I wish the RNZAF or at least some of our major museums in New Zealand had developed a similar philosophy at that time. Sadly nothing was done to start preservation here till the mid-late 1960’s and that was only down to private individuals, and collectively by members of the amateur group the Aviation Historical Society of New Zealand (AHSNZ) on behalf of the fledgling collection of the Museum of Transport And Technology. It was not till the very late 1970’s that the AHSNZ convinced the RNZAF to start preserving airframes, and that became the basis of their now excellent museum which opened properly in 1987. So we in NZ were well behind the curve.

The RNZAF had a Seafire XV that had been left behind by the Fleet Air Arm in 1946 having been damaged during exercises here, and they used it as an instructional airframe for Aircraft Finishers at the Technical Training School. Recently a December 1954 article was posted to the Wings Over New Zealand Forum about its impending destruction by the scrapper and a chap called Owen Shaw was trying to raise awareness that it should be saved and preserved. Well. it did not get saved, and was melted down along with so many other aeroplanes. This was just months before Sir Keith Park arranged for a Spitfire XVIe to be brought to NZ for display in the Auckland War Memorial Museum. I commented about how silly it was they were scrapping a Seafire in Auckland but bringing a Spitfire all the way from Britain.

Responses that my comments got included:

“Trouble was Dave, that in those days, surplus aircraft were not generally seen as suitable museum acquisitions for most collections. It was probably late 50s, more likely 60s that the preservation of potentially historic aircraft became fashionable.”

And:

“Also, folks had probably had enough of war after experiencing two huge global conflicts during the first half of the 20th century. So back then, old war aeroplanes would have represented something that many people would have preferred to forget.”

Well I was a bit angry and replied thus:

“It does not really matter what the “general population” thought at the time, museums are duty bound to preserve history and tell its story – that is their sole purpose, and there has been nothing more historic in terms of national involvement, expenditure and upheaval than WWII. So even as early as 1946 most museums SHOULD have recognised that they had just been through the most significant period in the nation’s history. It had completely changed the entire nation, far more than WWI had. And they SHOULD have been working right from that time to ensure the history of those times, or at least some of it, was preserved and not lost forever – that is their job.

The Government should have also been doing what they could to assist this, providing storage, allocating airframes, vehicles and anything else that was surplus to go to preservation.

After all, in 1919 the museums and other organisations, even whole towns across New Zealand were all allocated war prizes brought back from Europe by the shipload because it was recognised that the items would mean something in the future to those who’d served and younger generations. By 1946 the likes of Auckland War Memorial Museum, which was a fully established war museum, and the Dominion Museum, Canterbury Museum, Otago Museum and others should have been lining up for war prizes, decommissioned items, booty, the lot. And that includes aeroplanes.

Even in 1956 when Sir Keith managed to acquire the Spitfire from the RAF and the RNZAF allocated the Zero to Auckland War Memorial Museum, they should not have stopped there. They should have realised the huge gap in their collection and gone after a Corsair and a P-40, a Hudson and a Ventura from Rukuhia as well as other important types – they had more than ten years to do so before all the Rukuhia aircraft were scrapped, and they were not expensive.

Such aeroplanes would be far more significant to the nation’s history than a lot of the items in display in their museum, and especially as the museum had been dedicated specifically as a War Memorial Museum.

Just saying “people were not interested” means nothing. Most people are not interested in their 1800’s lace doilies, or their old furniture, or their stuffed birds or ancient Pacific artworks. Some people are, but most people aren’t. But they collected all those items and tens of thousands of other ephemeral things though, because they knew they were significant to “some people”.

And collecting those aeroplanes would have saved and preserved vastly more relevant items than most of the items in their galleries now. They actually could have taken a truck down to Rukuhia and actually saved Wairarapa Wildcat. And Corsair ‘Tutae Wera’. And that Seafire. They didn’t, and frankly I think that is a massive fail by the museums in those early decades after the war.”

And I am unanimous in that!