Warbird Information Exchange

... is not about Ollie North, vaporizing Japanese, the Enola Gay, nuclear weapons, or who is right. It is the continued sole source contracting that is pervading the entire US government that should disturb us. If it takes 1-2 congressional or presidential elections to eject a bad deal for the average US citizen, it is my opinion that we have lost control of our government. I don't particularly care for Ollie North, and I am sure that his program will not have a clear "Japanese" slant to it, but I think it is his right as an American Citizen to make use of his institution for his purposes, so long as they are not dishonoring or otherwise denigrating the US and Japanese Citizens and Soldiers whom that artifact represents.

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REMEMBER THE SERGEANT PILOTS!

Whatever your opinion is I urge you to read what K5083 writes on this or any other subject. This subject breaks down into at least 4 parts. 1st, can or should any nat. museum make a business deal with one show; and if so was this done in a fair way, did NASM get good value for the rights? Do other museums do this, perhaps USAFM or Hendon? Does it need to be open bidding? Like most of us, I don't have any info on this. I have visited the museum both as public and on the restorers tour, and I think they have some great, friendly, dedicated people. I met Don Lopez recently at an airshow and he even remembered my name from the tour years ago at the museum. I love flying airplanes, but there are some too rare, too historic, SPIRIT, FLYER etc. to ever risk and the Smithsonian is the place for them. One thing I do not like; they claim to lack funds, and admission is free. I think they are the most visited in the world, millions each year; so I suggested they put some donation request jars at the entrance and cafe. If one of every 5 gave a dollar it would be a lot of money. This was never done as far as I know, and is a waste.

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Bill Greenwood
Spitfire N308WK

Very well put Bill. At the NMUSAF, we don't charge the history channel or Discovery channel for use of our aircraft as backdrop. If they wish to make a donation, we gladly accept. We don't charge admission or parking, but we do charge for IMAX and the simulators. The IMAX, sims, cafe, gift shope, and donations got us a whole other building. And we don't ask for money. The Discovery Channel asked if we would run one of the Memphis Belle's engines once she is complete for $1,000,000. We said no, and everyone backs that up at the museum.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Actually Bill, there are donation boxes located in both the downtown facility and the Hazy center.

Glenn

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"Remember....it's always better to overshoot and have people think you can't land than to crash and prove it!"

No, they told about how horrible it was in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Do you deny that it was horrible? Do you think America should be absolutely free of moral qualms about it? If so that is a very political position. The storm hit because the museum hired a director who, for the first time, was not a career military officer and he tried to instill some scholarship and give some attention to alternative points of view. And now WE have what WE deserve -- a museum that presents no thought or interpretation but simply displays its artifacts mutely to reinforce whatever preexisting beliefs we walk in with -- a glorified attic.


So then "scholarship", "thought or interpretation" and "alternative points of view" is code for your point of view? Since when does a Smithsonian exhibit become the university coffee house sit-in? Let's leave points of view out of it let the exhibit tell what happened instead of "should it have happened?". Visitors come to the museum with a wide range of views on nuclear weapons and the use of them in WWII. Do we need tax-funded big brother Smithsonian to tell us how to think by slanting exhibits one way or another? I don't think so. We have NPR for that. Leave the debate to the university history depts, coffee houses and the editorial pages. Yes the dropping of the bomb resulted in horrible deaths and wounded but what about the rape of Nanking by the Japanese Army? What about presenting those "alternative views" for broader context as to the type of enemy we faced? Oops, forgot, the Japanese didn't use nukes when they raped and ravaged Nanking so it's not as morally reprehensible. Some historians would argue the B-29 fire raids were every bit as nasty as the atomic bombs, but "the bomb" has all the political stigma and so it's considered somehow a more despicable means of killing. The effects of both were equally horrific. Intelligent, thinking people curious enough to visit a museum should be able to form their own opinions without being force-fed activist agendas pro or con. War is a nasty undertaking and I don't think we as Americans should take any pleasure in what we did to defeat Japan, but I don't advocate we wring our hands in guilt over it nor do I think we should apologize. It's a horrible thing that so many people had to die before it was over but I'm glad the allies won, aren't you? Should we have fought nicer? What does that look like? Perhaps reasoned with the chaps in command of the Imperial Japanese military? Japan was fire-bombed for months, their military decimated, attacked with an atomic bomb and still didn't surrender until a second atomic bomb was dropped. So we should have invaded the Japanese mainland instead, inflicted and taken hundreds of thousands (some say over one million) casualties? I suppose you can argue about the events the led to the war, but once it started, it needed to be fought intensely and Japan decisively defeated until they surrendered. Patty-caking around with an enemy leads to unresolved messes like today's Korean peninsula. Frankly I don't need or want a museum to teach me "what they make" of the past or more accurately, force their politics on me one way or the other. I got enough of that from my professors at the University of Wisconsin, alleged scholars who paid lip service to free-thinking, open-mindedness and alternative viewpoints as long as it was theirs. Exhibits are and should remain abbreviated snapshots of events, and provide a small addition to the visitors' existing knowledge and perspective without screaming "no nukes! or "bomb 'em into the stone age!" The Smithsonian turning the Enola Gay exhibit into a medium for political activism--be it for or against the bomb--is "drive-thru" and "drive-by" scholarship and not really scholarship at all.

When I say that they got what they deserved, I meant the museum, not the japanese. Although that is how I feel about them as well.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

Long ago, in conferences at the then-named US Air Force Museum, we discussed the possibility of charging admission to the Dayton museum and all of the much-smaller-but-similar USAF field museums. The general conclusion for us, concerning the USAF museums, was that the property displayed was already "paid for" (and still owned) by the taxpayers, so their admission had been "paid".

That's why the non-profit 501(c)(3) "Friends" organization, and similar groups attached to each field museum, are so important. They are the reasons the AF Museum program still exists.

I still have no problem "charging" admission, but it should be voluntary, and there should be signs prominent telling the donors that their cash is going to the "Friends" group, not the US Air Force, which is forbidden by reg from accepting cash donations (wish the IRS were so encumbered!).

Wade

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Website: http://www.wademeyersart.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Wade.Meyers.Studios

T33, the things you object to are what good museums are all about. They are cultural institutions that nurture and sponsor scholarship. Look at any of the Smithsonian's other museums and see the lengths they go to to located their artifacts in a carefully considered historical context. Check out the exhibition catalogs. See how they engage the debates about other aspects of American and world history. Heck, even the NASM does this with "safe" topics; see e.g. "Legend, Memory and the Great War in the Air," their exhibition catalog of their WWI exhibit. Only one Smithsonian museum has been browbeaten by political forces into abdicating this important role of a cultural institution as to its major artifacts, and that is the NASM.

This creates two problems. First, it makes the NASM insipid and uneducational. You and I can debate the politics of WWII. You can quote casualty estimates for an invasion of Japan; I can counter that no invasion was necessary, that the U.S. had already rejected surrender initiatives from Japan on terms harsher to Japan than those ultimately imposed, and that we made up those invasion casualty estimates mainly so that we can still sleep at night. We can have these debates because we are buffs and have educated themselves about the issues. Most have not -- and a tour through Udvar-Hazy leaves them as ignorant as when they arrived. Second, the attempt to avoid politics fails. Every exhibition and display decision is politically freighted. Just the fact that the Enola Gay was preserved and restored (at the instigation of then-Director Walter Boyne, an ex-B-52 pilot) and deemed worthy of display is political. In the same way, a decision to scrap it would have been political, as would a decision to hide it in Silver Hill. Make no mistake, the NASM's displays are loaded with politics, and though they have been garbled into incoherence, they are still very much the ones that the military and veterans' lobbyists wanted.

This will be all I have to say on this topic, I just wanted to object to the NASM-bashing that started this thread. They do a great job restoring airplanes even if they must leave the educational function to others.

August

Have you seen the photos of the Hiroshima victims, especially by the great Ken Domon? If you think ANY civilians ever deserve that for the actions of their leaders and their warrior class, ...

August

The NASM and it's planes are paid for by the US taxpayers. Any Tom, Dick or Harry can walk in for free and take as many pictures or video as he wants. Even non tax paying, non US citizens are allowed to take pics.
They don't ask you on the way out what you intend to do with it.

If Ollie North or any other tax payer wants to film, they should be able to make an appointment and do so. Ofcourse you can't disrupt other patrons viewing or damage a/c. I think if one makes an appointment with the NASM there shouldn't be a problem with filming.

Unfortuneately the NASM feels the collection is "Thiers" and not the US taxpayers. I for one have tried to make appointments, jump thru hoops and everything else I could think of to see some of the German aircraft gunsights in "thier" collection and have been met with a resounding "NO".
They really couldn't be bothered with me, plain Joe taxpayer. They did offer to "take" my collection though. Maybe I need to donate $10M or so?

Regards,
Mike

Have you seen pictures from Nanking or of US POW's? Were they more deserving?
Maybe the Italians/Romans should still be apologizing to Christains for feeding them to the lions?

This could go on forever.

This thread was started to discuss the right of an American citizen to film in front of an aircraft, inside of a museum, that was paid for by the US taxpayer.

Regards,
Mike

>>Parts of the Enola Gay were put on display originally with displays that told stories of how horrible America was for dropping the bomb. That is when that huge S@#t storm hit the museum. They got what they deserved. The plane was then pulled back to storage, next to the Swoose(another aircraft that will never see the light of day), and then when Udvar Hazy was in the works, they had no plans to include the B-29!<<

Hey Mustangdriver....have to disagree with you. The original script for the Enola Gay display was what caused the "%$&$ storm". It was 'approved' under a guy named Hartwit, the director of NASM at the time. And yes, it was basically an apology for dropping the bomb. A Garber docent named Frank Rabbit, made it public, and THAT was what caused the storm and eventual removal of Hartwit as the director. The script was re-written before the display was opened. I actually thought it was well done, especially in light all the contoversy surrounding the original. Unfortunatley the damage was already done, and it hurt the museum's ability to fund the Hazy center. As far as the plane being "pulled" back into storage, again that isn't quite accurate. The display ran it's course, and the pieces, forward fuselage, verticle fin and rudder, and 2 engines and props were returned to Garber. The B-29 was always in the plans for Hazy. There was no other facility big enough to allow the complete aircraft to be displayed. If you have any facts about this that I am missing I'd be happy to hear them. I've been a docent at the Garber facility and now at Hazy for 12 years.

Glenn Goldman

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"Remember....it's always better to overshoot and have people think you can't land than to crash and prove it!"

One of my relatives was at the Japanese Death March. Enough said. And you are right about Japan wanting to give up before the bombs were dropped, but they wanted to keep China as part of the deal. ANyhow like others have siad, this is about the plane, and I don't see why Ollie couldn't film something there.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Manager

>> nside of a museum, that was paid for by the US taxpayer. <<

Sorry to disappoint you Mike, but the Hazy canter was paid for through donations. The various levels of government kicked in $8million for environmental studies and stuff like that. If the guv'ment had paid for it, then maybe the workshops, storage building, and archives would have been built too. Or it still woold be under construction.

Glenn

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"Remember....it's always better to overshoot and have people think you can't land than to crash and prove it!"

Yes donations did build U-H. But the biggest part of keeping it up and running and restoring the aircraft is tax money.
Even after all the donations by fantastic people, me included, it still isn't a private museum. Which is what my point about filming in it was about.
My friends and I took well over 400 pics there this weekend, all for free, no questions asked. As it should be.

Regards,
Mike