Mustangs Over the Eagles Nest by Nicolas Trudgian - a rare print featuring P-51 Mustangs of the 339th Fighter Group over Adolf Hitler's mountain retreat.

Commemorative Proof with the signatures of seven USAAF veterans of the war in Europe. 

In the final days of World War II in the spring of 1945, P-51 Mustangs of the 339th Fighter Group buzz the deserted mountain retreat of Adolf Hitler high in the Bavarian Alps. Obersalzberg, a spectacularly picturesque area of southern Germany in the Bavarian Alps, became a focal point for the Allies as World War II was drawing to its close. This mountain village had become a Nazi stronghold after the Third Reich had seized houses, farms, and some 600 acres, and built private residences for Martin Bormann and Hermann Goering, an SS barracks, and erected a 30km fence around the perimeter to deter intrusion. At its centre was the Berghoff, Adolf Hitler's private mountain retreat. 

Crowning Bormann's lavish building programme was the house he had built on a rocky spur almost 3000 feet above the Obersalzberg, some 6000 feet above sea level. Reached via a twisting road blasted out of the mountainside, the house was approached after entering a tunnel via a large brass two ­story elevator rising over 400 feet to the building. The Kehlsteinhaus was Martin Bormann's present for Hitler on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 1939. It was known by the Allies as the "Eagles Nest." 

Believing the Obersalzberg to be where Hitler and his closest henchmen would make their final stand, in April 1945 Allied bombing raids reduced much of the area to ruins. The "Eagles Nest", intended as a private retreat from which Hitler could gaze over a conquered Europe, being an isolated target, survived this onslaught, and endures to this day. 

Nicolas Trudgian's fine painting shows P-51D's of the 339th Fighter Group roaring over the rooftop of Hitler's now abandoned folly. With Germany and the Third Reich on the brink of defeat, this majestic aviation image conveys the poignant irony of the greatest lost cause in human history, with P-51 Mustangs providing a fitting symbol of victory over tyranny. 

In the tinted bottom edge border of the print are four colour images taken from Nicolas Trudgian paintings, these depict aircraft from the four American Air Forces that served in Europe during WWII. The aircraft are a B-17, P47, B-26 and B-24, the print is signed by pilots who flew each of these types in combat:

Master Sergeant Dale Moon - 8th Air Force - B-17
Lt Colonel Lawrence Powell - 8th Air Force - P-51
1st Lieutenant Ivan Hasek - 9th Air Force - P-47
Captain John Minech - 12th Air Force - B-26
Major Robert Sternfels - 15th Air Force - B-24
Captain Clintin DeWitt Burdick - 8th Air Force - P-51
Colonel Art Fiedler - 8th Air Force - P-51

This print is in mint condition and has the original Certificate of Authenticity.

Note: the 'Nicolas Trudgian' logo on the bottom right of the image does not appear on the actual print itself.