Flight Jackets
Herman F. Allen's flight jacket
Time to go back to the Liberty Lady. I saw Herman’s flight jacket this weekend. He gave it to my brother Bill in 1992, and I had asked Bill to bring it to Columbia so I could see it. The front of the jacket reads “Eager Beavers” which I thought might be a nickname the crew gave itself. There is also the patch for the 306th Bombardment Group 368th Bomber Squad.
The back of the jacket has a picture of an airplane and the name “Liberty Lady” … it is definitely not the same picture that I’ve seen online here.
Don Courson, the Liberty Lady waist gunner, told me that the crew members did not all have the same flight jacket, and that the officers’ flight jackets were different than the nonofficers. He didn’t remember the Eager Beavers as being a nickname for the crew … He said the Eager Beaver was the name of a B-17 that they occasionally flew.
So we have a mystery here. I’d like to know more about the flight jackets. Did everyone design their own? Was it just an individual thing?
There was a note inside Herman’s flight jacket pocket which Bill found for the 1st time. It read, “There are so many thoughts, so many memories, a little horror, a little sadness all entwined with this jacket. It is now yours to have and to hold as a centerfold for all our love. Herman”