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Cranston Fine Arts  Aviation Art World War Two Veteran Signatures United States L  Laird, Dean |
[UP] - Laird, Dean - Lamar, Hi - Lamb, Huie - LaMond, Charles - Landry, Robert - Lane, Charles - Lawley, William - Layher, Robert - Leighton, Charles - LeMay, Curtis - Lewis, Robert - Litsinger, D - Loberg, Edwin - Loch, Harold - Loisel, John - Long, Maurice - Lopez, Don - Lopez, Edward - Losch, Fred - Losonsky, Frank - Loving, George - Lowell, John - Lucas, Jack - Lucas, William - Luckadoo, John - Lundy, C - Lutz, Samuel |
Commander Dean Laird USN
After sharing a cople of kills whilst flying Wildcats with VF-4 from the USS Ranger off Norway, Dean Laird went with the unit to the Pacific in 1944, serving on USS Bunker Hill and USS Essex. Hee, in late 1944 and early 1945 flying the F6F Hellcat, he increased his score to finish the war an Ace with 5.75 confirmed kills.
| Commander Dean Laird USN - Signed Aviation Art |
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| Text for the above items : |
Okinawa by Robert Taylor. Following their victory at Midway, American forces had fought a long, bloody and bitter campaign to retake the Japanese held islands in the Pacific. By the end of March 1945, however, they had finally captured Iwo Jima and looked towards Okinawa, a province of Japan itself. But the closer the fighting came to Japan, the greater was the enemy's resistance. The five-week long battle for Iwo Jima had been bloody, brutal and costly with over 26,000 US Marine casualties. Of the 21,000-strong Japanese garrison on the island less than 300 prisoners had been taken; the rest refusing to surrender, preferring to fight to the death or commit 'honourable' ritual suicide. Now the Allied attention turned to the island of Okinawa. Annexed by Japan in the late nineteenth century and less than 400 miles south of its mainland, it was the place from which the Allied invasion of Japan must be launched. Supported by a huge naval presence, including one of the largest British fleets ever assembled, the assault began on 1st April 1945 with the largest amphibious landing of the Pacific war - six US Divisions landed during what has been referred to as a typhoon of steel. Japan's response was ferocious seeing the peak of the kamikaze scourge and the Allied fighter pilots, whilst providing ground support to the advancing infantry, desperately attempted to defend the naval fleet from unrelenting attacks. While the British ships with their steel decks fared much better, the kamikazes took their toll on the US fleet, highlighting a conflict worse than anything seen before. The 82 day battle was one of the most severe and bloody campaigns of WWII, accounting for over 14,000 Allied deaths and five times that number of Japanese soldiers. This painting depicts USMC Ace Dean Caswell and F4U Corsairs from VMF-221, based on the carrier USS Bunker Hill climbing away from the target area after delivering a blistering rocket attack on enemy positions on Okinawa. |
Holding the Tide by Richard Taylor. On 7 August 1942, just eight months after the dramatic events at Pearl Harbor, the United States First Marine Division stormed ashore on the island of Guadalcanal. It was the opening gambit of the land war in the Pacific. The painting depicts Captain Joe Foss as he leads the F4F Wildcats of VMF-121 back to Henderson Field after a day of desperate fighting against the Japanese in the skies over the steaming jungles of Guadalcanal in November 1942 - it would be another three months before the island was finally secured during which time Joe Foss would achieve an astonishing 26 victories to become the first American pilot to equal WW1 Ace Eddie Rickenbackers score. |
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This website is owned by Cranston Fine Arts. Torwood House, Torwoodhill Road, Rhu, Helensburgh, Scotland, G848LE Contact: Tel: (+44) (0) 1436 820269. Email: cranstonorders -at- outlook.com
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