Bong, born in Superior, Wisconsin, shot down 40 Japanese aircraft during WWII.

The aircraft, christened Marge after Majorie “Marge” Ann Vattendahl, Bong’s girlfriend and later wife, is adorned with an image of her drawn from a yearbook portrait. At the time, most nose art featured scantily clad women or two-fisted aggressive cartoon characters, but Bong wanted something different.

The wreckage was found in a forest in what is now Papua New Guinea. It crashed there in March 1944 when another pilot, Second Lieutenant Thomas Malone, was flying a reconnaissance mission at night in challenging weather and experienced engine failure. Malone bailed out, evaded capture, and lived to fly another day.

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According to Pacific Wrecks Director Justin Taylan, the search team found the wreckage May 15 in Papua New Guinea’s Madang Province. Eighty years is a long time, especially when an aircraft goes down in a dynamic environment like the jungle. It takes a great deal of time to do the research, sifting through battle reports and old weather reports to find the approximate location of a crash, then traveling to the remote areas, which often can only be reached on foot because of the thick vegetation. Nothing is done quickly.

According to Taylan, the narrative of the aircraft’s loss suggested it had crashed on the grounds of a plantation.

“We have been planning this mission since October 2023 and every year conduct expeditions to locate historical sites or document crash sites,” Taylan told FLYING. “Our work is supported by donations from the public. The P-38 Marge project is in partnership with the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center, that funded half of the costs. Pacific Wrecks is a charity, and our team members are volunteers.”

When the team arrived on site, locals took them to a crash site, and it turned out to be a Japanese aircraft. The team was then told about another wreck located deeper in the jungle. The team set out again, and eventually found the wreckage in a ravine. Pieces of metal were found scattered on and in the ground and at the top of the ridge they found two aircraft engines embedded in the soil, indicating the aircraft went nose-first.

In a media conference, Taylan stated that when they found the wingtips with red paint on them, they were encouraged, as Bong’s aircraft was marked in this fashion, but added that they would have to find something imprinted with the aircraft’s serial number of 42-103993 to positively identify the aircraft.

Taylan supplied photos of  a wing tip that is embossed with what appears to be “993″. Another image shows a piece of metal stamped with “Model P-38 JK.”

During a video news conference from Papua New Guinea, Taylan said that the serial number and model identification prove the plane is the one they’ve been looking for. 

“I think it’s safe to say mission accomplished,” Taylan said. “Marge has been identified. It’s a great day for the center, a great day for Pacific Wrecks, a great day for history.”

During WWII, Bong was America’s top ace, shooting down 40 Japanese aircraft, three of them from the cockpit of Marge. In 1944 Gen. Douglas MacArthur awarded Bong the Medal of Honor.

Bong and Vattendahl married in 1945. Having completed three combat tours in the South Pacific, Bong was brought back to the U.S. and promoted the sale of war bonds when he was reassigned to test pilot duty in Burbank, California.

On August 6, 1945 while flying the new P-80A Shooting Star, one of America’s first jet airplanes, he ran into trouble. The aircraft took off around 2:30 p.m. and according to the accident investigation there was a problem with the aircraft’s fuel pump. Bong attempted to eject but his parachute did not deploy, and both the pilot and airplane went down in a field north of Hollywood. Bong was killed on the same day that America dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The next day in some newspapers the story about his death was given higher placement than the dropping of the bomb.

According to Pacific Wrecks, the Bong family was excited to hear about the discovery of the aircraft. Bong is still celebrated in Wisconsin. There is a bridge, an airport and a state recreation area named for him.

Tribute P-38s

There are two replicas of Marge in Wisconsin. One is at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh, the other in the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior.

According to Briana Fiandt, curator of collections and exhibits at the center, the P-38 they have on display was used stateside during World War II.

“In 1949 it was given to the town of Poplar, where Bong grew up, and put up on a pedestal in front of a school in 1955. In the early 1990s, it was taken down and sent to the 148th airbase in Duluth for restoration,” she said.

While all that was happening, funds were being raised to build a museum to honor Bong and others who served in WWII, as well as house the aircraft. The museum is located on the Bay of Lake Superior.

“The museum was built around the airplane,” says Fiandt. “We had it installed and the museum opened, then we built the other half of the museum.”

• READ MORE: Inside the ‘Spruce Goose’

Today the multi-story facility also honors the homefront during WWII, as well as the Korean  and Vietnam conflicts. There are more than 17,000 artifacts in the museum collection.

Fiandt said that the team in Papua New Guinea has sent photographs and videos of the Marge recovery site which are being added to the collection. Fiandt is not sure what will happen to the actual aircraft, but said she has reached out to the national museum in New Guinea which may take ownership of the wreckage.

Marge is also one of the most famous mass produced P-38 aircraft model kits. If you have ever built a model of a P-38, it is very likely you built Major Bong’s aircraft, which includes red spinners, wingtips and tail stubs and what looks like a photograph on the nose.

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The “Twin Cat” of the late 1970s and early ’80s was one such example. A development of the 1950s-era, purpose-built Grumman Super Ag Cat biplane, it replaced the Ag Cat’s single 600 hp Pratt & Whitney R-1340 radial engine with two 310 hp Lycoming TIO-540 flat-6 engines.

Rather than being offered as a complete, factory-built aircraft, the Twin Cat was a modification offered in the form of a supplemental type certificate (STC). The Twin Cat Corporation targeted Ag Cat operators wishing for more easily serviceable engines with increased overhaul intervals and multiengine redundancy, and the company offered to travel to the customer for on-site modification of their Ag Cats.

The company had some impressive experience at the helm. The president had overseen the development of a turboprop conversion of the Grumman Albatross and was assisted by the former chief test pilot at the general aviation division of Rockwell International. Most of the test flights were flown by Herman “Fish” Salmon, retired chief engineering test pilot of Lockheed. Salmon had conducted spin testing of the P-38 Lightning and had flown the first flights of the L-188 Electra, P-3 Orion, YF-104A Starfighter, and XFV-1 turboprop VTOL fighter. 

When designing the Twin Cat, one of the top priorities was to minimize asymmetric thrust in the event of an engine failure. The team did so by utilizing an unconventional engine layout in which the engines were mounted on either side of the nose with only approximately 3.5 feet between the propeller tips. The engines were also canted slightly outward to further minimize the effects of asymmetric thrust during single-engine operations.

The company touted benefits beyond the engines’ 2,000-hour TBO and better parts availability. While the engines were rated at 310 hp each, a sales manager said in an industry presentation that they derated them “with a pencil” and that the full 350 hp was available if needed. The Twin Cat’s total fuel consumption was the same as that of the single-engine radial Ag Cat. They also claimed the new layout improved forward visibility, prop clearance, and spray dispersion. 

When the time came for flight testing, the team got to see whether the new design could deliver the performance that backed up predictions. While the Twin Cat’s empty weight was the same as the Ag Cat’s, at 3,500 pounds, the maximum takeoff weight was 2,000 pounds higher, at 6,500 pounds. A load jettison function enabled the pilot to dump 2,000 pounds of payload if needed.

The new engine layout worked. With both engines operating, the Twin Cat’s takeoff distances were approximately 20 percent shorter than the Ag Cat. Asymmetric thrust was so effectively minimized that a sales manager claimed the Twin Cat could even take off with one engine shut down and then climb at 400 feet per minute at sea level. The company marketed this feature as a useful solution to ferry an aircraft with an inoperative engine to a location where maintenance could be performed.

In the air, the maximum cruising speed was 130 knots. By canting the engines slightly downward, the stall speed was remarkably low, at a claimed 49 knots for power-off stalls and 43 knots for power-on. A brochure claimed that the Twin Cat had “no V_MC,” which would have enabled flight all the way down to stall speed without controllability concerns. 

One account of the airplane’s flight characteristics suggests that it needed more refinement, however. It reportedly lacked any kind of rudder trim, and with an engine shut down, a pilot claimed he ran out of rudder and had to reduce power on the good engine to maintain control. It’s unclear whether the company planned to introduce rudder trim in future aircraft.

In the end, only three examples of the Twin Cat were rumored to have been completed and flown, and few photographs exist. One reportedly crashed, and the others presumably returned to their original single-engine configuration when the company decided against pursuing the concept any further. 

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Jackets on Display

Aviation museums have become repositories for flight jackets, including one of the most storied, the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. According to Alex Spencer, curator of European, British, and Commonwealth military aviation, military flight clothing, and memorabilia, the museum boasts 25 flight jackets in its collection, most from World War II and a few from later conflicts and wars.

Three of Spencer’s favorites are the A-2s worn by Claire Chennault, Thomas Weems, and Kenneth Williams. Chennault was a U.S. major general who commanded the U.S. Army Air Forces in China during World War II and created the American Volunteer Group (AVG), best known as the “Flying Tigers.” Weems served as a navigator aboard Martin B-26 Marauder Winsockie in the 69th Bombardment Squadron at the Battle of Midway in 1942. Winsockie was one of five B-26s sent to attack the Japanese carrier fleet. Only two of the aircraft returned. Williams was a member of the crew of the B-17 Murder Inc.

“The B-17 was named after a mafia group in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s,” says Spencer. “The guys on the airplane thought it was a good idea. When the airplane was shot down by the Germans, the propaganda arm took the name of the aircraft to show they had ‘absolute proof’ [that] the Americans were terror fliers out to murder civilians. It became an international incident and, when it got back to General Hap Arnold, he ordered a review of all airplane names. Anything to do with murder or killing or such were ordered to be erased and renamed.”

Williams was captured and sent to a POW camp.

“He scratched the name of the airplane off the jacket. After the war he had the jacket repainted,” says Spencer, adding that it is not uncommon for the families of the veterans to visit the museum to see a flight jacket that belonged to a relative.

The WASP Jacket

The latest jacket to be placed in the care of the Smithsonian Institute is an A-2 that belonged to Janice Christensen, a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) class of 43-W-5.

According to Dorothy Cochrane, curator for general aviation and aerial photography at the museum, Christensen flew many aircraft, including the B-24, until the WASP program was disbanded in December 1944. After her WASP service, Christensen worked at the U.S.

Airway Traffic Control Center in Chicago and at various weather stations in Ohio, then transitioned to a career in medicine. She continued to fly as a member of the Civil Air Patrol, and in 1949 she joined the Air Force Reserve with the rank of first lieutenant. She received an honorable discharge with the rank of captain on November 7, 1963.

Christensen died in 1965, so she did not live to see the WASP granted veteran status. Her jacket, donated to the museum by her sister, Dagmar Joyce Noll, is scheduled to undergo preservation and restoration before being displayed.

Museum of Flight Jackets

One of the challenges of exhibiting flight jackets is deciding how much history to share, says Matthew Burchette, senior curator at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The MOF has several jackets on display in the Personal Courage wing that include details of what company made the jacket.

“Not many people realize that there were several manufacturers of A-2s during World War II, ” Burchette says.

Burchette’s favorite jacket on display comes from Richard Jacobson, who was the copilot of the B-17 5 Grand.

“The aircraft was the 5,000th B-17 built since the attack on Pearl Harbor, and nearly every Boeing employee signed it as it rolled off the line,” Burchette says. “Covered in signatures, it flew 78 missions over Germany. I love how the Boeing workers took such great pride in their work that they were willing to sign an object that might not come home. 5 Grand did come home but was scrapped after the war.”

Burchette believes it is important that people realize flight jackets are more than just clothing or protective gear for pilots and crewmembers.

“They are an extension of the planes they flew and took pride in,” he says. “The flight jacket is an item of uniquely American clothing, and the artwork painted on many is even more so. Looking at the jackets on display, it is clear that the owner was proud to wear them. Some show signs of much wear after the war, while others are nearly pristine, showing they were treated with respect and reverence.”

Post-WWII Jacket

Leather flight jackets were still worn up through the Vietnam War. Many military pilots kept their jackets when they separated from the service. Rusty Sachs, a flight instructor for airplanes and rotorcraft, and executive director of the National Association of Flight Instructors (NAFI) from 2004 to 2007, is one of those. Sachs still has the leather jacket issued to him when he was a cadet in the U.S. Marine Corps. He enlisted in 1964 and became a helicopter pilot. According to Sachs, the jacket was handed to him in Pensacola, Florida, in February 1965 upon completion of preflight training.

Sachs, who served in Vietnam, tells the story of an enemy attack that had the soldiers running for cover in the bunker. Sachs left his jacket in the tent. A few weeks after the attack, he noted his jacket “had a few small holes in it made by shrapnel.” He had the jacket relined in 1969 when he entered the Marine Reserve, making the holes more difficult to find. After Sachs separated from the Marines in 1970, the jacket went into the closet but was recently sent out for restoration.

Family Heirlooms, Legacy

John Niehaus, a 5,500-hour airline transport pilot and the director of development for NAFI, wears a jacket that belonged to a Marine helicopter pilot in Vietnam who was a good friend of his uncle.

Niehaus decided on a career in aviation while in high school and received the jacket as a graduation gift.

“The note inside read, ‘I know I haven’t been the uncle you always wanted or needed, but this jacket was earned by my best friend who was a pilot in the military. It served him well, and he left it to me after he passed away. He would have wanted me to pass it on to you. I hope it serves you just as well. Good luck living your dream.’”

Unfortunately, the uncle died before he had the opportunity to share more about his friend. The name “Barthel” is stenciled inside the jacket.

Niehaus says he is very careful about where and how he wears the jacket because he doesn’t want people to assume he served in the military. “I never wanted to misrepresent myself to be something that I am not,” says Niehaus. “When I wear it, people ask questions to which I reply that it is continuing a family legacy of honoring a family friend. The person was special to my uncle as a friend, and…knowing that my uncle parted with something of such high sentimental value as a show of support to me was so incredibly special.”

Someday, the jacket will likely be handed down to Niehaus’ son, who, at age 4, already loves aviation and wears a jacket that looks very much like his father’s.

Receive and Bestow

I have been on both sides of the heirloom equation. In my collection, I have jackets given to me by gentlemen who will never be a size 40 again but who want theirs to be appreciated and occasionally worn on “military days of remembrance and obligation.” A recent acquisition is a pre-WWII A-2 that belonged to Captain Jack L. Martin, U.S. Army Air Forces pilot and father-in-law of Anne Palmer Martin, a college friend and my chosen family. Captain Martin went West in 1970 decades before his son Robert married Anne Palmer.

We’re still trying to determine what Captain Martin did in the war. We’ve been able to figure out that the patch on the jacket is the early version of the 760th Bombardment Squadron, but we don’t know if Martin went overseas. We do know after the war he flew for Flying Tiger airlines.

Recently, I gifted my first flight jacket, a 1980s era distressed leather A-2, to my niece Sophie Keene. My aviation and journalism careers began concurrently. My first “big paycheck” was used for flying lessons and the purchase of the jacket from the Smithsonian catalog. Top Gun had been released, and leather jackets were in style, worn by reporters in the Persian Gulf War. I was known in that small market as “the reporter who flies.” A few years later when I decided to make aviation a career, I upgraded to a new A-2, putting the distressed one into the closet. The day Sophie was born, I packed away the jacket for safekeeping. The jacket was gifted to her for her 18th birthday.

Since we are an aviation family, Sophie grew up hearing stories about my flying adventures and about grandma Kay (my Mom), who took flying lessons during WWII and loved the P-38 Lighting. I am hopeful Sophie values the jacket as more than a fashion statement.

Tribute Jackets

Most vintage jackets are too valuable and fragile to wear every day, but if you are set on sporting a piece of history, consider a replica often known as a “tribute jacket.” Kevin Wisniewski, a skilled artist from Milwaukee has been painting these jackets since 1987. According to Wisniewski, tribute jackets are often designs commissioned by someone to honor a person or commemorate an event.

For replica jackets, he often works off photographs because the original jacket has long since disappeared. Pinup girls are popular.

“They painted these on their jackets and aircraft as good luck, reminding them of what they were fighting for back home,” says Wisniewski. “We have to remember these were young boys in their late teens and early 20s who, if not for the war, would be courting these women and planning futures. Other paintings of aircraft or cartoon characters depicting giving the enemy what they had coming were also a morale booster.”

He has two favorite reproduced jackets.

“One…I painted a while back with the likeness of my wife, Beth, in a classic period ‘nose art’ pose as was on an original aircraft, Bottom’s Up! The other is a jacket that was given to me by a fellow reenactor and friend, George Bruckert’s estate. He had painted it himself quite well and very authentically. He passed from cancer way too young, and I think of him when I see it.”

Wisniewski uses only hand brushes and brush-texture techniques.

“This is how they were done during the war,” he says. “Airbrushing is a bad word in my dictionary. One modern improvement is that I use acrylic leather dyes that, unlike original acrylics, won’t crack over time or chip off.”

Another Kind of Tribute

The A-2 that I wear today falls under the heading of a “tribute jacket,” but instead of paint, it has patches to honor a person and commemorate an event. The first patch was Fifinella, the mascot of the WASPs, and a gift from Florence Shutsy Reynolds, WASP class of 44-W-5. The next patch is from the “Lost Squadron” P-38 Glacier Girl, gracing the jacket to honor Mom and cover a hole I acquired when I rescued a kitten from a tree. There also are multiple patches for my mentors. For Dean Boyd, the man who made an instructor out of me, I display the 8th Air Force. Boyd enlisted at the age of 17 and made a career of it.

There is also the Tico Tiger from the USS Ticonderoga in honor of aviation journalist and retired naval aviator Captain Thomas F. Norton, who flew off the carrier during Vietnam and taught nuggets to fly. There are patches from Lockheed to honor Dad, as well as ones for every B-17 I have been aboard: Memphis Belle, Texas Raiders, Yankee Lady, and Nine-O-Nine. And there are patches for Red Tails and Hemlock Films, which continues to share the stories of vintage aviation.

Aviation education is marked with a patch from the Society of Aviation Flight Educators, as I am a founding member of the group, and it was from it that I earned the master CFI designation several times over. On one pocket there is a vintage Moffett Field (KNUQ) patch to commemorate attending Zeppelin NT school in California in 2009. We are also an airship family, and putting that patch on was a must. I have found the jacket to be an excellent conversation starter. It encourages people to share their aviation stories with me. And I gladly listen.

Protecting Your Jacket

No matter how old the jacket is, if it means something to you, it’s valuable.

Protect it by nourishing it with professional leather care products. You can get these from shoe repair stores. If it is an heirloom, consider storing the jacket flat in a box or footlocker. It will last you a lifetime or more.

If you intend to sell it, have the jacket appraised by a reputable dealer. Authentic World War II jackets in good condition can fetch $1,500 or more.

If you want to buy one, modern flight jackets are not cheap. Expect to pay close to $300 or more for a basic A-2 and as high as $2,000 for an RAF bomber jacket. Beware of scammers who claim to have new authentic A-2 and shearling-lined RAF jackets for ridiculously low prices (less than $200). They may have the design of the jacket, but the materials are subpar. Instead of leather with a sheepskin lining, it looks more like someone tore up a faux leather couch and skinned a muppet.

Save your money and go for the real deal.

Where to find vintage? Prowl swap meets and even garage and estate sales near military bases.

This feature first appeared in the November 2023/Issue 943 of FLYING’s print edition.

The post All Flight Jackets Tell a Story appeared first on FLYING Magazine.

The aircraft is on loan from the Air Legends Foundation. According to museum officials, this is the first time the famous warbird has been on display there.

About the Aircraft

Glacier Girl is part of the so-called “Lost Squadron,” made up of six P-38s and two B-17s that were attempting to fly across the Atlantic in July 1942 as part of Operation Bolero. Bad weather and poor visibility forced the group to turn around, and the aircraft made emergency landings on an ice field in Greenland. There were no significant injuries, and all the airmen were subsequently rescued, but the aircraft remained behind.

Over the decades, stories circulated about the warbirds left on the glacier. It grew to legendary proportions when told around campfires at fly-ins, as it was said the aircraft were parked, frozen in time, and if you could get there, you could fly them out. In reality, decades of winter storms had buried the aircraft under several hundred feet of ice and snow, and the shifting glacier had crushed and torn most of them to pieces.

Through the years, there were at least 12 other attempts to locate and retrieve the aircraft. No. 13 proved to be the charm when Kentucky businessman Roy Shoffner financed the Greenland Expedition Society, a team formed by Patt Epps and Richard Taylor, specifically for the recovery effort. Bob Cardin, a warbird expert, was brought on board as expedition leader. The aircraft had been under the ice a full 50 years by then.

Hear the Story

One January 11, Cardin will be at the museum for a special presentation on the expedition and the process that took Glacier Girl from hunks of frozen metal buried under 27 stories of ice to the flying showpiece it is today. Doors open for the special event at 5:30 p.m. CST. Tickets are available for $30 per person for museum members, $40 for nonmembers.

Cardin, a dynamic and engaging speaker, brings the audience along as the recovery team creates the “Super Gopher,” a device that circulates hot water through a metal cone, allowing them to burrow to the aircraft.

The access shaft was 4 feet in diameter and it took approximately 25 minutes to travel from the surface to the aircraft. Sometimes parts of the walls of the ice cavern would fall during the process.

The aircraft had to be dismantled, parts wrapped and secured, then painstakingly lifted to the surface. The final piece was recovered in August 1992. Despite the decades spent under the crushing ice, the team determined the aircraft could be restored. It estimated it would take two years to complete—in actuality, the process lasted 10 years, but the detail is meticulous. Today, Glacier Girl is the only P-38 to have a set of working machine guns. 

In 2006, Rod Lewis purchased the warbird and added it to the Air Legends Foundation, which boasts airworthy fighters, bombers, helicopters, and transport aircraft dating to World War II.

More ore information and ticket purchasing is available at the museum or foundation websites. 

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