Original 1950s USAF A-2 Flight Jacket 85th Bombardment Squadron 47th Bombardment Group B-45 Black Flight Lost Worlds Collection

Original postwar A-2 Painted Nose art Flight Jacket B-45 secret flight

Original A-2, A-1, G-1, B-3 WWII Leather American Flight Jackets Lost Worlds Collection

Original USMC, Army Air Forces WWII Squadron Patches

 A-2, G-1, B-3 Flight and Horsehide Motorcycle Jackets

LOST WORLDS
 COLLECTION

Private Purchase A-2 FLIGHT JACKET

 WWII-1950s

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From the secret files of Cold War intelligence, classified for forty years.

In the early 1950s, in close cooperation with the RAF, USAF pilots in B-45s, America's first medium jet bomber, flew super-secret "Black Flights" out of Sculthorpe RAF -- deep penetrations of the Soviet Union to monitor radar and air defense systems. To prepare the way for the nuclear bombers that were expected one day to follow. Pilots penetrated to within 100 miles of Moscow, whose lights were visible on the horizon. None was ever shot down or intercepted -- a tribute to the expert, elite pilots who flew a little known aircraft that never saw combat but, in retrospect, flew missions as dangerous and important as virtually any in our country's history. (A surviving B-45 is at Wright-Patterson AFB.)

Captain Bruce MeLeiver's Goatskin A-2 is a private purchase jacket, presumably bought during WWII. It was rather amateurishly relined and rezippered with a (too short!) l950s Talon. The artwork is unique for its period -- very WWII-like in execution but from the period of the "Black Flights." On the left sleeve is an English-made bullion-on-velvet 8th AF patch.

His immaculate blue wool F-1 flight suit displays WWII style 85th Bombardment Squadron embroidered felt and 1950s embroidered twill 47th Bombardment Group patches, as well as Capt. Meleiver's leather name tag. It is even possible that he flew in this suit -- if captured his excuse could be pilot or mechanical error.

Jacket and flight suit came with a blue vinyl B-4 bag on which is painted his B-45 as well as a map of the British Isles with Sculthorpe RAF identified as well as additional European countries from which he evidently flew. USAF, squadron, group and air division decals complete the B-4 artwork. 

This grouping is unique and thought-provoking. Consider: flying unarmed directly into the teeth of the  Iron Curtain during the height of Cold War tensions, probably an act of war. If captured a Soviet prison would be your reward and probably your doom. You might even initiate World War III. Yet the threat of war with the Soviets was so high then that Eisenhower took the risk of approving the "Black Flights" (perhaps one of the few things that Ike ever did in his two terms; thinking and making decisions got in the way of golf).

 

 

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