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[disneydave]

I figured I better start posting or else you guys would think I'm just a phantom.

I thought I'd start with one of my most favorite items. I came across an issue of Popular Science five or six years ago that contained a copy of a postcard that was sent by a POW at Stalag Luft III to his girlfriend. The unique thing about the postcard was that it featured an image of Donald Duck behind bars and the caption "I Wanted Wings."

It took me about 5 years, but I was able to trace the history of the design back to the original POW who created the image. His name is Emmet Cook and he has become a very dear and close friend. And although we have never met in person, he has shared some great stories with me and he has given me (unsolicited) several items from his time as a POW at LUFT III.



The above is the image of the postcard, which appeared in the May 1944 issue of Popular Science. Through my research I was able to find out that the POW, Captain Robert Bishop, mailed this postcard to his girlfriend, Kate Brown. She forwarded the postcard to Walt Disney, who had insignia artist Hank Porter clean-up the design. I was able to secure copies of all of the resulting correspondence between Walt Disney and Kate Brown. The following image was also published in the magazine and shows the cleaned-up art, as created by Porter.



This post has been edited by disneydave: Jun 25 2007, 07:07 PM