Original WWII A-2 Flight Jacket 563rd Bombardment Squadron 388th Bombardment Group Lost Worlds Collection

Original 8th Air Force AAF A-2 Flight Jacket WWII

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

 Original A-2 Flight Jacket 563rd Bombardment Squadron


LOST WORLDS FLIGHTJACKET COLLECTION

A-2 FLIGHT JACKET
563rd BOMBARDMENT SQUADRON, 388th BOMBARDMENT GROUP

 PACIFIC AND EUROPEAN THEATERS, WORLD WAR II
 

A-2 Flight Jacket 563rd Bombardment Squadron 388th Bombardment Group

 
Max Burns A-2 Flight Jacket 563rd Bombardment Squadron 388th Bombardment Group  

 

Max Burns Ella Belle A-2 Flight Jacket 563rd Bombardment Squadron 388th Bombardment Group
 


An amazing and inspiring record of service and heroism. Nebraskan Sgt. Max Burns joined the AAF in 1938, retiring in 1964. He was at Pearl Harbor, Hickam Field on Dec. 7, 1941. Awakened by the sounds of exploding bombs, Burns was ordered to man a machine gun atop an aircraft hangar with a comrade. He writes, in a letter to his mother, that they were firing at incoming Japanese planes, without apparent effect, when a bomb blew them off the hangar onto the roof of a paint shed below. Except for cuts and bruises, both were unharmed. Sgt. Burns went on to fly 25 missions as tail gunner in the Pacific with the 13th Air Force, then 27 more in Europe with the 563rd Bombardment Squadron, receiving the DFC with Three Oak Leaf Clusters and the Air Medal with Four Oak Leaf Cluster.

The extraordinary A-2 faithfully charts Sgt. Burns' WWII service, indicating every posting, from the Pacific to England. The back of the Jacket commemorates his 8th AF B-17, "WINGED FURY," in stunning vibrant colors. The artwork on this entire Jacket, done, it appears at the same time at the end of the war, is professional, virtually unfaded and striking.

(The Jacket was manufactured by Aero Leather and is a fairly atypical (for this contractor) Russet Brown Horsehide. It also does not exhibit the unusual wear common to Aero A-2s and shown widely in these pages. Was this Russet Horsehide obtained from a different tannery than usual for this contractor? Again, everything is speculation as all documentation has been lost in the mists of time. Notwithstanding, one needs a grounding in leather tanning, logic and research to come up with any possible explanations, as opposed to the hilarious, epidemic ignorance and wannabeism of the self-appointed "authorities" on the several vintage jacket forums/chat groups, who for commercial motives and "to meet new friends" (!) make claims preposterous, ignorant and deceptive to indoctrinate those with sincere interest in this historical area but lacking experience into their most unhealthy, unmanly cult.)

The Burns A-2 is in Mint condition except for the cuffs, where moths have done what the Axis couldn't!

We thank Carolyn Hayes of Oregon for kindly making this magnificent A-2 Jacket available to our Collection.
 


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