One way I've discovered previously unknown illustrations my Grandfather produced has been by looking over scanned pages of Life Magazine on Google Docs. It is quite impressive; Google has uploaded virtually every page of every Life Magazine, published by-weekly, since at least the late-1930s (where I started looking). It's a tedious process, requiring a careful examination of each page with an illustration, and by the 1940s, at least half of all advertisements were still drawn (not photographed).
This was the first illustration I found by Walter DuBois Richards. It appeared May 3, 1943 on page 78. At the time, Wally was an illustrator at the Charles E. Cooper Studio in New York City.
What a thrill, I had no idea he made such exciting war-time illustrations.
At first glance, the focus here seems to be the United States Navy's Torpedo Bomber, the Grumman TBF-1 Avenger, attacking what appears to be a Japanese Aircraft Carrier in the South Pacific. The carrier looks similar to the Akagi, but in it's pre-WWII deck configuration. By 1939, Akagi had one long deck that extended from the bow to the stern.
In fact, this illustration is a short action piece illustrating the torpedo specifically. According to this write-up, they were mass produced by Pontiac, a division of General Motors, throughout World War II.
The aerial weapon illustrated here was probably a Bliss - Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo, the torpedo of choice for the Navy Avenger.
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The plane is a TBM Avenger,built under license from Grumman by General Motors Eastern Aircraft division.The Mark 13 Torpedo was assembled in the Pontiac Motors plant in Pontiac,MI by my Grandfather Saxton.The same plant also built Oerlikon AA guns for the Navy and Army.The same plant built the Pontiac Fiero and GMC Motor home.
ReplyDelete@117summit Wow! This is some really interesting stuff, especially the part about your Grandfather assembling these torpedo's. Thank's for sharing.
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