CHECKERTAILS - OUTBOUND ESCORT - GICLÉE CANVAS PROOF

Introducing the first publication from The Robert Taylor Trust and The Military Gallery – fully endorsed and signed by Robert Taylor in his lifetime.

Checkertails – the clue was in the name for there was no way of mistaking the highly- distinctive, black and yellow checkerboards that adorned the tails of the 325th Fighter Group. It was a sight that most Luftwaffe pilots dreaded and no wonder, because by the end of hostilities they’d chalked up some 520 aerial victories and dozens more aircraft destroyed on the ground, alongside the straffing of numerous targets such as trains, vehicles and airfields.

Veterans of North Africa and the invasion of Sicily, by the summer of 1944 the ‘Checkertails’ were based at Lesina on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Re-equipping with long-range North American P-51s they were now able to escort the heavy bombers of the U.S. 15th Air Force on all their missions north over the Alps to Germany, Austria, France, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, and west to Yugoslavia and Romania.

Robert Taylor, the world’s most instantly- recognisable aviation artist, remembers the heroic exploits of the men who flew with the 325th Fighter Group in his iconic piece. Few painters have the necessary skill to successfully blend the machines of war into beautiful landscapes as Robert, and his breath-taking work Checkertails – Outbound Escort is a classic example of just why he’s considered the greatest ever aviation artist. Taking centre stage are P- 51Ds from the 317th Fighter Squadron, 325th Fighter Group led by their CO, Major ‘Herky’ Green and his wingman First Lieutenant ‘Art’ Fiedler climbing in the crisp mountain air over the magnificent, still snow-capped mountains of the Alps en-route to support heavy bombers of the U.S. 15th Air Force in the summer of 1944.