Old Airplanes!

I was looking through some old airplane picture cards that my Father gave me long ago and thought they might be interesting to someone out there (Matt, could that be you?). They are from Wings Cigarettes and date to the early 1940s since the U.S. markings have the red dot in the middle of the white star. I have read that the red dot was eliminated soon after Pearl Harbor because of possible confusion with the Japanese rising sun insignia.

The P-40 was one of our best fighter planes at the beginning of the war but was not as maneuverable as the Japanese Zero and was replaced with more modern designs as soon as they became available. The P-38 Lightning was one of those new designs and was undergoing flight testing when the U.S. got into the war. Later on it was deployed in large numbers and kicked Axis hiney in the Pacific, North Africa, and Europe. We saw one at the Tillamook Air Museum and I believe there is also one at the Museum of Flight. The B-17, as everyone knows, was instrumental in bringing down the Nazis and was probably the most effective bomber in the war. At their highest production rate, Boeing Plant 2 in Seattle was rolling out 16 of these babies every 24 hours! Other plants throughout the country were turning out many more. There is no way the Axis powers could match that production rate and, to use a brand new expression, the rest is history. It's interesting what this country could do when we actually manufactured things.
Click on the images to enlarge them.