An attractive dark brown leather, issue jacket with brown elastique hem and cuffs. The jacket has a single, functional front zipper with collar snaps, and a hook and eye fastener at the throat (the hook portion is no longer present). The jacket was made by J.A. Dubow Mfg. Co. of Chicago, IL, and has the one-piece label peculiar to Dubow jackets made under the W535 AC 27798 contract. The exterior leather is still supple and exhibits only minor wear and flaking along a few of the edge seams, and on the forearms of the sleeves. Some further fraying of the cuff and hem fabric is also visible. The jacket is embellished with a large, colored leather 4th Bombardment Squadron unit patch on the left breast (a yellow disk with Black Widow Spider in the center) with “Didi, Dum Dum, Didi” underneath, and “The Ship Worrybird” on the right breast in yellow paint. The back of the jacket has a large silhouette of a B-17 trailing a curved row of falling mission count bombs (35 in all) with the word “Finish” at the bottom. The paint is in excellent condition with light flaking along some of the leather texture. The interior of the jacket has a slightly worn, but intact brown linen lining. The 4th Bombardment Squadron was an element of the 34th Bombardment Group which, after stateside service following its formation in 1941, transferred to 8th Air Force service in 1944, flying from RAF Mendlesham until the end of the war.
