Bomber Boys WWII Flight Jacket Art – A Hidden History - Talk With History: Discover Your History Road Trip

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, so this is actuallyone of our first interviews, Jen,
that we've done in quite some time.
And we're excited because wehave the podcast studio set up.
And so we actually had someonereach out to us.
He said he found us on Instagram.
Found you on Instagram.
And this is John Slemp.
He's actually a photographerwho made the kind of like a photography
coffee table type book, butit's a lot more than that.

(00:22):
And you'll hear about that inour interview with him.
But he made this book calledthe Bomber Boys in the World War
II.
I have flight jackets, WorldWar II flight jackets.
So it's Bomber Boys, but it'sthe World War II, the history of
the World War II flight jacket.
And since he's a photographer,the book is a awesome coffee table
book of the beautifulphotographs of painted bomber jackets,

(00:47):
military jackets, the leatherjacket painted from World War II.
So we talked to John all abouthow he got into this, his time serving,
because he's a veteranhimself, and how he went from serving
in the army for 11 years withhis father, who was a Green Beret,
getting into photography,working in the professional space,
and then starting this passionproject that is this Bomber Boys

(01:11):
book.
And it's just beautiful.
And we don't have it with us here.
It's actually sitting in thepost office.
We just missed the cutoff, theclosure time.
And so we're going to get itin a couple days.
We'll open it up for you guys.
But I hope you guys enjoy ourinterview with John Slimp on his
book the Bomber Boys.
And stand by for one of themost famous bomber pilots of all

(01:31):
time and his access to that.
Welcome to Talk with History.
I'm your host, Scott, herewith my wife and historian, Jen.
Hello.
On this podcast, we give youinsights to our history Inspired

(01:53):
World Travels YouTube channelJourney and examine history through
deeper conversations with thecurious, the explorers and the history
lovers out there.
We're here with John Slump, ifI'm pronouncing that correctly.
Slump.
Slump.
Yes.
And so, John, you reached outbecause you relatively recently kind

(02:15):
of finished up a book.
And I'd like you to kind oftell you how you got into this and
a little bit of yourphotography background for our listeners
who aren't familiar with.
Might not be familiar withyour work or just kind of tell us
a little bit about the bookthe Bomber Jacket Boys and how this,
this kind of came to be.
Because it is.

(02:35):
I was looking at it on the website.
It is a beautiful, beautiful book.
Thank you.
So I was in the military foralmost 11 years, but I.
I should say that I had 13years prior service as a kid.
Oh, yeah.
But my.
My dad was a Green beret andspent 22 years before he retired.

(02:59):
So I picked up photography asa hobby while I was stationed in
Germany.
Okay.
And one thing led to anotherwhen I got out, one of my friends
suggested I try it for a living.
And I'm like, okay.
I had no clue how to enter thecommercial world, and I found a school

(03:21):
here in Atlanta and went thereto learn advertising photography.
And then I assistedestablished photographers for several
years and went out on my own,technically, in 96, I believe.
So what is that, 28 years now?
Yeah.
Somewhere in there, then I'vebeen shooting commercially.

(03:41):
And in 2007, I think I decidedto start specializing in aviation.
Probably the worst time inhistory to do that when the recession
hit, but, you know, becauseaviation took it really hard on the
nose and.
But I survived, and here we are.

(04:03):
And answer your question aboutthe jackets.
I had always known about themfor a long time, but I had never
seen one.
And I belong to theExperimental Aircraft association
here in Lawrenceville, justnorth of Atlanta.
And I asked around in thechapter, if anybody had one, I'd

(04:25):
like to see it.
Sure enough, somebody hadtheir uncle's jacket, and they brought
it in, and I photographed it,and it was gorgeous.
It had 50 bombs on the front.
The fella had been a topturret gunner in a B24 unit in the
Mediterranean.
And.

(04:45):
And it had the scantily cladfemale on the back.
I saw a picture of that one.
On the website, and, you know,it was a gorgeous jacket.
And I'm thinking to myself,boy, if they're all like this, this
is going to be lovely.
You know, just really a funvisual treat.
And, you know, and at thetime, I really didn't have any preconceived

(05:12):
notions as to where the workmight go, maybe an exhibition.
There was no thought at all ofdoing a book.
And I thought to myself, If Iget 50 jackets, you know, that would
be great.
And just for grins, I sentthose two pictures to Dorothy Cochran,

(05:36):
who's a curator at theSmithsonian Air and Space Museum.
Oh, cool.
I had met her through one ofmy clients, and 58 minutes later
I checked.
I got a separate email from Dr.
Alex Spencer, who's theircurator of the aviation clothing
collection, and he said, wehave 15 jackets that'll work for

(05:58):
your project.
When can you be here?
Oh, my gosh, that's so cool.
I was stunned Elated,surprised, et cetera.
And a few months later, I wentup there, and we photographed 13
jackets at the Udvar Hazycenter, which is a subset of the
museum out in Chantilly, Virginia.

(06:19):
Yeah, we've been there.
We saw the Enola Gay there.
Yeah, it's.
It's quite the place.
And so at that point, it.
It sort of took a life of its own.
Took on a life of its own.
And once I, you know, once myfriends started getting the word

(06:40):
out, so to speak, in theaviation community, I had people
calling me out of the blue,hey, I've got a jacket.
Would you like to shoot it?
Sure.
Tell me more about it, etc.
And I had people sending mejackets from California.
I had a granddaughter and aniece drive from Iowa to bring me

(07:04):
a jacket here in Atlanta.
They said.
They said they had otherbusiness here in town.
I'm not so sure.
But it.
It really just snowballed.
And when I contacted othermuseums, began contacting other museums,
and I mentioned that I hadphotographed jackets at the Smithsonian,

(07:28):
it was like, open sesame.
Yeah, just.
Okay, you must be somebody.
Come on down.
That's cool.
So what about kind of going alittle bit back to the start of this?
What about the jacket itselfkind of embodies that.
That spirit of.
Of aviation, because I feellike it's.

(07:48):
It's such a.
An icon of aviation.
What, to you, does the jacketkind of symbolize when it comes to
that world?
Well, it is an.
It's an iconic garment.
It's an iconic American garment.
You know, the Germans hadleather jackets, their pilots, but
they had zippers across theside, you know, diagonally.

(08:10):
And they weren't painted as,if I'm correct in that.
Not like ours, anyway.
And, you know, it was partmilitary folk art.
It was part swagger andcachet, shall we say?
I'm an aviator and you're nottype thing.

(08:30):
Yeah, I have mine right here.
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah.
And, you know, it.
Initially, I was justinterested in the artwork because
as I've seen pictures, I don'tthink I've ever seen two of the same
design.
And so there was partially anexploration of the artwork, but as

(08:55):
I got into it, my friendssuggested that I start capturing
the stories of the guys whoowned the jackets.
And.
And really, the jackets becamean appropriate way to tell their
story.
Oh, yeah, for sure.
And.
Yeah.
And so I did a few audiointerviews, and I had a friend go

(09:21):
with me who did three or fourvideo interviews.
I wish I had been able to domore, but that's what we got.
And it, you know, hearing itfrom the veterans themselves, I was
fortunate enough to photographover 25 World War II veterans and

(09:43):
16 women Air Force service pilots.
That's so cool.
And they were, they.
They were quite a.
Quite a hoot, too, I gottatell you.
And 16 original Rosies.
Rosie the Riveters, Wow.
Although they're not in thebook, but they also are quite interesting.
And so basically, I startedaccumulating this information, and

(10:09):
that's when, you know, thelight bulb went off, and perhaps
there's a bulk here.
So, like you said, thesejackets are unique, but does everyone
in the air crew get one?
Is it like the pilots get oneand everyone in the crew gets one?
And at the time, there reallyare, you know, utilized because it's

(10:32):
so cold in the cockpit thatyou're wearing your leather jacket
to keep you warm.
Now we get them moresymbolically because that's what
pilots get when you get yourwings, not because we actually need
them.
I think I wore it one timeflying over the Rockies in training
because I was cold and I threwit on.
But.

(10:52):
But these people actually usethese jackets.
So when they came home, didthey have them painted when they
came back, or did they wearthem painted like that while they
were serving?
Well, we have severalquestions here.
So most were painted in theater.
Okay.
But not always by fellowcrewmen or artists on the base.

(11:16):
Sometimes they were farmed out.
And as you know, all theseancillary businesses spring up around
bases.
And so sometimes the six packof beer, carton of cigarettes.
Thank you very much.
Paint my jacket.
And, you know, so that.

(11:36):
That's how that happened a lotof times.
Although at the time a fairnumber of sign painters were drafted
into the service, signpainting was still a profession.
And so once people found outthey had artistic talent, like, oh,
here, paint my jacket, orpaint the nose art, et cetera.

(11:57):
And one thing I should remindyou of, they were work jackets, utility
jackets, but they generallyweren't warm on missions because
at 30,000ft, they just didn'tadd any additional warmth.
Okay.
And he said, well, generally,if a crew didn't come back, the jacket

(12:22):
was usually one of the firstthings liberated from a guy's foot
locker, such as life in the military.
Sure.
And, you know, and as anaside, when the crews didn't come
back, I'm sure it was a supplysergeant cleared everything out of
the hooch probably as quicklyas possible, not only for sentimental

(12:47):
and morale reasons, but I'malso sure so they could get new people
in.
So that was a reality at the time.
Are there any.
Are there any kind of storiesattached to any.
Any of the jackets that youphotograph that kind of stand out
to you, like, more kind ofspecifically about the jacket, whether
it's the veteran that.

(13:07):
That owned it or the jacketitself kind of having its own story.
How much time do you have?
We.
We have plenty of time.
I can edit all sorts of stuff afterwards.
Yeah, sure.
Let's see.
I'm trying to remember Jan's question.
Yeah.
Does everybody get a jacket?
Yes.
So at the time, the jacketscame into the U.S.

(13:28):
army inventory in 1931.
Okay.
So they weren't new to WorldWar II, but as I understand it, they
were initially only issued toofficers in the air crew.
Okay.
And then as the war came on,everybody in the air crew got one.
Okay, so does that answer your question?

(13:48):
Yeah, because I don't thinknowadays, I think it's just the officers
who get them.
I think it's just the pilotsand the naval flight officers, the
NFOs, who get them.
Again, symbolically.
So.
But I.
But I noticed the jackets youhad were worn by, like, you said,
turret gunners and things like that.
So those people accrue, sothey're owning the jackets as well.

(14:11):
So like you said, I thinkDuring World War II, everyone's issued
the jacket part of the air crew.
It's a symbol that you're partof the crew.
You're all together.
Yeah.
I would assume that your mostvaluable jacket, like, I know you
had a appraiser from AntiquesRoadshow, which I love did a part
of, and I would assume valueto these jackets, the most valuable

(14:35):
one would be the better story.
The more the person who was apart of an aircraft that had a story
or was popularized, what oneis your most valuable jacket or your
most expensive jacket?
You know, people now assumeI'm a jacket expert, which I'm not.
But I had a friend, KenJohnson in California, who is a pilot,

(15:00):
and she had designed abracelet using a WASP theme.
And because of that, she had alocal jeweler making them.
Well, somehow they had ajacket, not a family member's, and
she wanted to bring it to meat Oshkosh so I could photograph
it.
And they initially said no,and then I suppose she kept after

(15:23):
them, and they said, well,okay, but let's get into praise.
So we know how much it's worth.
$8,000.
Oh, wow.
Wow.
And it was a gorgeous jacket.
It had lovely artwork on it.
It was in great shape.
And she brought it to Oshkoshand I photographed it there in a
garage of a house that we rentwhile we stayed there.

(15:44):
And so it's in the book.
Yes.
So what adds to the value ofthat jacket is the artwork?
Well, also, so incorresponding with Jeff Schrader,
the Antiques Roadshowappraiser, he has a company called
Advanced Guard Militaria.
It's in Missouri, near St.

(16:04):
Louis.
And anyway, he basicallymentioned in his write up that if
the jacket had good artworkand good provenance, it could really
fetch a lot of money.
And I learned during thecourse of the project that apparently
the Japanese became veryenamored with the jackets in the

(16:27):
80s and 90s.
Oh, interesting.
Paying upwards of $20,000 fora jacket with good provenance and
good artwork.
How interesting.
So I found that kind offascinating and I'm trying to figure
out how to break into that market.
I sold five books recently tothe real McCoys and they make replica

(16:50):
jackets in Japan.
And I just found anotherChinese company just today, this
morning that makes replica jackets.
Anyway, the most popular onesare like, do you would think it'd
be like the Memphis Belle orthe Enola Gay?
Like, do people want thesefamous bombers?
Well, some of the artwork isactually famous.

(17:12):
As to particular aircraft, Ithink it's generally personal preference.
Some people have attachment toa specific bomb group or squadron
even, or a particular theater.
The book is broken down bytheater, by the way.
Okay, So I have 8th Air Force,the Mediterranean and North Africa,

(17:33):
and then China, Burma, Indiaand the Pacific.
And which, which do you havethe most of?
The.
The 8th Air Force, for sure.
The, the Eastern front.
Yeah, there's 104 jackets inthe book.
And if I remember correctly,64 hates Air Force jackets.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
And then I saw that you alsokind of started as you kind of progressed

(17:55):
through your.
I think you said it was likean eight year journey.
I watched one of the videos onyour, your YouTube channel.
Correct.
That you started photographingother kind of military memorabilia.
Can you talk about a couple ofthe other things that you started
photographing?
Sure.
I went up to Asheville, NorthCarolina and at one point I had a

(18:19):
handheld recorder.
I asked him individually, tellme a story.
One of the guys had beenforced down on his second mission,
I believe is a B17CO pilot inSouthern Germany.
Their plane was all shot up,nobody was hurt, but it just wouldn't

(18:39):
stay in the air.
Even after they dumped outtheir machine guns and everything
that wasn't bolted down, itjust wouldn't fly.
So they landed in a farmer'sfield the farmer was in the field,
and they were.
They didn't even havesidearms, and so they had thrown
those out.
Oh, my gosh.

(18:59):
And so they were capturedpretty much immediately.
And as they were beingtransported to the POW camp, they're
standing on the train platformat the Bonhoeff German train station,
and the locals saw who theywere and got agitated and basically

(19:19):
in their face and wanted to dobodily harm.
And the German guards, theGerman military, Wehrmacht, said,
this is not happening.
You need to go away.
So they did for a time, andthen they came back even more vocal
and wish I could remember hisname off the top of my head.
He told me that the Germanguards turned their backs to the

(19:42):
Americans and lowered theirweapons at the Germans and said,
you need to go away.
You are not going to harmthese prisoners.
Wow.
And he said that totallychanged his opinion of the German
soldiers.
And he had brought along hisGerman POW dog tags, which I had
never seen, but they wereapparently a square with serrations

(20:06):
down the middle so it could bebroken in half.
And I photographed that.
He's got that in his hands.
That's a cool story.
I've never heard a story likethat before.
You know, they depictedsomething like that in Masters of
the Air, something like that,because so many of these aviators
were captured and sent to POWcamps, and there was different levels

(20:30):
of protection they were givenby the Germans.
And of course, there wasalways this high emotion of the German
people because they had beenbombing areas and people were dying.
And so there was different howmuch the Germans would protect them
and put them in the cams.
I think there was a lot ofrespect at the, you know, respect

(20:52):
as POWs, as aviators,especially towards the beginning
of the war where, you know, wewere capturing the Germans, we were
putting them in POW camps, andthen they were doing the same.
So it was kind of like aretaliatory thing that eventually
there would be a prisonerexchange or something along that
nature.
Yeah, I think it was probablymore practical than that, Jim, to

(21:15):
be honest with you.
It was very much, hey, we'vegot your guys, you got our guys.
We may swap at some point.
And Hitler actually wanted touse them as bargaining chips to negotiate
a truce instead of asurrender, which is why near the
end of the war, when theRussians got close to some of these

(21:37):
camps, the Germans basicallyforced the prisoners out of the camp,
marching them eastward so theywouldn't be captured in the dead
of winter.
And some guys died, and it wasnot a good thing.
So let's get back.
Oh, sorry.

(21:58):
No, I was going to say.
So sometimes the locals didget a hold of the guys and beat them
up or killed them.
And that's depicted, I think,in Masters of the Air.
Near the end, I actually had aGerman military historian contact
me.
Oh, wow.
Who?
She wanted to use one of thejackets in an exhibition that she

(22:21):
was putting together on a unitfrom the Mediterranean theater that
bombed in Munich, I believe,in July of 44.
And this one squadron of 12planes, nine of them were shot down
on this mission.
And some of the guys werecaptured by the Wehrmacht and treated

(22:42):
according to the Geneva Convention.
Some of them were captured bylocals and murdered.
So, you know, you reallywanted to be captured by soldiers
if you had to be captured.
Interesting.
And of course, you know, asyou said, I've just bombed these
guys and all of my plane isshot down.
I've come down right in themiddle of them.

(23:04):
So obviously there's ahornet's nest.
And if you survived, sometimesit was by a stroke of luck.
So those stories you captured,those stories, you took fantastic
portraits of these men.
And so I think the capturingof the stories of these veterans,
since we're losing more andmore World War II veterans every

(23:26):
day, is so important.
Are you gonna make anotherbook about that?
What are you doing with these stories?
Are they in an archive somewhere?
Did you give them to or do youhave them still in your personal
archive?
Well, yes and yes.
Each museum.
So there were 12 museums that participated.
I wound up shooting 162jackets across the country.

(23:49):
Oh, wow.
And I photographed severalmore since then.
But each museum thatparticipated, I gave them high res
jpegs of all the files fortheir use.
And some have used them prettywell, some not at all, which I can't
quite figure out why.
But the 390th Memorial Museumin Tucson has done a really good

(24:12):
job with them.
And they've even created afundraising campaign where they used
the jackets as incentive.
It was adopted jacket.
Oh, cool.
And they used that to raisemoney for new display cases.
Yeah, that's smart.
Which they did.
Yeah.

(24:33):
And they rotate their jacketsfairly frequently.
I think they have 33, if Iremember correctly, is what I photographed
there.
That's so great.
So you really preserved history.
You really did, you know, youfound it, you preserved it.
When it comes to the paint onthese jackets, like what kind of

(24:54):
paint is used for this?
Because I, I can't imaginewearing a painted jacket everyday
use.
And the paint's not going tocome off and deteriorate.
Like, how does that work?
Exactly.
Some, some of them are flakingoff and have flaked off.
Generally at the time it waslead based paint and sometimes they
even used aircraft paintbecause that's what they had on head.

(25:16):
Sure.
Pastels, if I remembercorrectly, didn't come into existence
till the mid-50s.
So, you know, is essentiallywhat was at hand.
And then what is the best wayto store these jackets then?
To put, if you said thepaint's already starting to flake,
like, is it best, you know,temperature, climate controlled,

(25:39):
you know, flat, you know, acidfree paper in the dark, you know,
is that the best way topreserve these?
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
I actually talked to aprofessional conservator and sent
her a series of questions andwe have an FAQ section in the book

(26:01):
on how to take care of them.
And she said basically storethem flat in an acid free box.
And she had a really good ideato take a long sleeve T shirt and
sew up the ends of the sleevesand then stuff the sleeves with cotton
or something non toxic andthen slide that into the sleeves

(26:23):
on the jacket.
Structured?
Yeah, correct.
And I did photograph thejackets with a little bit of bubble
wrap in the chest area just togive it a little bit of dimension
and volume so it wouldn't bejust smashed, flabbed.
And so she said, put it in anacid free box, normal humidity, not

(26:47):
too wet or too dry, no bugs,of course.
And you know, a lot of it'sjust common sense stuff.
You know, these garments arenow 80 years plus old and some of
them are in surprisingly good shape.
But some of the jackets Iphotographed at the 475th Fighter

(27:07):
Group in Chino, California,which is just way East Los Angeles,
is a dry climate and theydidn't have them in any sort of climate
control case.
So when I picked up thosejackets and put them on the light
box, they were literallyflaking off in my hands.
Oh, no.
And that's the nature of thesenatural materials.

(27:31):
They are going to deteriorateat some point to dust.
So I feel like I have maybepreserved a little bit of history
anyway and feel privileged tohave done so, to be honest with you.
Sure.
Well, I think the photographis a great representation of it.
And I think your exhibits,which I think would be fantastic
to get in different areas, indifferent places, especially like,

(27:54):
you know, Masters of the Air,like different places where people
are going to see thephotographs are so detailed that
that in itself is a great wayto see the artifact, to look at the
artifact without actuallyhaving to display the artifact.
And you know, have itdeteriorate even more.
The photographs are so great.
I think that is such a.
A wonderful way to sharehistory and to show history.

(28:18):
Thank you.
Yes.
I.
I learned a lot shooting withthese museums.
Most museums only display 3 to5% of what they actually have.
There's just so much material, and.
And I like to call themAmerica's closets, if you will.
Yeah.
You know, we don't want it inour closet, but we don't want to

(28:38):
throw it away.
Sure.
So I think most museums do areally good job in that regard as
best they can.
Most of them have limitedfunding and limited staff, and I
actually had two or three turnme down because they didn't have
staff to pull the jackets andhave me come for a day to photograph

(29:02):
them, which I understand itwould have been nice to photograph
more of them, and maybe wewill still at some point.
But to my mind, having theaccess to the veterans and their
jackets at the same time was priceless.
And now with so many of themgone, I'm not sure a second book

(29:27):
would have the same cachet tobuy, to be honest with you.
So what was your favorite?
What's your favorite one?
You have to have one.
Well, let's see here.
Actually, the one in thebackground here is one of my favorites.
Let me get the book here.
Okay.
So this is one of the jacketsin the 390th Memorial Museum.

(29:51):
Okay.
Oh, how cool.
And just spectacular artwork.
Yeah.
That's beautiful.
And to my mind, if you had tovisit one museum to see examples
of these jackets, the 390thwould be the place to go.
Yeah.
Because they do a good job ofdisplaying them, and they have some
with just spectacular artwork.

(30:13):
Now, I.
I saw one of the things that Isaw on your YouTube channel when
you were talking about thiswas that you actually had this printed
and Made in America, which I.
I thought was.
Was pretty neat because I.
I think you said on yourchannel, you know, this is.
These are American stories.
So you wanted to have thisMade in America.
What was that kind of printingprocess like?
Did you get to kind of go downand review the prints before everything

(30:36):
started getting pushed out?
Yes.
Buried in the blog on theBomber Boys website is a section
where I did a little bit of video.
So to back up a little, thegraphic designer who'd laid out the
book, he and I had workedtogether on an advertising job in
2014.
And I didn't know it at thetime, but he's actually a graphic

(31:00):
designer by trade.
And so we kept in touch.
And I told him what I wasdoing, and he said, oh, I'd love
to design the book for you,and I'll do it for free, because,
you know, he was thatinterested in it.
Yeah.
And I said, well, thanks forthat, but no, I'm not.
You're not going to do it forfree for two reasons.

(31:21):
One, you're a pro.
You need to get paid.
Sure.
And two, I want it done inthis lifetime.
Exactly.
No weekends and holidays andall that.
Yep.
Smart.
So in 2022, in January, I shotthe last set of pictures at the National
Museum of the US Air Force inDaytona, including Jimmy's Doris

(31:42):
jacket.
That's probably one of myfavorite jackets.
That's, like, her favorite.
Yes.
We did his hometown.
Did you see our video from his hometown?
I stood on his porch.
Yes.
And actually, I put anInstagram post up, I think, up in
December with part of hisjacket's photograph.
And the lady who runs themuseum, she contacted me, and they

(32:06):
may buy a print of his jacket.
Oh, cool.
That would be great, becausethey don't have anything.
Yes.
And so anyway, so Darren said,yes, I'll design the book.
And after I got the picturestogether that spring of 2022, I sent
him all the information, and Iwrote the text, generally speaking,

(32:28):
of the book, except for acouple of sections.
And he basically took threemonths laying it out.
398 pages.
It's a big book.
Wow.
And 12 by 12 inches in size.
Six pounds.
Anyway, so after I got itback, we made just a few stylistic
changes.
He's really a wonderful,wonderful designer.

(32:50):
And I sent it to aproofreader, professional proofreader.
She took a couple of monthsmassaging it and made over 1500 changes
to the text.
And I said, jill, I thought Iwas pretty good with the English
language.
English language.
And she said, you are.
And I'm like, well, you couldhave surprised me.

(33:10):
And a lot of it waspunctuation that I had long forgotten
since high school.
Sure.
And some stylistic changes andthat sort of thing.
So we got that done, and inlate summer, we sent it to the Predator
in Houston.
This is a printer thatDarren's worked with for 20 years.
I didn't want to send it to China.

(33:30):
Sure.
It's such an American thing.
I didn't want to.
Stuck on a boat for fourmonths, you know, And I.
I didn't even entertain thethought of printing it elsewhere.
You know, I probably couldhave printed it for half of what
it cost here, but I justwasn't interested in doing It.
That's.

(33:51):
That's.
That's awesome.
I mean, I love the fact thatit's, you know, American stories,
you know, you know, Americanmen and American made.
So.
So I love the fact that, thatyou did that.
And for.
For our listeners, we're goingto, you know, put some spots in the
show notes and your websiteand everything like that, because
this is just.

(34:11):
It's one of those things thatI think every history lover, especially
World War II history fans, isgoing to love.
Well, I think it's soprinciple too.
What you did.
Right.
And it's a greatrepresentation of what they did is
to honor them is to not have,you know, like not.
Not try to make it any lessthan what it should be.
I think it's great that youhad it made in America.

(34:33):
I think that's really speaksvolumes to thank you, you as a creator.
You know, I having.
I was born in Japan, you know,when my dad was stationed and we
lived on Okinawa for fouryears and I was stationed in Germany
almost five years.
So I guess I've been around alittle bit, you know, but America's

(34:56):
a pretty great place in a lotof ways.
And so I guess I wanted toshowcase a little bit of that too.
You know, we still have theways and means to get things done
at a very high level.
Yeah.
With taste and style.

(35:18):
So let me ask you a question.
I have two questions for you.
So one, your favorite jacketwith all the bombs on there, I assume
those are all the bombs thatwere dropped by that particular crewman.
They represent missions.
Missions, missions flown.
So was that made after theywere done or were those added as
they were flying?

(35:39):
I think both.
Okay.
I haven't been able todefinitely discern that, but from
what I could tell, having seena few pictures of guys actually painting
them in theater, it lookedlike they were painted as the missions
accumulated.
And I know one instance, oneof the jackets I photographed was

(35:59):
painted here in the Stateswhen the guy got back.
Okay.
Okay.
Oh, sorry.
You know, it's a mixture, I think.
Sure.
And then Jimmy Stewart's jacket.
What is it painted?
Is it not painted?
What's on there?
Okay, there's his bomb unitpatch his quadrant, I believe.
Let me see if I can find ithere real quick.

(36:20):
And, you know, I should havethis page memorized.
I do have it sort of memorized.
So this is his jacket here.
So that's when he's a captain.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
And you can see he rode in there.
Lieutenant Jimmy Stewart.
So it's before he.

(36:41):
So yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When he first issued thejacket 102, you know, and I think
a lot of people aren't aware,but he joined the army as a private
in early 1941, before the war started.
Yep.
Apparently he had quite ahistory of military service in his
family.
He does, yes.

(37:02):
And he was already an AcademyAward winner, already a pilot, and.
But he was 32 or 3, you know,so he was not a young man.
But I forget if there was awaiver involved or what, but he became
an officer, and then he wentthrough the regular flight training
and so on, and they didn'tactually want to send him to combat

(37:24):
because they were afraid he'dget shot down.
And so he was at a trainingbase in Montana, I think, for almost
two years.
And finally they were forminga new bomb group, being sent to England,
and he finagled away into that staff.
I believe it was the xo.
And two weeks later, they madehim the commander.

(37:46):
Wow.
Wow.
And then she can be like, I'mgoing to fly.
I'm doing that mission.
I'm doing that mission.
Yeah.
So if I remember correctly, hewound up flying 20 missions as a
B24 pilot.
Jeez.
And.
And did suffer PTSD after the war.
Yeah.
That's why It's a WonderfulLife is my favorite movie of all
time.

(38:06):
So, specifically on my jacket.
So I.
I mean, this is just a G1.
I think it's a Navy jacket.
Right.
With the color.
Yep.
It's a G1.
I specifically didn't put my rank.
That's when I got it, becauseI knew that I got it as an ensign.
I knew I was right.
And so I just put my nameright in US Navy, because I.

(38:29):
I was.
I knew that that way I wasn'treplacing patches and replacing things
over and over again.
And then I just put the flagon and I did the blood chit, which
I see you have examples ofsome bloodshits in there.
So I put the blood chit for Iflew over the Middle East.
So my bloodshed represents thelanguages of the Middle East.
That's cool.
But I was surprised to findout they were still using those.

(38:51):
Oh, yeah?
Yep.
But I find that so interestingthat they could be so individualized.
There was no standardizationof the leather jacket.
And what's interesting aboutthat as well is you can wear it with
your uniform, and it's not standardized.
From what I understand, theywere not technically supposed to

(39:15):
be wear worn off the base.
Ah, okay.
I think that was largelyignored, as was some of the more
risque artwork on the jackets,you know, I think that's why some
of them survived.
You know, I thought when Istarted that there would probably
be a lot of that.
I think of the 162 that Ishot, only two or three had what

(39:41):
might be considered somerisque artwork.
Sure.
And when you got back to theStates in Littleville, usa, you didn't
wear that down Main Street.
It just wasn't done.
Yep.
So that's why they survived.
Sure.
Absolutely.
And like you said, that's kindof what you did in theater.

(40:01):
It's what you did with yourfellow crewmen.
Right.
Because that's the.
That was the morale builderfor you guys.
Right.
And that's why it's scantilyclad women, because that's the morale
builder for you guys.
And we.
We do a whole episode on nose art.
We always say, as you gotfurther away from officials.
Yeah.
Got more risk.
Yeah.
The more risky you got.

(40:22):
That's true.
The less brass you have comingonto your base and looking at everything.
And so, like you said, andwhen you get home, that's the first
thing you pack away, because it.
Sometimes people would weartheir dress uniforms.
But the same thing is truewith the flight suit.
You're not really supposed towear the flight suit off of the base.
Right.
And sometimes people do, butyou're not really supposed to.

(40:44):
So it kind of falls in thatsame line of thinking.
Yes.
This is kind of like a working uniform.
This is what you kind of do tobuild morale with your crew.
You're out there for months,years at a time, and so whatever
it takes to put a smile onyour face and to help, you know,
get back into the cockpit andfeel brave, and it's another way

(41:05):
to kind of put your resume outthere as well.
People can see it.
So I think.
I think there's so muchhistory in these jackets, but they're
so.
There is unique.
Like, did you ever photographtwo that were the same?
I did, quite by accident.
Oh, wow.
So in leave 2015, May or June,I photographed a jacket.

(41:29):
The son lives here inDunawoody, just north of Atlanta.
He brought me his dad's jacket.
I photographed it, put it onmy iPad, didn't think any more about
it.
And I went to Oshkosh, thebiggest air show in the country,
a couple months.
A couple months later, and Iwas doing a job photographing several

(41:49):
aircraft for an aircraft calendar.
And I was talking to one ofthe fellows who handles one of the
aircraft, told him what I wasdoing, and he said, oh, my dad was
a Was a bomber crewman.
He said the pilot's name wasWalter Thomason.
Walter Thomason's jacket wasthe one I photographed here.

(42:11):
Oh, cool.
I didn't say a word.
I took out my iPad, went tothat picture.
I said, this Walter Thomason.
He said, yeah.
We had goosebumps talkingabout it for five minutes.
And the following year, hebrought me his dad's jacket, which
he had, and I photographed it.
So there are two jackets fromthe same crew in the book.
Oh, that's incredible.

(42:32):
Never in my wildest dreams didI think that would happen.
And is that the only one youhave that are from the same crew?
That's very cool.
And that's the thing about themilitary and just kind of history
circles, and I think reallymilitary aviation and some of the
history there is.
The circles are a little bitsmaller than people realize.
There's a lot of folks thatare out there that are interested

(42:54):
in this stuff, but thosecircles, you know, those birds of
a feather flock together, so they.
The circles overlap a lot.
And I love kind of thoseserendipitous moments like.
Like you experienced there,you know?
And that happened a fairamount during this project.
It was not anything that Iplanned or thought about, preconceived,

(43:15):
and it just sort of, you know,happy accidents.
When I photographed jackets atthe Air Force Museum, the first one
we shot was Jimmy Stewart.
And literally right after wefinished it, I had shot tethered
to my laptop so we could seethe pictures.
The collections manager,Roberta Carruthers, and her boss,

(43:38):
Mr.
Tillotson, he ran a museum.
They both came out of theroom, and I said, hi, and so on.
And Roberta and I got totalking, and she said, your request
to shoot here actually did usa favor.
And I'm like, really?
How so?
She said it prompted us to getour hands on the jackets.

(43:58):
And some were in displaycases, some were in storage, but
they got to look at them toassess them for a condition.
Inventory, that sort of thing.
Yeah, inventory.
And she told me that this wasonly the second time since 1968 that
Jimmy Stewart's jacket hadbeen out of the display case.

(44:18):
Oh, my gosh.
Which means nobody else has.
Has this picture.
Yeah.
That's so cool.
And that's one of the reasonswhy it's not online.
Not the whole jacket.
Sure.
Yeah.
People have a tendency to.
To.
To lift images withoutthinking about it, where they come
from and the effort involved.
But, you know, it just.
I'm driving down to sunningfor one year, and I got a phone call

(44:43):
myself.
And it was the fellow inVirginia beach who works at the Colonial
Williamsburg Museum, and hehad his uncle's jacket.
And it's quite a heartbreakingstory, actually, but it's in the
back of the book.
And I went up there, finallygot up there and photographed the

(45:04):
jacket and learned more abouthis uncle's history.
And just out of the blue, youknow, he contacted me.
I would have never known aboutthis otherwise.
That's so cool.
That's amazing.
I.
I love, I love those storieslike that.
Especially like what Jen and Ido with Walk with History, you know,
is we're going around, excuse me.

(45:26):
To these locations and kind oftrying to experience the.
The history, you know, wherethings happen and stuff like that.
And you got to do that throughthis whole process.
Right.
You were, you were sittingthere holding something that was
a part of history numerous,numerous times.
And then as you're doing that,you're bound to encounter stories
like this.
That's just amazing.
Well, I think it's a testimonyto what you do.

(45:48):
You're telling America's storyfor Americans, and they read it and
they see it, they connect withit, and then you keep connecting
the dots, and people find moreof their story in the stories that
you're telling.
They can see more of their past.
And that is what I thinkthat's so tremendous.

(46:08):
It's like, still needs to bedone, still needs to be uncovered,
still needs to be told.
And so we really support whatyou're doing, and we think it's just
fantastic.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
You know, as a commercialphotographer, it's nice to be hired
by a client to go out andshoot a jet in the cockpit, in the
interior, whatever, you know,but it's not really soul fulfilling,

(46:32):
so to speak.
And one of the pieces ofadvice that you hear from people
who help photographers markettheir work and so on is to do a personal
project.
And so I've always beeninterested in military history since
I was a kid, especially havinglived on Okinawa and, you know, walk,

(46:54):
walk the ground, so to speak.
And so when this ideagerminated, it.
It scratched that itch as well.
Yeah.
And I've been really fortunateto have stumbled into this because

(47:14):
it satisfied so many things.
Personally, you know, I dohave a military background.
You know, military history hasbeen an interest, and I can combine
my photographic skills withcreating something that's bigger
than myself.

(47:35):
Yeah, I feel like it was meantto be.
I mean, these photos needed tobe professional photos.
They needed to be.
To see these jackets the waythey are meant to be seen and observed
for other people.
It needed a professionalphotographer to do it.
Need someone who understandsthe lighting and understands the
background and understands the structure.

(47:55):
So you were.
I mean, I feel like you weremeant to do this.
I really feel like it's fantastic.
And we're just so excited tobe able to tell this story.
I love the name Bomber Boys.
It's so simple but so powerful.
Right?
I really love that.
Well, there's actually severalother books with that title, Bomber
Boys.
So the official title isBomber boys, World War II flight

(48:19):
jacket art, just to differentiate.
But I thought for searchGoogle purposes, they would be good
in that regard.
And on the website, I put WWIIin front of Bomber Boys because I
didn't want the FBI showing upon Sunday, you know, so that's why

(48:42):
that was done.
But, yeah, it was a realprivilege and I learned a tremendous
amount.
Air crew.
Air.
You know, Air Corps historythat I never knew about before.
Absolutely.
Now, you were army for 11 years.
What did you do in the Army?
I was an armor officer by trade.
Okay, very cool.

(49:02):
And you were stationed in Germany.
Anywhere else?
Almost five years at Fort Knox.
Oh, cool.
And my time in West Germany, Iwas in 1st Brigade at the 3rd Armored
Division.
Okay, very cool.
Just towards the Frankfurt.
Yeah.
So through your.
Kind of.
For your own personal journeythrough this, I mean, kind of did
your perspective on the war oron the veterans kind of change throughout

(49:29):
this whole process?
Like, how did your perspectiveon things change from when you started
off with that email 58 minuteslater from, you know, the.
The curator, and then all of asudden eight years.
Right.
And we're.
We're sitting here on a.
On a podcast interview, andyou've been publishing this book
for a little while now.

(49:49):
Like, what.
What about your perspectivekind of changed over that journey?
You know, there was a fellownamed Punchy Powell.
Bob Punchy Powell, who livedabout six miles from me, who was
a P51 pilot on D day.
Oh, wow.
And I photographed him in his basement.

(50:11):
And then later on for thebook, or vice versa.
Anyway, he made it a pointmore than once of saying that he
was no hero.
And while I agree with him toa point, what these guys did was
pretty heroic.

(50:32):
And it's a subtle distinction,I know, but I think it takes a real
commitment to climb into anaircraft with skin that's about as
thick as a business card andtake off into the blue, knowing you're
going to get shot at by theLuftwaffe and ground artillery or

(50:57):
Zeros or what have you, and todo it Again and again and again.
You know, that's.
The infantry guys didn't haveto deal with it.
You know, they had medics intheir company usually.
So if you got wounded, youcould call for a medic and you might
get patched up.
If you got wounded in the air,you know, God help you.

(51:20):
Yeah.
You know, there were more thanone instances where a bandage was
put on your blown off leg orarm and your buddies threw you out
of the plane hoping that thepeople on the ground would take care
of you, because that wasreally your only chance of survival.
But sometimes it was severalhours back to the base, and at 30,000ft,

(51:44):
no heat, more than oneinstance, the electrical system was
shot out, so theirelectrically heated suits didn't
work.
So these guys facedtremendous, tremendous hazards.
And it's just mind bogglingthat more of them didn't come back
with severe ptsd.

(52:09):
I think what you do is soimportant because I find it surprising
how many stories just haven'tbeen told.
Oh, yeah.
And that's like, even withthese jackets, how many of them were
blocked away and put away?
And this was an avenue peoplesaw to tell their stories, tell their
family stories, tell their stories.
I think people came home fromthe war and just so I think war really,

(52:34):
they didn't want to tell usany stories.
They wanted to go on withtheir lives.
They wanted to live.
They wanted to baby boom.
Right.
Like, they wanted to have alife now, a life that they defended,
they wanted to have.
And it wasn't about what theydid, which I agree with you.
When he says I'm no hero, I'dbe like, well, you're all heroes.
It's not.
Yeah, I see how you don't wantto, like, individualize yourself,

(52:57):
but everybody who was on D daythat day is a.
Was a hero.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's why I stillrefer to them as the greatest generation.
Historians will go aroundabout that, not mature.
Like, how would we use that?
But I still think it is thegreatest generation because of what
they did.
But the surprise to me inlooking at your book is how many

(53:19):
of these stories are not told.
Right.
And we're still finding them,we're still telling them.
Here's a great avenue to tell them.
And so many people like, youknow, you found these jackets.
They were coming out of thewoodwork because they weren't told.
And there was no avenue totell them.
And I'm thankful that you told them.

(53:40):
Well, you know, Jim, I got tothinking about all of this at one
point, and I realized That Iprobably couldn't have done this
20 years ago, you know,because the Internet is such a wonderful
medium of communication.
People wouldn't have knownabout it and I wouldn't have been

(54:03):
contacted out of the blue.
The technology with self published.
This is a self published bookwhich by the way, has won silver
in two international design competitions.
Congrats.
Thank you.
It is beautiful.
Yeah, Darren just did awonderful job.
And I hired a fashionconsultant, fashion historian, I

(54:25):
should say, Laura McClaus helms.
And she wrote a section forme, an essay on the fashion and cultural
impact of the jackets.
That's super neat.
You know, I shopped it aroundfor a bit to several publishers,
got a little bit of lukewarm interest.
And at one point I realizedthat even if somebody had said yes,

(54:49):
they would have gone into aqueue a year later.
They would have got to it.
They would have been subjectto their whims and wishes as to content
and flow and everything else.
And at one point I'm like,heck with it.
I know what I want.
I know what we have here andwe're going to do it ourselves.

(55:11):
And that's what we did.
And.
And I wanted to make a bookthat I would like to read.
Yeah, yeah, than that.
Yeah.
And I think you kind of justpreempted one of my.
One of my last questions herewas what advice would you give to
someone who wanted to start akind of like a personal pass and
passion project like this,like you did, Whether they're a photographer
or you know, one of their other.

(55:33):
Whatever other hobby theymight have.
But what advice would you giveto someone who wanted to do something
like what you did?
You know, I've.
I've thought about that too alittle bit.
And this may sound a littleflippant, but, you know, I'm sure
that there is probably atiddlyweek society out there.

(55:54):
If you're interested intiddlywinks, do it.
Siddly wing project, you know.
You know, you know, especiallywith the Internet, you know, whatever
your interest is, dive downthat hole and see where it leads.
Somebody else has got to beinterested in tiddlywinks.

(56:14):
And so start again.
When I started, I had noconcept of where this might lead.
And just as an aside, we had ameeting three weeks ago now with
a film documentary producerhere in Atlanta.
Ooh, cool.
And if we can raise the money,we're going to do a documentary based

(56:38):
on the stories in the book.
Oh, wow, that would be so great.
So, you know, because we dowant to tell these stories to the
younger generation, you know,I just cringe when you hear, you
know, high school teachersmentioned World War 11.
I'm like, what are you thinking?

(56:59):
You know, let's wake up here.
I had the opportunity to sitin on a history class at the local
high school several years agoas the minder, so to speak.
And I tried to tell these kidsa little bit about this.
They had no clue, no clueabout World War II and what happened

(57:19):
then, still influencing ourlives today and will for the foreseeable
future.
And they just, they are notconnecting the dots in any way, shape
or form.
So that's another reason to dothe documentary so that we can break
it up into bite sized units,so to speak, that we can show to

(57:42):
high school kids and maybebring a little bit history into their
lives.
And, you know, and the otherthing too, I realized your granddad
was a lot cooler than youthought he was.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I mean, they really were.
They were very bright.
Yeah.
You know, he may look like afrail old man right now, but, you

(58:05):
know, there was a time when he wasn't.
That's right.
That is so true.
That's right.
Well, I love that.
I love that you're like the, apart of the custodian of, you know,
American history.
And I think that's fantastic.
It's important.
I think it's passionate.
And I think that nothing willreplace that when it comes to motivation

(58:25):
and getting stuff out there.
If you're passionate aboutsomething and you feel like this
is important, it needs to be told.
Nothing will replace that.
So I think what you do is fantastic.
We're so happy to talk to youtoday and to showcase you.
Where can people, where's thebest place people should buy the
book?
Like the best place to supportyou, support your work?
Where's the best place forthem to get the book?

(58:47):
The.
The Barber Boys website.
Okay.
It's www.wwii bomberboys withan S dot com.
Okay.
And I ship them.
That's my shipping officeright behind me.
I've got a pallet of them herein the other room.
Right on.
And about 3200 or so still in Texas.

(59:11):
Okay.
We printed 5000 all total.
So it's a fantastic gift,especially for the historian lover
in your life.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
Like, this is a fantastic gift.
Everybody who loves World WarII history should have this book.
It's a great coffee table book.
Artistically, it's beautiful.
So it's one of those books youcould actually just flip open and

(59:31):
leave open.
Like it is A beautiful book.
So it's more than just a book.
It's something that you canactually display if you're a historian
and love history.
Right.
We've sent three to Australia,one to Malaysia.
Oh, cool.
More than one or two to Europe.
It has been for sale in twobookstores in England, 12 museums

(59:54):
and so on here in the States.
And the National ArchivesFoundation Bookstore just started
carrying on.
Oh, right on.
So, you know, we're trying toget it out there and to sustain that,
but every little bit helps.
And I appreciate your time andinterest and passion about helping

(01:00:15):
to tell the story.
And to answer your questionagain too, passion helps, you know,
in doing a project you don'twant to just.
I might be interested in this,you know, if you're not.
If you're not passionate aboutit, you're not going to sustain it
and see it through.
So a little bit of passiongoes a long way.
Yeah, I would say that wastrue about flight training as well.

(01:00:37):
Yes.
I always tell people, you'vegot to want to be it.
You've got to want to be apilot because it is not easy.
Yeah, you got to want to be there.
Yeah.
That's so great to talk to you today.
Thank you for your time.
Now, you said you also have a blog.
Where can people find yourblog, learn more about it?
It's on the Bottom Boys website.
Ok.
Website.
And we'll put all that stuffin the show notes to our listeners.

(01:00:58):
And we're actually going topublish a video version of this as
well on our main channel.
So anybody watching orlistening, look in the video description
or the podcast show notes.
I'll include the websitedirect link so they can support your
work.
And then we're going to runoff to the post office and see if
the book showed up and sohopefully we can get that there.
So thank you so much again,John, for joining us.

(01:01:23):
Okay, Jen.
So that was our interview with John.
I really enjoyed it.
And there was a couple twistsin there that I wasn't expecting.
Yeah.
You know, once you start downthat history trail, the avenues it
takes you.
It's like the rabbit hole, right?
The avenues it takes you andthe things you find and what he's
learned, that these jacketsare more than just a jacket, that

(01:01:43):
these actually are stories,men's lives, their.
Their memories of their timeserving in World War II.
And.
And it was so funny because Isaid this after we had finished recording
the interview with him waslike he really buried the lead because
about two thirds of the waythrough the interview and if you
guys are watching or listeningto this, you guys have watched the
whole thing.
And so you already know this.
But he mentioned that he gotto photograph Jimmy Stewart's flight

(01:02:06):
jacket.
Yeah.
And the only person who has afull photograph of the jacket, like
the.
The only one, he said that themuseum hadn't pulled it out of their
archive since like the 60s.
Yeah.
It was the first time they haddone it, which is good because they
did a condition report of it too.
But no one had photographedthe entire jacket, front and back.
And he was able to do that.
I really just loved.

(01:02:27):
And I would love to hear backfrom our audience and, you know,
shoot us an email or drop us anote or comment in Spotify what you
guys took away from this interview.
Because I could tell thisreally, truly was a passion project
for him and the stuff that helearned from talking to some of these
World War II veterans, fromphotographing these true Americana

(01:02:49):
pieces of history, I couldfeel it in the interview.
It really was.
And what an incredible eightyear journey for him.
Absolutely.
And if you're interested inproducing the book and you do, let
us know what you think of itor if you have a connection to a
bomber jacket yourself, somefamily member, let us know as well.
We'd love to hear more storiesabout these jackets and see more

(01:03:10):
photographs of the art.
Yeah.
So if you're still here, I'mgoing to guess that you're interested
in this book.
We will have a link in theshow notes description or the video
description, so please gocheck it out.
I think it's actually a stealfor what he has it listed at.
For what you're getting out ofthis and the quality that it is.
Buy it for yourself.
Buy it for a history fan.
Support that history and thepreservation of it.

(01:03:32):
Yeah.
Thank you.
This has been Walk with his reproduction.
Talk with History is createdand hosted by me, Scott Benny.
Episode researched by Jennifer Benny.
Check out the show notes forlinks and references mentioned in
this episode.
Talk with History is supportedby our fans@thehistoryroadtrip.com
our eternal thanks to thoseproviding funding to help keep us

(01:03:54):
going.
Thank you to Doug McLiverty,Larry Myers and Patrick Benny.
Make sure you hit that followbutton in your podcast player and
we'll talk to you next time.

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Bomber Boys WWII Flight Jacket Art – A Hidden History

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Bomber Boys WWII Flight Jacket Art – A Hidden History