Item Description
Original Item: One-of-a-kind. Fantastic Korean War USMC aircrew member G-1 flight jacket with custom hand painted art. Brown leather goatskin jacket with brown shearling collar and brown blanket lining/ brown knit cuffs and waistband/ two flap, patch pockets on the front (no buttons nor button holes)/ painted in white on the right front is a pair of eyes with "VMF-N-542" painted above the eyes and "BATEYES" painted below the eyes/ painted on the left front breast is a USMC aircrew member wings and the name "SVOBODA"/ left shoulder patch for the 3rd Marine Air Wing of a red triangle with gold wings and EGA/ painted on the back is "KOREA 50-51" with a painted map of Korea and "VMF-N-542 USMC"; below this is "TIGERCAT" and "F7F-3N"; in the center back on the map of Korea is painted in red "38th" with red dashes across the country for the 38th parallel; on the map of Korea painted in red dots are air fields with the air field names painted in white and read as follows: "INCHON, SEOUL, KIMPO K-14, PUSAN, KANGNUNG K-18" (two air fields north of the DMZ are unnamed); a painted "N" with an arrow pointing up is in red; painted in white are: "SEA OF JAPAN", "YELLOW SEA"/ jacket I.D. Tag is missing.
Radio operator Svoboda belonged to the Marine Night All-Weather Squadron 542 of the 3rd Marine Air Wing. For the first year of the Korean War (1950-1953), the squadron flew night inter-detection and fighter missions in F7F-3N Tigercats, a twin engine heavy fighter plane. Svoboda's squadron and air crewman wings are painted on the front of this jacket. The map painted on the back of his model G-1 flight jacket shows Korean airfields and the 38th parallel, which is the line of latitude that roughly demarcates North and South Korea.
The art found on flight jackets usually incorporated common themes and symbolism, like the name of the pilot, squadron, and bomb group, the plane's nickname, and bombs representing the number of missions flown. Images from pop culture, like Disney and Looney Tunes characters, as well as pin-up girls were also common. Most personnel hired someone in their squadron to paint their jacket, but some did it themselves or hired European street artists who had turned painting flight jackets into a cottage industry.
This jacket was decommissioned by the Texas Museum of Military History and comes with original Accession paperwork.
Approximate Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 10”
Shoulder to sleeve: 25”
Shoulder to shoulder: 17”
Chest width: 21”
Waist width: 20”
Hip width: 18”
Front length: 27”
The "G-1" military flight jacket is the commonly accepted name for the fur-lined-collar World War II-era flight jacket of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. The G-1 remains a current uniform-issue item in naval aviation for officer and enlisted aviation personnel on flying status in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Coast Guard (i.e., Naval Aviator, Naval Flight Officer, Naval Flight Surgeon, Naval Aircrewman, etc.) and is arguably best known as the leather flight jacket as worn by Tom Cruise in the film Top Gun.
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