This is a fun question, have you encountered the use of Disney characters on aircraft or as unit insignia for countries other than the USA or its Allies in WWII? Remember also, that Disney created many insignia for US and Allied units!
I have noticed Mickey Mouse in use as a personal insignia for Germany (Galland) as a unit insignia in Romania and I believe as well for Italy.
Donald Duck has turned up in unit insignia for Italy.
Any others that people have noticed?
Mike T.
Funny how that works eh? There were numerous German aircraft that had Mickey Mouse in various forms and poses on the sides of their aircraft. In fact, I’m putting the finishing touches on a Classic Airframes 1/48 Bf109D flown by Werner Molders with the Condor Legion during the Spanish Civil War with that exact emblem. It will look something like this when it’s finished.
Here’s one from Romania for an unit using IAR 80’s.
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/magazine/2004/11/stuff_eng_profile_farr.htm
Its a great representation of Mickey on a charger.
Mike T.
Jan Zumbach, the Polish Ace, used Donald Duck as his personal symbol. It was usually called the “Mad Duck”. The symbol got progressively rougher with each incarnation.
Disney carectures became very popular during the thirties and not just in the United States. They were pretty popular in Europe also before WWII. I could see how they could have been adopted by pilots and squadrons in Germany. They would have been well exposed to Mickey Mouse just as we were here. They were not used with Disneys concent I would be willing to bet!
Soulcrusher
Aye, I’m sure copyright infringement (or whatever rules govern the images) was not something they were concerned with. [;)]
Funny you should mention this. The reason why I chose the “mickey mouse” 109 was the fact that in this case it seems to be more than a personal insignia. many pilots had art work on there aircraft but carganico aircraft the mickey mouse insignia is very large and is in the position of the staffeln ID should be. The horizontal bar aft of the balken cross indicates 2nd gruppen within the 5 jagdeschwarder. But no indcator of staffeln postion on either side? All info I have refers to this 109 as Carganico “mickey mouse” as to say hartmanns “white 1”. I wounder what the higher up’s thought of mickey? Did they refer to this 109 over the radio as mickey mouse? How would you explain being shot down by mickey mouse[
] I assumed this came up from my 109 post, so I thought I’d throw this in.
But yah, I have seen mickey, donald, what I think was pluto on luftwaffe aircraft. The reich pilots liked them anyway.