Nose Art Themes

Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse

Many artists and animators employed at Walt Disney's Studios used their talents and skills during WW2 to produce a multitude of official insignia for USAAF groups and squadrons using the full range of Disney characters. A number of designs were also created for individual aircraft and Mickey Mouse was a particular favourite for use on Venturas (PV-1s) destined for the US Navy due to the proximity of the Lockheed Vega plant. However, it was assumed for many years that these were painted by Disney artists but in fact they were done by a civilian employee of Lockheed Vega, George McCraw.

Mickey Mouse is harder to find on USAAF aircraft and few examples of the cartoon seem to have been used unofficially by those who painted nose art on other types of bombers, fighters or transports. This is surprising considering the immense popularity of Disney's characters and the simplicity of the artwork. If you have found any more examples of Mickey Mouse used on nose arts, please share them with me.

Mickey Mouse was also popular with members of the RAF and appeared on some rare examples of nose art found on Lancaster and Halifax bombers assigned to the Canadian and Australian units. Indeed, a somewhat distorted variation was also used by the Luftwaffe's Lehrgeschwader 2 on their aircraft during the campaign against France, and, later, as a personal emblem for Hauptman Horst Carganico on his Me109, assigned to JG5.

Mickey Mouse first made his appearance in Disney's movie "Plane Crazy" in 1928, inspired by the exploits of Charles Lindberg's first solo crossing of the Atlantic a year earlier. Created in secret by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, Mickey Mouse was an instant success and the later "Steamboat Willie" became the first cartoon with synchronised sound.

Both name and image of Mickey Mouse are copyrighted by The Walt Disney Company and I use them here purely for historical/educational purpose

Name	Serial #	Type	Unit
A Token for Tokio Mickey Mouse promotes War Bond purchasing on this Ventura		PV-1	Unknown
A Ventura Gosh		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown
Aren't Those New Blockbusters Beautiful		PV-1 Ventura
Catharina A Horsa glider aasigned to one of the Troop Carrier units, 9AF		Horsa Glider	Unknown
Course We Will		PV-1 Ventura
Goodby Hitler!		PV-1	Unknown
He's Not So Tough Folks		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown
I'm Savin' Somethin' Fer The Japs		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown
Kwit-cher-belli-akin		PV-1 Ventura
Let them come gang...		B17	Unknown
M. Mouse Loans Possibly re-assigned to RAAF or RNZAF		PV-1
Mickey		B-25
Mickey Mouse	41-6194	P-47C-2-RE	4th Fighter Group, 335th Squadron
Mickey Mouse	42-52055		451st Bomb Group, 726th Bomb Squadron
Mickey Mouse	42-94851	B-24	34th Bomb Group
Mickey Mouse		P-47	Unknown
Mickey Mouse Sharkmouth			459th Bomb Group, 756th Bomb Squadron
Our Gunners Can Make Five O's 5		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown
Rat & Sas		B-25
Rat Race	42-78128		464th Bomb Group, 776th Bomb Squadron
Shucks 10 Japs In 10 Minutes Now What Will We Do		PV-1 Ventura
Super Race Huh		PV-1 Ventura
That's The Finish For That Sub Pilot		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown
We can take care of em up here! A Ventura heading for Alaska or the Aleutian Islands		PV-1	Unknown
We've got their number A Ventura destined for the Pacific		PV-1	Unknown
Wheelboy Lt Ken Mccleary	42-76076		362nd Fighter Group, 379th Fighter Squadron
Wow Look At All The PV-1's		PV-1 Ventura	Unknown