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"The best outcome is undercover display in a wreck setting and given the crash occurred in Libya it is very appropriate for display there as part of their cultural heritage of WW2. "
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From what I understand, she was an American bomber with an American crew that got lost on a bomb run against the Nazi regime, ran out of gas and landed in the Libyan desert. I don't see how any of that story contributes to the "cultural history of the Libyans in WWII". I am certainly not trying to sound elitist here, but I do think that with the tragedy being an American bomber with an American crew that died such horrible deaths in the desert, that the Libyan government might be so kind as to offer it to a group here in the US as a reminder of the sacrifices that our brave young men made. Just my thoughts...fire at will
Rebuilding the LBG to fly would seem to me to be like proposing to refloat and restore the Arizona and move it from Pearl Harbour to "stateside", its cultural significance is as a war grave and memorial in the battlefield where it fell, it is part of the cultural heritage of Pearl Harbour.
The Libyan cultural heritage I referred to earlier is the battlefield, and the battlefield extended into Libya at least as far as LBG is concerned precisely because thats where she crashed, her crashsite is the final battlefield for her and her crew.
Yes LBG can be relocated to the US where she was built, and where her crew were born and trained, but their crash was in Libya, their war was over Libya etc, LBG has spent far more of her "life" in Libya than in the US, she is intrinsicly linked to the crash site and the story of the crash.
Is Iwo Jima or Guadalcanal important heritage sites as battlefields and memorials, and worthy of preservation in situ, or should everything be scraped up and shipped back to the US?
Arnt the people in Io Jima or Guadalcanal the custodians of those battlefields? ie isnt it their cultural heritage to preserve, as much as those Nations who fought the combat?
World War II was one of the most tragic but influentual events in mankind and world history, why shouldnt it be preserved where it happened, and around the world, as long as the combatants and the fallen are respected and honoured for their sacrifice "where they fell"?
Why wouldn't? the US want the sacrifices and contributions of its servicemen to winning WW2 to be honoured where it happened, preserved and tended by the locals?
I wondered at the earlier compliants about the Lackland B24 being transfered to the American Air Museum at Duxford, but when considering the B24 did its work from English bases such as Duxford, it is a far more appropriate place one to be displayed (and preserved indoors) than at Lackland, and that outcome preserves and promotes the memory and efforts of all those US airmen who served or died in Europe, it is effectively a US War Memorial.
Similarly I wonder at the attitude of removing everything from PNG, rather than encouraging and supporting some preservation locally through support to create a bonefide & undercover museum, yes Swampghost shouldnt be left in the swamp, but its history (and then men who flew her) is very much bound up in the Pacific battlefield and therefore part of the Cultural Heritage of PNG.
Yes there are many wrecks that will rot away and are beyond local preservation and are better preserved through recovery and recycling into the warbird factories, but arnt some of them worth retaining locally as links to the true history of the Battlefield?
In Australian military history two of our most sacred sites are the Western Front in France, and the Gallipolli Peninsula in Turkey.
We hold those places as important locations of cultural heritage, and many of our younger citizens now take backpacking pilgramages to them, yet they are owned and caretakered by those other Nations. In Gallipolli the "Lone Pine" was an important Australian icon, but to have cut it down and ship it home would have been to destroy its cultural heritage not preserve it.
I think it is worth broadening your vision of preservation of history and cultural heritage to see it on a world stage, and not just on a continental USA stage? We are all citizens of the world, the US should be proud of its contributions to the world and want to see them honoured and preserved around it.
regards
Mark Pilkington
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