Great to see all of these in one place!
401 BG had (arguably) the two best jacket painters in the ETO--Hall and Villagio. It was very rare for a jacket artist to sign his work, but these two did. Hall did "Heavenly Body" and Villagio did "I'll Be Seeing You". Villagio was a gunner on "I'll Be Seeing You". And his signature appears on the two jackets from this plane.
Years ago, in the early 80s, I contacted the 401 Assn when I saw the artists signatures. The man I spoke to did not remember Hall, but he did remember Villagio saying he was on his crew and gave me his phone number. I got a chance to chat with him and he explained how they did jacket paintings back then....VERY interesting.
I don't recall if it was the 401 Assn. contact or Mr. Villagio who told me that Villagio was asked to paint jackets for another crew and nine of the crew got the same design with the same girl. One man--I think it was the tail gunner--went with a different girl in his design. When the plane got shot down everybody survived except the tail gunner.
When I did my own jacket--after about thirty jackets for other people--I went with Heavenly Body.
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