Last Kiss by John Lustig for November 11, 2024

I’d dig a foxhole for the both of us in half a heartbeat.

Felina looks like she could jump-start a few hearts…

Nice Work, John, Felina, and Allen!

She can thank me any time she wants!

She will definitely get a rise out of the soldiers

Was this photo taken at the Riverside Municipal Airport, where this particular aircraft is located?

True story. Back in WW2 there were civilians on the homefront who were offended that the Air Corps let the crews paint naughty pictures on their planes. Those folks knew that the men were going to be facing death to protect the homeland, but how dare they have impure thoughts.

She is well-deployed for ‘landing’ and taxiing across the tarmac.

Hey you A&P guys, do you still have the blueprints for that undercarriage? I’d like to run some airworthiness tests. I don’t see any room for improvement, though. For that matter there’s not enough room for anything in that outfit. In this guys humble opinion, I think that’s the perfect design for this mission.

Don’t thank me; thank the Selective Service System. I was drafted.

Many planes had much more risqué nose art….

Time for my yearly reading of “Aftermath” by Seigfried Sassoon.

I suspected this was a modern image when I saw the tattoo.

I just noticed there is an aircraft in this photo…

John, you should have showed HER in UNIFORM! Many women serve as well!

SH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She’s just plain beautiful.

Amen to that!

VERY NICE C-47!!!!

Hubba Hubba!! Lol

Like most of you, it took me a while to notice that Felina was dressed like the plane’s nose art, so I did a quick dive into the interwebs.

The D-Day Doll was the plane’s actual name.

It was built at the Douglas factory in Santa Monica, California. It is one of 159 C-53Ds and was delivered to AAF on July 7, 1943. It was assigned to the 434th Troop Carrier Group and was stationed at various locations (Alliance Field, NE, Baer Field, IN, Fullbeck, UK, and Welford Park, UK) before arriving at Royal Air Force (RAF) Aldermaston, UK in march 1944.

The 434th TCG consisted of HQ and the 71st to 74th Squadrons. Aircraft 830 was assigned to the 72nd Squadron (CU).

The group’s D-Day mission was to tow gliders carrying reinforcements to 101st Division troops who had been dropped earlier in the night near Utah Beach.

At 0119, June 6, 1944, 52 of the Group’s airplanes, each towing a Waco glider, took off from RAF Aldermaston Airfield for Normandy. Aircraft 830 flew three missions on D-Day and the next day.

While in the ETO it participated in the D-Day invasion, Operation Market Garden in Holland, the re-supply of Bastogne, and the crossing of the Rhine.

It also flew various support missions and wounded evacuations to England.

“No. Thank YOU for YOUR’S.”