A 1943 Cadillac / Fighter Plane Illustration

     Soon after joining the Charles E. Cooper Studio** in the late 1930s, Walter Richards began producing lithographic illustrations for Cadillac, a division of General Motors.  Its possible that Wally's work for Cadillac in the 1930s led into the various illustrations he made for General Motors throughout World War II and beyond.  For example, Walter produced a series of tank illustrations for Cadillac, as well as an illustration for the Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo built by Pontiac, also a division of General Motors. 

     This illustration, published in Collier's on September 11, 1943, is meant to raise awareness that during WWII General Motors mass-produced precision parts for various machines; such as the Allison transmission found in the above fighter plane. 
     The detail seen in the ground crew's clothes, their ripples, their shadows and reflections; it's all very impressive to me.  I remember that Wally enjoyed working in this war-time atmosphere.  With a wink he would tell me that he was an officer in the military during WWII, and brandish an official-looking military identification.  He explained to me he was given his rank so that he could have priority flying from one assignment to another.  

It's worth a read.  Notice the "Buy War Bonds And Stamps" stamp.  

   Starting in 1939, Cadillac began to focus it's manufacturing on producing precision parts for the liquid cooled Allison aircraft engine.  Turns out, WDR made illustrations profiling the Allison Transmission as well.  Impressively, Cadillac had to mass produce with extreme accuracy the machining of over 170 different aircraft parts.  Many of these machine parts required a tolerance grade of no more than three-ten thousandth of an inch.  Wow.  


I'm always interested in any further thoughts/knowledge you (the reader) may know about the illustrations I post, for example:

What type of plane is used for this illustration?
I see there are tents in the background, and the trees seem perhaps tropical in nature?  Is this an airfield in the South Pacific?

** This is a link to Leif Peng's Blog on illustration art titled "Today's Inspiration."   It is an endless and priceless source of information from which I have benefited many times over again and am forever grateful for.