A published WWII USAAF 8th Air Force A-2 flight jacket with embroidered unit emblem of Lt. Ed Wanner, pilot of B-24 'Asbestos Alice' (700th Bomb Squadron, 445th Bomb Group). This attractive dark brown leather, issue jacket with russet-brown elastique hem and cuffs has a single, original Talon front zipper with collar snaps, a hook and eye fastener at the throat, and was not constructed with a collar stand. The label is no longer present, but the inspector’s ink stamp is still visible. The exterior leather is of a slightly lighter shade of brown than usual, with surface scuffs and wear throughout, as well as flaking along the edge seams, collar, and on the forearms and sleeves. Additionally, there are linear tears at the top of the right sleeve, and the zipper tab is missing at the hem. The cuffs are not heavily frayed, but the hem has scattered holes and tears. The jacket is embellished with an embroidered squadron patch (the Pegasus and Bomb emblem of the 700th Bomber Squadron with aircraft name: “ASBESTOS ALICE” written on the bomb case). A leather name strip is present just above the emblem: “E.A. WANNER.” The light brown interior lining of the jacket is in fair-good shape, but does exhibit quite a few tears at the collar, and a repaired tear at the left sleeve. The jacket is identified to Lt. Edmund A. Wanner Jr., pilot of the B-24 Liberator 'Asbestos Alice,' flying out of the 445th Bomb Group’s base at Tibenham, England. The group attacked numerous strategic targets in Germany and occupied Europe, and was nearly annihilated in the September 27, 1944 raid on Kassel, when a navigational error led the group away from the bulk of the 2nd Air Division formation, and straight into a scrambled 150 plane Sturmgruppe of Luftwaffe fighter aircraft. According to some accounts, only four aircraft made it back to England. This very jacket, along with a photograph of Wanner standing next to the nose of “Asbestos Alice," was published on pg. 85 of 'The Art of the Flight Jacket' by Maguire and Conway. This is a fantastic identified and published A-2 jacket.
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