Original Item: Only One Available. Now this is something rarely encountered! One of the most popular WWII Air Forces items on the market are the painted A-2 jackets, but one would never think of looking for painted M-1943 Field Jackets! This example features a beautiful image of a pinup girl dressed in a Hawaiian style dress with the Sweet Lorraine above a musical bar. "Sweet Lorraine" is a popular song with music by Cliff Burwell and words by Mitchell Parish that was published in 1928 and has become a jazz standard. It is written in F major and has an AABA structure. A version by Teddy Wilson charted in October 1935, peaking at #17. It was a popular song amongst the armed forces during the time.

This example is offered in excellent condition. It still bears the original manufacture label in the lower right pocket. It has a wonderful front facing painted leather American flag on the right sleeve, painted leather 15th Air Force patch on the left sleeve and painted leather Bombardier wings on the left front. The leather patches are in wonderful condition but they do show age and wear. The 15th AF patch does show material/stitching loss and the others have color loss.

The jacket is named to a Combier though we have not been able to locate any service information on him. The jacket is free of any major imperfections, all buttons are present and the condition is excellent. Genuine WW2 issue M43 jackets with patches and painted artwork are extremely difficult to come across.

This is the type of jacket you only encounter once! It would be extremely difficult to upgrade from this one. Comes more than ready for further research and display.

Approximate Measurements:
Collar to shoulder: 10"
Shoulder to sleeve: 23”
Shoulder to shoulder: 17”
Chest width: 19.5"
Waist width: 19.5"
Hip width: 24.5”
Front length: 31"

The Jacket, Field, M1943 was a standardized field jacket issued to Army soldiers in WWII. It was longer than the M-1941 jacket, coming down to the upper thighs. It was made in a light olive-drab OD7, later a darker OD9 cotton sateen. It also had a detachable hood (not included), drawstring waist, two large breast pockets and two skirt pockets.

The uniform was designed to be warm in winter by use of a separate jacket liner. The jacket liner was a separate cotton-shell jacket with two slash pockets and button and loop fastening, generally in a lighter shade of olive drab (OD3) than the main jacket but in practice rarely issued during World War II. In the ETO this was intended to be replaced by the M-1944 'Ike' jacket, or one of the generic 'ETO' jackets which could come in versions that were either near-identical to the M-1941 jacket, but in rough khaki wool outer, or versions almost identical to British Battledress, both versions being produced locally in the UK in several variations.