to enlisting in the Army Air Corps in WWII, Captain Levy was a resident of Los Angeles, Ca, hence the Hollywood reference. You can tell the crew was quite busy (and successful) based on the number of bombs stenciled on the side of the fuselage. (submitted by his son, Rick Levy)
Click on the thumbnails shown here, for somewhat larger pictures. The original photographs seem to have been taken with an inexpensive box camera like the common Kodak Brownie; they do not have great resolution. My favorites of this set are "Round Trip Ticket" and "Mad Russian." Also, "Hollywood Hangover" has much better resolution than the others.
My thanks to Pam Powers for making these photos available. If you have any original, unpublished pictures of WWII nose art or decoration that you would like posted, please email them to me. Webmaster