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Tony Starcer is probably the best known and most prolific nose art painter of WWII but his talents were discovered by chance when, during training, he entered the officers' Club at the USAAF base at Sheppard Field, Texas. Starcer watched a man painting a wall mural and commented that the man was using too much blue in the mural. The man challenged Starcer to do better, so he set about doing just that by finishing the mural.
After arriving in England and being posted to Bassingbourn with the 91st Bomb Group in late 1942, Starcer was assigned to the task of painting official markings, squadron letters and aircraft codes, etc, onto the group's B17s. By popular demand, this quickly expanded into an astounding array of nose art.
As Starcer's skill developed, his reputation spread and the 91st soon sported some of the finest examples of nose art to be seen in England. Working with whatever paint he could find, mostly house paint, he drained off surplus oil and then added linseed oil to thin it again and make it workable.
Coming up with the names and artwork was no spur of the moment thing. All the planes crewmen would gather to consider a name and design. He'd meet with them and sketch something out and ask if that is what they had in mind. When final approval was reached Starcer would not only paint the nose of the B-17, but usually the A-2 flight jackets of the crew as well. Working almost ceaselessly he could paint the nose art on a B17 in a day or less. This was all done using only the basic colors - red, yellow, blue - backed up with white and black. The subtle flesh tones he achieved on many of his later pin-up figures amazed everyone, especially those who knew only too well the difficulties of his working environment. But the jackets took much longer so they would leave them with him and go out on a mission the next day. Some didn't come back. When the crew men did not return from a mission to claim their A-2 jackets they were given to members of the plane's ground crew.
Of his 130 creations, without a doubt the "Memphis Belle" is the most famous. A Petty Girl from Esquire Magizine was painted on the nose. A little known fact is on one side her bathing suit is painted red, on the other side it is blue....He ran out of red paint half way through!
At war's end, Starcer laid down his paint brush and for years had little time for painting. In the 1970s, interest grew about wartime nose art and he began to paint renditions of his former works. When "Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby" was brought back to Dover AFB for restoration, Starcer was the obvious person to repaint its nose art and in 1981 he proved he had lost none of his former skills when he completed the restoration of a design he had spawned 37 years earlier.
He passed away in 1986 after losing his battle with leukemia but not before putting many of his works on canvas. These are displayed proudly in the Pub along with the photos of his nose art for your enjoyment and as a tribute to him.
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