Beauty didn't kill the beast . . . Mickey Mouse did

Provocative headline isn't it? But it's true, right? Well, yes, sort of.

One component of the Disney Studio's participation in the war was the creation of approximately 1,200 combat insignia

The first insignia request arrived at the Studio in 1939 via a member of Fighter Squadron Seven (VF-7), based aboard the aircraft carrier USS Wasp (CV-7). The second request, received in the spring of 1940, was looking for a design for a squadron of patrol torpedo boats (PT boats were high speed wooden craft that carried a compliment of .50 caliber machine guns, 20mm and 40mm anti-aircraft guns, depth charges, mortars and of course, torpedoes). When America declared war in 1941, the number of requests rose dramatically.

During the war many units used a Disney character in their insignia design without obtaining proper authorization from the Studio - enterprising and artistic servicemen drew whatever design a senior officer or fellow serviceman wanted for their unit's insignia.

This was the case in the fall of 1931, when an enterprising artist at Naval Reserve Aviation Base Floyd Bennett Field in New York created a design featuring Mickey Mouse. The emblem has Mickey sitting atop a bird, which looks like either an albatross or a sea gull. There is a bomb and a trident under the bird's wings, and the Statute of Liberty is visible in the background.

The very first use of a Disney character on a combat insignia, created in the fall of 1931 for a squadron of Curtiss O2C-1 Helldivers. Ensign Edward F. Conway stands beside one of the planes with the squadron's Mickey Mouse insignia displayed on the fuselage. Ensign Conway also sports a patch of the design on his jacket.

Floyd Bennett Field was dedicated in June 1930, as New York's first municipal airport, by Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. The field was named after Navy Warrant Officer Floyd Bennett, a New York native who had accompanied Admiral Byrd on the MacMillan Expedition to Greenland in 1925. Bennett was also Byrd's pilot on their attempted first flight over the North Pole in 1926.The facility was built on Barren Island at the southern tip of Manhattan.

Patch of the design worn by men in the unit.

From 1931-1941, the field was one of eight Naval Reserve Aviation Bases that focused on providing primary flight training for Navy pilots. The base received a compliment of Curtiss O2C-1 Helldivers, a multipurpose planed used as a dive-bomber and observer aircraft, from the active fleet in 1931.

Helldivers with the Mickey Mouse emblem on their fuselages, lined-up on the runway at NRAB Floyd Bennett Field.

According to Lawrence Suid's book, The Making of the American Military Image in Films, an RKO Studio location manager contacted the Navy in December 1932 asking for the use of four Navy Helldivers for one day's flying time of two-and-a-half hours. The reason? RKO wanted to use the planes in the film King Kong. In late December the Navy denied RKO's request.

King Kong poster.

When RKO camera crews traveled to the east coast to film location shots for King Kong, an RKO representative contacted the Commanding Officer of NRAB Floyd Bennett Field with an offer: RKO would donate $100 to the Officer's Mess Fund and pay the pilots $10 each to fly around the Empire State Building. The C.O., not knowing his superiors had previously denied RKO's request, accepted the offer.

Four Helldivers took part in the filming. The fuselage of each sported the squadron's unofficial Mickey Mouse emblem. According to Suid's book, then Lieutenant John Winston recalled he and three other pilots were given orders to "go and jazz the Empire State Building." It took the pilots less than 15 minutes to accomplish their mission. Winston recalled, "We didn't know what it was all about. They just said there was some kind of movie being made."

King Kong publicity b/w photo. The Mickey Mouse emblem is partially visible on the fuselage.

RKO captured footage of the planes flying in formation, peeling off and then diving at an imaginary target, then looping and and attacking from the opposite direction. According to Suid's book RKO, "intercut twenty-eight scenes of the Navy aircraft with process shots and miniatures to create the fatal assault on Kong atop the Empire State Building."

A miniature Helldiver model, complete with Mickey Mouse emblem, sold at a recent Profiles in History auction - this model was allegedly used in the filming of King Kong.

If you watch King Kong closely, you can see the Mickey Mouse emblem on the plane's fuselages. This YouTube clip shows the four Helldivers taking off from Floyd Bennett Field and clearly shows the Mickey Mouse design on the fuselages as the planes attack King Kong.

So, not only was this design the earliest depiction of a Disney character on a combat insignia, but the design is also linked to one of the greatest science fiction films ever made - the mouse, in a roundabout way, had a hand in the death of the so-called eighth wonder of the world.