Hi Andy; From all I have been able to understand, so far, your own research and reference mateials and records should make for a vastly improved understanding and recording of the fantastic Waco ( and Weaver and Advance) history, and is needed, for current and future generations. The Kobernuss book, while providing lots of scattered snapshots into some of the more precise details and anecdotes, had a very confusing edit and organization, and NO INDEX!. I hope yours will have an Index. One thing that the K. book made amusingly clear, is that even Clayton Brukner, the long time President, who was THERE at the TIME most of these historical events and decisions were made, was, HIMSELF, very confused about remembering times and places and specific details and decisions, at the time of Kobernuss' interviews.
The archival files I still have, are often contradictory as to dates. This is sometimes due to major historical decisions and strategies being made, but then being follwed through, via a number of later steps and acts, with different dates, times, places, people. Yes, "putting them together," enough to follow a time line, is challenging. I would say, I enjoy the documents that record specific events and plans and decisions to move the company forward, with big decisions, the most. The 89 pages of the early planning letters, are a first person, Fly-On-The-Wall, time machine, discussing Brukner and Junkin's plans for an aircraft manufacturing company. They discuss the real STRUGGLES such as resorting to sleeping on the ground outside, for two months, and eating ONLY a 5 cent can of soup, each day, in order to continue paying for aviation schooling, along with a fair number of other Pioneers, who would become famous, and giving his own opinions of them, their aviation ideas, even their deaths, with his full eywitness accounts and examinations and explanations, as he knew and LIVED a daily life with them. The many stories of planes he THEN designed, modified, cobbled together, and WHY and HOW and WHEN and Who etc. are so wonderfully detailed,in these first person, accounts.
The company files go through other first person correspondence with other aviation company heads, and their epic, yet visionary, struggles to survive the Great Depression, and get involved in dealerships, air racing, military etc, The first person accounts and correpondence from tragedies, to triumphs, in detail, sometimes with a healthy dose of humor, is what makes aero history so fascinating. To have it all revealed, by those who made the decisions, at the Time they were made (rather than the very faulty memories, Kobernuss recorded decades later) are treasures.
The files I have cover from Jan.8. 1915 up though WWII (an exciting period, of decisions and challenges, of course) and past the end of the Waco company, in the 1960s. WWII period is paricularly interesting, as it presents the the confrontations of rugged individuals of great vision and daring, with the restraints and frustrations of dealing with, often exasperating, military and government requirements and paper pushers.
A story made all the MORE tragic, when realizing that Junkin and Weaver, never lived to see what WACO would become. But a story of Triumph, when going through the evolution of two boys reaching for the skies, and getting there.
_________________ hundreds of images of aero art, memorabilia, photos and artifacts at;
www.memaerobilia.com
|