During the war years U. S. Army Air Corps fighter pilots (the “brown shoe” air force) may have led the pack when it came to decorating their airplanes but bomber crews were not far behind. The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is a classic example; its large slab-sided fuselage presented a virtual billboard for the nose-art painters.
Larger, faster, able to carry a heavier bomb load and fly greater distances than the legendary B-17 Flying Fortress, the Liberator still holds the record for the most-produced American military aircraft…more than 18,000 units. The Ford Motor Company built half of these in its Willow Run, Michigan facility; at peak production Ford was turning out B-24s at the astounding rate of 21 bombers every day.
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| Willow Run production lines |
Assembling large groups of airplanes into the proper formations before heading to the target was one of the problems that plagued bomber operations in WWII. The solution was clever and simple: Paint a bomber in each group with a vivid, unique design that could be easily identified when airborne and provide a reference so the entire group could form up and continue with the mission.
These airplanes were sometimes called “Judas goats” because they led the bombers toward the target then turned around and went home. The designs on the goats featured colors bright enough to catch the eyes of pilots attempting to join up with their group in combat formation. In full color, this goat would have looked like the wrapper on a loaf of Wonder Bread.
But I digress. My long-time friend, neighbor and fellow ex-Air Force pilot Mack Parkhill is a serious student of 8th Air Force history and shared with me the story of a B-24 squadron that took nose art to a new level.
The 834th Bomb Squadron, part of the 486th Bomb Group, completed their B-24 training in Tucson, Arizona and in March 1944 flew across the pond to their new home base in England. Among the non-flying personnel in the Group was Cpl. Phil Brinkman, a talented commercial artist who readily agreed to decorate some of the Group’s airplanes…his “pay” was an excusal from K.P. and other unpleasant duties assigned to the average GI.
The Squadron CO requested nose art that would set his B-24s apart from the other airplanes in the Group; he settled on the signs of the zodiac and asked Brinkman to paint 12 of the squadron’s Liberators, each with a different sign.
The Zodiac consists of twelve constellations that suggest images of various entities such as a ram (Aries), a bull (Taurus), a crab (Cancer), etc. It takes an unfettered imagination to picture these images among all the stars in the night sky, but ancient shepherds had nothing else to do when they were watching their flocks by night.
We don’t know in what order Brinkman painted the Squadron airplanes but he eventually got to B-24 #42-52532 and decorated it with his version of “Virgo,” The Maiden. Given the pin-up girl culture of World War II GIs, most of Brinkman’s paintings featured scantily-clad females and with a common sub-title, the 834th became known as “The Zodiac Squadron.”
Virgo’s pilot was 1st Lt. Charlie Macgill (seated second from left in the photo), who led his crew on 11 combat missions until early July 1944 when the squadron transitioned to B-17s. Macgill flew a total of 30 combat missions, was discharged from the Army Air Corps in 1945, re-upped in 1947, and retired in 1965. Charlie was 88 years old when he passed away in 2009 having completed exemplar careers in military and civilian aviation.
The Big War came to an end in August 1945 and Virgo—accompanied by thousands of other war-weary airplanes—was declared surplus material and probably wound up as aluminum siding…Virgo and the rest of the Zodiac Squadron airplanes are gone forever.
And now the plot thickens. On September 30, 1944 a B-24 departed from the Army Air Base at Walla Walla, Washington on a night training mission that ended abruptly when the bomber flew into the ground 500 feet below the summit of Mission Ridge near Wenatchee, Washington. With no further information available one could assume the pilot flew into an area of clouds and rain at an unsafe altitude. None of the six crewmembers survived and some of the heavier items—including a landing gear assembly and all four engines—remain at the accident site.
The Big War came to an end in August 1945 and Virgo—accompanied by thousands of other war-weary airplanes—was declared surplus material and probably wound up as aluminum siding…Virgo and the rest of the Zodiac Squadron airplanes are gone forever.
And now the plot thickens. On September 30, 1944 a B-24 departed from the Army Air Base at Walla Walla, Washington on a night training mission that ended abruptly when the bomber flew into the ground 500 feet below the summit of Mission Ridge near Wenatchee, Washington. With no further information available one could assume the pilot flew into an area of clouds and rain at an unsafe altitude. None of the six crewmembers survived and some of the heavier items—including a landing gear assembly and all four engines—remain at the accident site.
In recent years my friend Mack (born and raised in Wenatchee) had become acquainted with Charlie Macgill, pilot of the B-24 Virgo, and their mutual Canadian friend Clarence Simonsen, an authority on aviation nose art and a respected artist in this genre. Mack recognized an opportunity to memorialize Charlie, the Zodiac Squadron and the ill-fated crew that perished on Mission Ridge. Simonsen readily agreed to reproduce Cpl. Phil Brinkman’s 1944 Virgo nose art, a project that would be even more significant if painted on an artifact from the downed bomber.
In July 2013 Mack prevailed upon his brother Dick and Dick’s grandson Kyle, both residents of Wenatchee, to visit the accident site and hopefully recover a piece of the wreckage that would be a suitable canvas for the reproduction. The Parkhill “pickers” came back with a 2 x 1.5-foot inspection panel (dzus fasteners included) on which Simonsen created a copy of Phil Brinkman’s 70-year old nose art; he added authenticating data and the inscription “To Mack for ‘Charlie’ from Mr. Nose Art” (the light blue character in the background is the celestial symbol for “Virgo”).
Long story short, all the bases are covered; Charlie Macgill’s life and the Zodiac Squadron have been memorialized, the crew of the Mission Ridge B-24 is remembered…and at the heart of the story, Virgo II lives on as an excellent example of “celestial nose art.”
Charlie Macgill's B-24 with the original Virgo
Mack Parkhill and Virgo II
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