Limited edition giclee print on paper – 199 reproductions, and 10 artist’s proofs
Overall print dimensions: 36’’ W X 23.5’’ H
Image dimensions: 32’’ W X 19’’ H
Price: $200 + S&H $14 U.S. / $45 International
Original:
Height: 28.5” Width: 46”
Framed/Unframed: Framed
Medium: Oil
Support: Board
Copyright Date:
Price: $9,375.00
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MILK RUN TO KYUSHU
On 10
August 1945, in one of the final bombing missions in the war
in the Pacific, more than 20 B-24s of the Fifth USAAFs 43rd
Bomb Group targeted Oita, a Japanese home island city on Kyushu.
Shown here are the Consolidated B-24 Liberators of the Far
East Air Force departing the target area. Of special interest
is the elaborate “Nose Art” displayed on late
war Liberators such as this one from the 64th Bomb Squadron,
43rd Bomb Group, 5th USAAF.
The B-24s in the painting were part of one of the Far East Air Force’s last bombing missions against the Empire of Japan. Seen here leaving the target, the city of Oita on the Japanese home island of Kyushu, elements of the 64th Bomb Squadron, 43 Bomb Group, 10 August, 1945 were part of a twenty-plus B-24 raid by the 43 Bomb Group on a mission dubbed a ‘’milk-run’’ due to the light-to-nil defensive opposition generated by the Japanese. In the foreground, #973 bears the flamboyant artwork covering the complete port side of the aircraft which would immortalize it and its creator S/Sgt. Sarkis E. Bartigian, who was assigned to the 64Tth Sqdn. ground echelon. Bartigian’s exuberant creations decorated the sides of a number of 43rd Bomb Group B-24s late in the war, but this one, ‘’THE DRAGON AND HIS TAIL’’ was the most well known and photographed. After meeting an ignominious end in the smelters at Kingman, Arizona following the war’s end, #973 recently was reincarnated in all its glory on the port side of the Collings Foundation’s B-24, flouting Seargent Bartigian’s provocative artwork
at air shows around the U.S. |
