Were WWII-era pilots really this childish? | Forums

[jarink]

My dad sent me a scan of this booklet, which I have also found on the web. It's called:
I've Got Wings and was issued in 1943.

Looking through this thing, you'd think it was intended for little kids. No, it was actually given to PILOTS that had graduated from Advanced Flying Schools!!!


Some choice examples...


This is a "Control Tower"


Galloping Golfish!


Airplanes and Rotorplanes - that's us!


Eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-eh!


This is NOT contact flight!


Did I forget myself?



I am laugh.

[horseback]

Well, considering that most aviation cadets of the era were late teens-early twenties, it's not entirely unreasonable. Besides, the point is to get the material across in a memorable way.

Childish? Considering what they accomplished, and the sacrifices they had to make, maybe it's fairer to go with 'silly'.

cheers

horseback

[Crash_Moses]

Priceless!

I had five years in the Marines and I've seen worse. Gotta teach to the lowest common denominator...which would be me.

[Cajun76]

Crash Moses knows. That's when it was still Army Air Force.

I've seen pamphlets from when my father was in the Army. Talking Hummers and Tanks going on about maintenance intervals.

All the US services have flying machines, however one must refer to them by type they recognize.

In the USAF, we have "fixed wing" aircraft.
In the Army, they have "rotary wing" aircraft.
In the Navy, they have both "rotary wing" and "fixed wing" aircraft.

In the Marine Corps, they have "Urrr Ugh Grrrrr"

[Friendly_flyer]

The cartonns make you smile. Things that you have smiled at tends to stick, because we like the feeling of smiling. I tell silly jokes all the time when I teach, knowing that some of the pupils would like to retell the joke, which will make them remember the scientific the joke was about in the first place.

[zardozid]

That looks like the work of comic artist "Wally Wood"...


He worked at "EC" comics for years and was one of the artists who drew for the "Mad" comic book (before it was a magazine) in the 1950's...
His work here.

[Metatron_123]

That is really funny!

Which reminds me- didn't Nowotny's wingman have a callsign - ''Quax'' based on a cartoon character that always crashes?

I would like to see the Luftwaffe equivalent to this.

[jolly_magpie]

Wallace Wood was the greatest comic artist of all time! I don't think these are his work. He graduated high school in 1944.

[zardozid]

Originally posted by jolly_magpie:
Wallace Wood was the greatest comic artist of all time! I don't think these are his work. He graduated high school in 1944.

your probably right...I confused him with "Harvey Kurtzman" or "Jack Davis"...He was another artist with "Mad" comic book.

[jolly_magpie]

Yeah, just think of the average talent level of the old ECs and MAD. Mind boggling.