An Interesting Letter from 1945

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!

I suspect War Prizes would be a good place to look for axis aircraft that were set aside for perservation (or were planned to at least).

I remember the BP Defiant N1671 was set aside for preservation early on. I had a check on its individual history on the RAFM site. Found this relevent passage:

On 28 Aug 44 No.52 MU packed `for Museum purposes’ Spitfire Mk.1s K9942 and X4590, now at Cosford and Hendon respectively. Also during the month the same unit handled Spitfire Mk.1As P9444 (now with the Science Museum) and R6915 (now at the Imperial War Museum). Also at Cardiff that August were Hurricane Mk.1s P2617 (now at Hendon) and L1592 (Now at the Science Museum) – these and the Defiant were part of a concerted effort initiated by the Air Historical Branch in March 1944 to assemble representative examples of Battle of Britain aircraft for museum preservation, namely several Spitfires, the two Hurricanes and the Defiant. That month the unit also packed Fiat CR42 MM5701, now at Hendon, and in September the unit handled Bf109E 4101 again now at Hendon, on behalf of the AHB.

Air historical branch covered this area and the letter seems to reflect what they were seeking..http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090430193951/http://www.raf.mod.uk/ahb/

Granted Axis a/c were set aside, but how many of them survived to recent years?, RAF a/c, what was saved Spitfires has gate guards, most other a/c we now have are from private collections… it would be interesting to know what a/c were collected at wars end.

regards,
jack…

this post may contain grammatical errors…

Why assume it was never acted upon?
Aircraft both of the RAF and captured Axis examples were set aside, both partial and complete. As are models, weapons, uniforms, engines and personal artifacts. Maps, plans, photos, aircrew records and the paperwork of war are set aside in archives.

Just that not as much as we’d have liked in hindsight was preserved. Nor has everything set aside for preservation survived.

A very commendable letter with great foresight, so the question now is what went wrong? did it fail to reach those with foresight to act, or did the committee block the suggestions, or after 5 1/2 yrs of war there was just no interest…
regards,
jack…

this post may contain grammatical errors…

So were letters like this sent to all station commanders and squadron commanders, etc, across the whole RAF?

And was this the beginnings of the RAF Museum at Hendon?