Walt Disney's Old Yellow Beak

Character first created for a non produced feature film PIECES OF EIGHT or THE THREE BUCANEERS. Retitled to MORGAN'S GHOST and then rescripted by Bob Karp. Then drawn by Carl Barks and Jack Hannah for the first Donald Duck Four Color comics #318, DONALD DUCK FINDS PIRATE GOLD. Hank Porter then adapted BARKS design for the WW2 combat insignia created for Fighting Squadron VF-12 (V for Fixed Wing and F for Fighter) in the US Navy.
VF-12 equipped with F6F-3 Hellcats formed part of Carrier Air Group 12 (CAG-12) and was assigned to USS Saratoga, flying aboard on 1 August 1943. CAG-12 supported the Battle of the Treasury Islands from October-November before the Saratoga returned to Pearl Harbor on 30 November.

In January 1944 CAG-12 rejoined the Saratoga and supported the later phases of the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign and then carried out attacks against Japanese forces in the Indian Ocean before returning to Pearl Harbor in June.

In January 1945 VF-12 was assigned to USS Randolph and supported the Invasion of Iwo Jima and raids on the Japanese home islands.

The art was chosen for a 1944 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC article, but the squadron never produced the proper copyright release from Walt Disney for the article, so the article never came to fruition. Notes to this effect are on the reverse of the board.

Shown in the Japanese publication CHARACTERS OF MILITARY. Done in gouache on 8"x9.75" board with a 6.25"x6" image. A slight abrasion on the surface of the sword has removed some of the blood; but then again it was lucky to have survived WW2.