Memorial Day puzzle ... more information

Inspired by the completion of the actual puzzle, I thought I would share a little information about the planes and nose art ... pictures and information comes from Wikipedia.com unless otherwise cited.

The Memphis Belle: A B-17 bomber, flew 25 missions over France & Germany in 1942-43.

Nose art in the background ...

The Enola Gay: A B-29 Superfortress bomber immortalized by being the plane to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima & Nagasaki Japan.

not sure this qualifies as "Nose Art" but it's in the puzzle ...

'Lady Lil': information was a little harder to find on this bomber, but she was a B-25 Mitchell bomber of the 498th Bomber Squadron, 345th Bomber group (also known as the "Air Apaches"). She served in the South Pacific from 1943-45 and flew out of Port Moresby (citation).



"Raid on the China Coast” depicts Lady Lil of the Air Apaches 345th Bomb Group, 498th Bomb Squadron. A B-25 is attacking Japanese shipping off the coast of China, April 1945. Pilot: Lt. Albert J. Beiga. The Raid was between Amoy and Swatow, west of Formosa.

The Goon: pictures of this plane made it into The National Geographic in 1944. She was a B-24 bomber attached to the 308th Bomber group serving in  the CBI (China-Burma-Indochina) theater. (citation).

Lady in the Dark: could not find any information about this bomber ... the only picture I found was of a poster (found on eBay of all places).

A Bit O' Lace: B-17 bomber that saw action in the European theater ...  she flew some 83 missions over France & Germany. The photo and the information comes from the Bit O' Lace website. Interestingly enough, one of the pilots of this bomber, a man named Charlie Brown (seriously), made the news as the pilot of another plane ...

all right, that's enough for now ... if you read this blog and you have any additional information about some of these bombers, please feel free to share. Thanks.