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The Pyramidiers' 343rd Bomb Squadron made good use of many of the other characters from the "Snow White" film including Prince Charming, the Witch and, of course, the seven dwarfs. "Bashful" was another of Amos Nicholson's skilful paintings with the figure facing forward, as it did with all his nose arts. It is believed that Amos painted all his first versions of the Disney dwarfs using a traditional shadow script for the titling. "Happy" was an exception to this, it used a shadow sans serif style for the title and the second version of "Dopey" used an entirely different approach to the titling, with multi-coloured, jumbled letters.
The right side of "Bashful" was previously painted by another 98BG artist as "Jersey Jackass". It was another of the B24s which were tragically lost on the daring low level mission to Ploesti on 1st August 1943. Six of John McGraw's crew were killed that day and the three survivors became prisoners or war. The B24D had begun combat flying a year earlier on 25th August 1942 when it was taken to bomb the Corinth Canal by Lt Muehlberg who would fly no less than 25 missions in the plane up to mid-April 1943. A further 15 missions were added by other crews until it was brought down in Romania on the infamous Ploesti mission with the 389BG crew of John McGraw.
Date | Pilot |
Target |
Notes |
25 Aug 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Corinth Canal | |
29 Aug 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Shipping strike | Returned early - aborted - hydraulics + 2 generators out |
5 Sep 1942 | J R Muelhberg | Candia Bay | Shipping strike |
25 Sep 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Shipping strike | #2 eng malfunctioned |
3 Oct 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Navarino Bay | Shipping strike |
9 Oct 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Benghasi shipping | Lost #4 supercharger, jettisoned bombs |
16 Oct 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Benghasi shipping | Abortive due to weather, bombs returned |
19 Oct 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Benghasi shipping | Returned early - aborted - #3 engine out |
28 Oct 1942 | J R Muehlberg | Navarino Bay | Shipping strike |
4 Nov 1942 | C C Clinton | Benghasi harbour | |
6 Nov 1942 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Benghasi harbour | |
10 Nov 1942 | Capt J M Kilgore | Benghasi harbour | Returned early - mechanical trouble |
23 Nov 1942 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Tripoli | Abortive due to weather |
28 Nov 1942 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Tripoli | |
2 Dec 1942 | G E Groff | Naples harbour | All 4 engines stopped over sea but restarted |
28 Dec 1942 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Sousse | Aborted just prior to target due to oxygen loss |
1 Jan 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Tunis harbour | Returned early - tail turret out, landed at Kabrit |
8 Jan 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Bizerta shipping | rerturbed early -- #1 engine lost oil |
15 Jan 1943 | J D Harden | Tripoli | Flak damage to nose and wing |
24 Jan 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Palermo Docks | |
31 Jan 1943 | G R Groff | Messina ferry slipway | |
3 Feb 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Palermo / Messina | returned early -- #2 supercharger out |
13 Feb 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Naples / Palermo | returned early -- gunner sick |
23 Feb 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Messina ferry slipway | Lost top and tail guns just after target |
13 Mar 1943 | J D Harden | Naples harbour | |
18 Mar 1943 | Lt Jorgensen | Naples harbour | Returned early -- #1 and #4 engines out |
24 Mar 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Messina ferry slipway | |
2 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Naples harbour | Returned early -- crewman suffered epileptic fit |
5 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Palermo | |
7 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Palermo | Aborted -- lost formation in bad weather |
11 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Naples | |
13 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muehlberg | Catania | |
15 Apr 1943 | Capt J R Muelhberg | Palermo | |
26 Apr 1943 | D S Watt | Bari airfield | |
28 Apr 1943 | D S Watt | Messina ferry terminal | One Me109 claimed destroyed |
1 May 1943 | D S Watt | Reggio harbour | Abortive due to weather |
4 May 1943 | D S Watt | Reggio harbour | |
21 May 1943 | D S Watt | Reggio di Calabria | One Me109 claimed destroyed |
25 May 1943 | C S Looker | Messina | Returned early -- #1 engine feathered, smoking and windmilling |
7 Jul 1943 | D C Johnson | Gerbini | |
11 Jul 1943 | C W Gooden | Vibo Valentia | |
17 Jul 1943 | L E Murphy | Naples | Hit by flak -- 40 holes, hydraulics shot out |
1 Aug 1943 | J J McGraw (389BG) | Ploesti | MISSING -- down in Romania, 6 KIA, 3 POW |