That was more a choice by individual aircrew than higher command or bureaucracy.

I'm inclined to give, at least, the mid- and late-war bomber crew guys a pass on just about any personal "bad" behavior short of the extremely bad, given their terrible odds of surviving the next few months...

More likely than not they're living their final few weeks, let them paint a pretty lady on the plane's nose.

Too late to edit, I meant early- and mid-war. It did get somewhat less horrifying closer to the end.

And sitting on an airfield for months at a time bored senseless, it used to be cool to paint insulting platitudes like "Eat this MOFO" on munitions. Now:

1) Blowing kids to smithereens must be done in a politically correct fashion, even while violating the Geneva convention.

2) Nobody is sure who the enemy will actually be next week, so it would be shame to have to repaint them.

> even while violating the Geneva convention.

Uhh . . . yeah, no. As someone who served, that's flat-out offensive.

You don't need to take umbridge because your story is not everyones story. Unless you're claiming to speak for every serving person on the planet since 1949?

Now think, what do you suppose is the reason someone getting chewed out for scribbling on a shell really is when those are being used in a dubious theatre? (hint: attribution) The absurdity is the real crime.

I assure you the United States armed forces still write raunchy phrases on materiel.