Accounts were kept of what pilots destroyed in combat. To tout those successes, pilots would have the record painted on their planes, with tallies next to each symbol for tanks, trucks, and locomotives. The Nazi flags represented downed enemy…
Colonel Laughlin and General Weyland stand in front of a surrendered German Luftwaffe airplane, a Focke-Wulf (FW) 190 at the Frankfort Rhein Main Air Base in Germany. The plane had been flown in by the German Luftwaffe Commander to be surrendered to…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one, completed at Wheeler Field in Hawaii, was completed by then-Captain Laughlin while he was…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one was completed at Wheeler Field in Hawaii, four months before then-Captain Laughlin would be sent…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one was completed at Wheeler Field in Hawaii, just under a year before the attacks at Pearl Harbor…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one, completed at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, just 6 months and a day before the Japanese attack at Pearl…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one, completed at the 362nd Fighter Group's base at UK Station 412 in Headcorn, Kent, England, is…
In order to make sure pilots were combat ready and effective, the Army Air Corps required Instrument Flight Tests be completed every six months. This one was completed at the 362nd Fighter Groups' base at Station A-82 in Étain, France, a week before…
Captain Rarey's renderings were very important to Colonel Laughlin and the airmen of the 362nd. Colonel Laughlin was so enamored with his nose art that he asked his crew chief to salvage them off of every plane he flew. His crew chief, Sergeant…