Other artwork - "Arnold"
A piece of artwork that is worth some
mention is that of “Arnold the Pig”. The artist, Bill Ewing who served as a
technician on 442 Squadron from 1975 to 1978, tells the story of Arnold here.
“And
now the tale of "Arnold"!! Sometime during 1975, we had a Base
Alert and all of 442 (Squadron) ended up locked into a hallway in the big
hangar. A couple of the Flight Engineers got talking about how much they
hated 310 due to the different stuff it had, like hydraulic hoist, no
long-range external tanks, it's instability on the water (also because of the
lack of sponson tanks), and the different rotor heads. I was sitting
there listening to all these "tales of woe" and started to doodle a
cartoon of a pig, standing erect and wearing a tin helmet (old style).
They got a laugh out of it. Anyway, I got dared to paint it on 310 once
we got back into the hangar. A challenge is a challenge, so once the
Alert was over I dragged a stand over to 310, found some red & white and
mixed up a pink, picked up a paintbrush and started. All was going well
(I thought), when I looked over my shoulder to find (a) the Base Commander, (b)
his Adj, (c) the Squadron Commander, (d) and various other underlings, all
gathered around watching me apply the new marking. I figured that was the
end of my military career right then and there. And finally came the
moment I had dreaded - someone asked the significance of the pig (which now had
the name "Arnold" applied underneath). Before I could gather my
thoughts enough to come up with an answer, Marc Demers (442 Squadron Commanding
Officer) hummed and hawed then replied something about it being any Army
aircraft, etc. I finished the job, put my stuff away and "got the
hell out of Dodge". Demers later questioned me on it, and I 'fessed
up, but he just laughed and gave the okay for it to remain on 310. I
think it was still there when it was returned to the Grunts.”
For many years after the green livery disappeared, 310 retained the name "Arnold" even though the image of Arnold was not reproduced on the yellow 310.
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