I hope that it is not a faux pas to post a very good looking and interesting video from another creator. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0C8PRnz3kW4 This video goes into some of the B29 nose art that they found notable. This is more than just showing pictures. They researched what happened to the planes and crews if they could. What happened to the crews afterwards if they were shot down, or captured. I don’t want to spoil things … but the first one really got to me.
They also went into why it is hard to find information about quite a lot of them.
The reason the nose art was removed or banned, even during the war, was due to the high commanders of the USAF thinking that the B29 was a cut above other planes and should have too much dignity to have nose art featuring … well… naked women. The reason we see any of it is some crews would just pretend to not have gotten the order. The only two bombers I knew any details of were, of course Enola Gay which has no art and is named after the mother of the commander. The other, Necessary Evil, was part of the same group that dropped the Bombs and observed Enola Gay to and from the target. Which makes me doubt that commanders didn’t see the art on it since under some different circumstances that’d’ve been the one that did the deed.
It is also interesting to see how many B29’s were lost without a trace. As in they flew on a mission and were never heard from again. This explained something I never understood which was why the nuclear attacks had more than one plane. Wouldn’t want one of them to just vanish.