Arms & Militaria

Second World War 391st Bomb Group Painted Flight Jacket

Appraisal: WWII 391st Bomb Group Painted Flight Jacket

Transcript

GUEST: This is my grandfather's flight jacket. He was a bomber pilot in World War II. His name was Reuben. I knew him well. He passed away just a few years ago. It's just been passed down in the family from my grandfather to my father, and now to me.

APPRAISER: Why did Reuben enlist in World War II?

GUEST: I think it was just the time. I think everybody was getting involved. He was born in this country, but his parents were recent immigrants. So I think he felt strongly about this country and, and that he needed to serve it because of all the things that it was providing for him. Most of the stories he told me were a little bit less detail-oriented, so it wasn't a lot about what squadron he was in or anything like that. He signed up to be a pilot, and everyone was signing up because they wanted to be the pilots. They chose him because he had never driven a car before. Everyone who was applying was saying, "I'm good at driving cars," and I guess that's kind of counterintuitive to flying planes, so they picked him because he wasn't a driver.

APPRAISER: That's awesome.

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: We've started out with the jacket backwards, because this is mostly what you want to see, is the artwork that's painted on the back. They did not come this way. This is something that you had to do yourself or hire done. Typically, in a squadron or a group, there would be one or two individuals who were known for painting jackets. I did not find any aircraft by that name. We always assume that the name that's on the back of your jacket is the name of your aircraft.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And in many cases that's true, but not always. There were a lot of aircraft that had no names at all, and you would simply pick something that had meaning to you. The, um, aircraft that we see here is a B-17. The interesting features of that are these red markings that you see on the wing and on that leading edge to the, uh, vertical stabilizer. And the other part of the iconography that, of course, jumps out and grabs you is that it's stabbing a dagger right into the heart of that swastika representing the Third Reich. If we move this around to the front, there is more to the story. It's an A-2 flight jacket, and in this case, it was made by Star Sportswear. The contract number tells us that that was the batch of jackets that they were contracted to do in May of 1942. And they were in Lynn, Massachusetts, just north of Boston. The Eighth Air Force insignia on the sleeve is very prominent. Right here in front, this is the insignia of the 391st Bomb Squadron. They were part of the 34th Bomb Group. They arrived in England just before D-Day. One of the things that I wanted to check was on the interior of this. To see that stitching, that has always been the insignia that was on that coat.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: When you stitch another insignia on it, there are going to be ghosts of holes. And I was kind of thinking we might see something like that on this jacket. And the reason why I say that that's a little weird... ...is, when we go back to the back here, the red on the surfaces there...

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: ...tells a different story. That's a different bomb squadron.

GUEST: Got it.

APPRAISER: Still in the 34th Bomb Group, but a different squadron. The 391st would have had green and the 18th had red. Whether he maybe transferred from one to the other, whether he perhaps bought a jacket that had been made for somebody in, uh, the other squadron, there's more to that story there that we're never going to know. I found him.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: He is in the 391st.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: Found a photograph of him in a particular aircraft when I was searching for that name...

GUEST: Hm.

APPRAISER: ...to see what aircraft he was assigned. The next, very next mission after his crew got home with that particular ship...

GUEST: Mm.

APPRAISER: ...it was lost to a mid-air with another squadron. The 34th was kind of an anomalous group. Part of their job in the air in World War II for the Eighth Air Force was to keep the bombers together in a box formation or group, in a formation that allowed the aircraft to have mutual protection. The 34th was a little weird in that they really did not follow that paradigm. It was a job that required a tremendous amount of skill. If you ever want to get a sense just for what his job was...

GUEST: Yeah.

APPRAISER: ...imagine driving a vehicle that does not have power steering...

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: ...going down the highway, trying to maintain a certain interval from the vehicles in front and behind you, and then put that in three-dimensions.

GUEST: Right.

APPRAISER: And do it at 30,000 feet, with people shooting at you, for eight or ten hours. The aircraft that are in front of you are putting off prop wash, and as you slip around in that formation, you could very easily get yourself bounced in a position where it, it's hard to control the aircraft. So he's clearly worn the jacket a lot. You see a lot of wear to the finish here, and that's normal. That's what we want to see. A conservative retail value for this today would be right around that $5,000 to $6,000 range.

GUEST: That's great. That's amazing. And it's a great story.