From bomb to boom silhouettes - Snapshots From the War

Airman, July, 2003 by Marti Ribeiro

OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM -- Sixty years ago, the 100th Bomb Group at Thorpe Abbotts, England, painted bomb silhouettes on the sides of their B- 17s after every successful combat mission during World War II.

During Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 100th Air Refueling Wing from Royal Air Force Mildenhall, England, carried on that legacy by painting boom silhouettes on the sides of their KC-135 Stratotankers after every successful combat refueling mission.

Staff Sgt. Scott Mccoy, 40 1st Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, deployed to a Royal Air Force base in the eastern Mediterranean, took the job of painting boom silhouettes on the aircraft. But according to him, he can't take full credit for the idea. Staff Sgt.

Denzel Capps, also with the 401st, came up with the design.

"The maintenance crews approached me with it, and I knew immediately it was a great idea," said Lt. Col. Eric Lorraine, 401st Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander.

Once the idea was approved, Mccoy made a stencil.

And he couldn't have been more correct. In the first three and a half weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the aircraft structural maintainer painted boom silhouettes on aircraft every day. More than 30 aircraft have booms painted on them, with most sporting 40 or more successful mission badges.

"I made a metal stencil of the boom, because I knew we would be painting enough of these that a cardboard stencil wouldn't hold up," he said.

But once these small badges of courage started showing up, it became a competition between the maintenance crew chiefs.

"As soon as an aircraft lands from a successful refueling mission, the crew chiefs immediately seek out McCoy to paint a boom on their aircraft," Lorraine said.

The competition has been so intense that some of the maintainers voluntarily performed extra maintenance to get their jets in the air, complete successful missions and get more booms painted.

When asked if the booms will stay on the aircraft once they return home, Mccoy just smiled.

"I think more than anything, it's going to feel great to fly home," Mccoy said. "We'll fly home with proof of our contribution to the war painted on the sides of our tankers. What better way to return?"