Warbird Information Exchange

...bit like the movies. If you don't like it then don't go. If the nose art was real [like the swastika] then let it be.

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..defeat is never an option!

any ww 2 luftwaffe model you see advertised in a magazine with out a swastika comes from europe. i find historical sanitizing quite distressing, & alarming. i'm jewish, & while i don't like what it represents, as to hate & cruelty, i'm not offended by it's history nor should anybody else.

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

The problem I have is when it comes to restoring the actual aircraft. There have been people that have been in the NMUSAF that said that we should change the name of the B-24 Strawberry Bitch to Strawberry Gal. My problem with this is that this is the real S.B. You are not just changing nose art on an airplane, but changin a piece of history. I feel that you have to be mature enough to understand what these pin up girls where for. If you feel that your child is mature enought to take them out and show them a restored WWII bomber, then they need to be mature to understand what it did, and who flew them. In my eyes it is an educational event. In many ways the art work on the noses are reaaly great and really are art. You can't change history just so you don't offend someone. If you are restoring a plane, and want to put accurate markings on it, and those markings include a pin up that it is nude, then I still say that it should be O.K. You are honoring a pilot and plane by doing that. I think people need to get some thicker skin sometimes.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

I agree. History is in constant danger of being censored, and anyone choosing to act as custodian to history has a responsibility to stand firm and thumb their noses at those who would sanitize it.

That being said, I'm an enormous hypocrite for saying so. I was forced to edit some in-game video I made for a wargame publisher to remove any documentary footage containing swastikas, because the company could not sell the game in Europe otherwise. I thought it was really stupid, but it takes a moral courage I was utterly lacking to bite the hand that pays you, so I did it. I still grind my teeth over it.

I can understand that no one is especially fond of the swastika, but its history as a symbol goes much further back in history than the Nazis, and any fears that the jack-booted thugs may re-emerge to terrorize the world again under that old flag are, I think, rather inflated. The world could well fall under the heel of facism again easily enough, but if it does, it certainly won't be beneath the banner of such obvious villians. It would more likely be beneath a flag everyone trusts and rallies to.

Most people living under repressive regimes vote their dictators in with a good deal of flag waving. It's only later, when people start disappearing at night, that they begin to realize their mistake. And then, of course, it's too late.

It's good to remember history. Especially the scary parts.

I recently picked up a book about the political battles surrounding the restoration and display of the Enola Gay, which is more of the same. Interesting read.

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What is red, furry and on your six?

The Nazis appropriated the Swastika or Fylfot in recent times.

It has religious origins and is seen widely in the East.

Here is a shot I took in Borneo.

PeterA

India uses the Swatzistia ALOT also yet no jews bitch about it????

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Fighters pilots are born to make movies , bomber pilots make HISTORY, cargo crews haul their material and fame.

sabredriver



I suspect jewish people are intelligent enough to distinguish between the swastika being used elsewhere in the world and when it is being used to "represent" Nazi Germany.

I understand the American Indians have used the reversed Swastika for centuries as a symbol of good luck?

but thats the issue, a symbol represents different things to different people, and while we aircraft enthusiasts might consider it just an historically accurate marking to photograph on a warbird at our next airshow, I am sure to someone in Europe (Jewish or otherwise) who suffered horrible atrocities at the hands of the Nazi's that the swastika would symbolise everything they hate and loath.

In the 1960's when the japanese car maker Toyota first began importing cars into Australia there were ex-servicemen who would not accept a ride in one because the "nips" had made them.

Strong emotions derived from the horrors of war are not just "Political Correctness" or "bitching", and our "generations" who have been saved from experiencing those atrocities by those earlier "generations" should have a bit of respect and sensitivity to what they experienced and their right to loath both the Nazi's and the Swastika for what it symbolised.

As I said earlier this is not an issue in Australia but I can understand how it would be in Europe.

I support truth in history, and over time when people who lived through the Nazi years have passed on, then perhaps Europe will treat the Swastika as an historical symbol, until then I support those victim's right to "bitch" as much as they want!

We should never forget how close the world came to being dominated by the Axis powers, and the brutality inflicted on Jews, civilians and others during that time.

I am sure we can cope with some minor modification of aircraft markings for us to look and photograph at airshows if thats what it takes to help people cope with those memories?


regards
Mark Pilkington


"Lest We Forget"!


SS officer Eichelsdoerfer stands among the bodies of prisoners killed at the Kaufering IV concentration camp, April 1945. Eichelsdoerfer was the commandant of the camp.


A German girl is overcome as she walks past the exhumed bodies of some of the 800 slave workers murdered by the SS guards near Namering, Germany, and laid here so that townspeople may view the work of their Nazi leaders.
Photo Credit: National Archives and Records Administration, item 111-SC-264895. Cpl. Edward Belfer, photographer, May 17, 1945.

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20th Century - The Age of Manned Flight
"from Wrights to Armstrong in 66 years -WOW!"

Thanks for reminding me what a huge f#$%head Hitler was.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director

the symbol is a good luck talisman in some cultures, but will always be indentified with it's ugly conotation indelibly for eternity to ww 2 horrors

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tom d. friedman - hey!!! those fokkers were messerschmitts!! * without ammunition, the usaf would be just another flying club!!! * better to have piece of mind than piece of tail!!

Anybody notice or care that this website is censored? Talk about political correctness?

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Check out our new website.
CAF SoCal Wing http://www.cafsocal.com/

I believe you'll find that the laws in Germany regarding the swastika were enacted by Germans trying to distance themselves from their Nazi past, and trying to keep that past from becoming glorified. The same goes for the SS runes...ever seen a Kiss record from Germany?

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

Ehh? In what way?

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"Anyway, the throat feels a bit rough...the legs have gone...but I'm still able to chant, so let's get going."

Joe Strummer, 1999

Type H-E-L-L and it changes to heck. Type D-A-M-N and it changes to darn I am sure there are others. I find it kind of childish.

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Check out our new website.
CAF SoCal Wing http://www.cafsocal.com/

Oh, Really..that one hurt....now I can't be a warbird lover cause I' am a redneck. You elitist yuppy pukes can't have it both ways, sorry. I assume you also believe no redneck rascists fought in and on warbirds. Give me the directions to your planet so as to avoid it on the next acid trip. Male PMS just reared it's ugly head again. Have a nice day..somewhere else.

Wasn't there a B-29 group that had to cover up the naked girls for some General, but they used water based paint? Next mission they flew into some rain and all of the bathing suits that had been painted on where washed away.

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Chris Henry
EAA Aviation Museum Director