QN SUMMER 23 FINAL

THE BACK PAGE
E. A.‘Chris’ Wren - aircraft Oddentification!
While on a recent trip to Suffolk your Eds
visited many of our favourite bookshops and
this time found a real gem. “RAF Parade” is
a 1944 collection of RAF themed cartoons
by the great artists of the wartime era,
including the legendary Giles. Amazingly,
the book was also the personal copy of
Chaz Boyer, the well known writer of over 40
books about the RAF.
One of the cartoonists whose work
appealed straight away was E.A.“Chris”
Wren (1909-1982) and his series of aircraft
cartoon ‘profiles’ called Oddentification.
E. A. “Chris” Wren was a well known
freelance aviation cartoonist in the UK.
During WW2 aircraft identification became
essential for the Armed Forces after 1941,
when political pressure was applied to
save Allied lives from ‘friendly fire’. Wren
portrayed caricatures of aircraft, entitled
Oddentification, which then highlighted
salient aircraft characteristics as an aid
to identification. The quirky style added
humour to the individual aircraft profile,
gave them ‘character’ and made the
shapes easier to remember.
Wren regularly appeared in Aeroplane
with his column Wroundabout and the
aerodynamic animation of his aircraft
caricatures, (which somehow looked more
real than the originals), and his wartime
Oddentifications won him an enormous
international aviation fan club.
The Empire Test Pilots School mess is
apparently filled with his drawings of the
countless international pilots who have
attended it over the years. Wren died at the
1982 ETPS annual dinner (an occasion he
would never miss) at a youthful 73 and at
the height of his powers.
The little yellow Oddentification book is
now a real collectors’ gem and features a
barrel-like Brewster Buffalo on the cover!
David Calow GAvA
1944’s ‘RAF Parade’
featuring a colour
Giles cartoon on
the cover.
Every Oddentification had a rhyming poem
about each aircfraft
36 GUILD OF AVIATION ARTISTS QUARTERLY NEWS SUMMER 2023