Nose Art

Although wildly painted squadron insignia was common in World War I, true nose art did not occur until the Second World War. At the beginning of World War II, before the idea of painting an image on the skin of a plane arose, crews of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) pasted pages from Esquire Magazine, Men Only, and Look magazine on the nose section, fuselage, and tail sections of the B-17 bombers known as Flying Fortresses. By the end of the war, there was such a demand for artists, who received up to $15.00 per aircraft, that nose art could be called an industry (Logan). The phenomenon peaked during the Second World War, but what were the reasons for this so-called "Golden Age" of nose art?

http://parentseyes.arizona.edu/militarynoseart/ww2-3.htm