Today’s posters follow yesterday’s poster about building the aircraft – here it’s about missing parts.

Delays in manufacture were a major issue during the Second World War, and while a huge number of aircraft (among other weapons and equipment) were recycled, there were delays and issues there too.

So here we have two Allied powers posters on similar themes. On the left, a United States poster about delayed Douglas A-20 / Boston medium bombers, on the right a British equivalent featuring the perennial Supermarine Spitfire. The latter is a 1943 Ministry of Aircraft Production poster by Owen Miller, though the Spitfires are of a 1940 type, without cannon and three blade propellers.The Boston work has ‘Vanderlaan Illustrated Parts Catalog’ written at the lower right, so is a publication cover rather than a poster as such.

Interestingly, though both are simple artworks, they’re accurate and detailed enough. The damaged Spitfire prop may well be drawn from life, as the strange curved shape is typical of a wheels up belly landing, and unlike what an artist thinks it should look like.

The title? Once ‘ubendum’, you talk to the people who say ‘wemendum’.

James Kightly, Vintage Aero Writer.

The Spitfire poster from here, the Bostons from my collection.