Category Archives: Stories

The Museum’s Pearl Harbor Survivor

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In American military history there are few dates more familiar than “December 7th, 1941… a date which will live in infamy…”

The Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on that serene Sunday morning marked America’s official entry into a global war that had been raging in Europe and throughout Asia for many years. Yet after the raid had ended, the wounded treated, and the dead counted, there remained pockets of hope that all was not lost that day.

 

Ford Island Runway

A variety of aircraft were stationed at Ford Island in 1941.

On Ford Island, just across from battleship row, ten Sikorsky JRS-1 Flying Boats (Amphibians) had escaped any serious damage from the multi-wave attack. Early the following morning, around 3:00 am Pearl Harbor time on December 8, Navy JRS-1 crews took to the air in search of the Japanese fleet. The Sikorsky JRS-1, a utility and transport aircraft, was not armed…normally. But that morning, the crew along with several rifle-armed passengers were assigned to not only conduct search and rescue missions, but also search and destroy any Japanese ships that they encountered.

 

JRS-1

The JRS-1 "flew" briefly as it was removed from the transport truck and touched down in the hangar last spring. Our JRS-1 is the only Pearl Harbor-related aircraft in our collection, and the only JRS-1 remaining in the world.

Last June, one of those veteran JRS-1 crewmen visited us at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar and was reunited with the very plane that he had flown as a radioman in those days following the attack. Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.), recounted the events during a three-hour oral history interview accomplished in the shadow of his old Sikorsky friend.

As he viewed the fuselage of the craft for the first time in nearly six decades, he could not contain the tears, the smiles, and then the joy of being reunited with an object that had been his defender and his home away from home all those many years ago.

 

Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.)

Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron, USN (ret.) got a chance to view his old radio station inside the JRS-1 at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar.

Waldron and other Pearl Harbor veterans will return to Hawaii this week to participate in what may be the final reunion of Pearl survivors. Each will visit their exact duty location on that Sunday. Waldron was at Hangar 37 during a shift change when the Japanese first wave struck.

On this day, we remember those who perished that Sunday morning, now 70 years ago. We also remember the 16 million more who served and fought during the next four years with bravery, courage, and heroism to help put an end to tyranny around the globe. Veterans like Lt. Cmdr. Harvey Waldron are rare indeed.

To all those veterans of World War II and their families, thank you for your dedicated service!

Do you have any Pearl Harbor stories? Feel free to share them with us.

Dik Daso is the curator of modern military aircraft in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

Above Water

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When the floods in Thailand appeared in the news recently, my friends and colleagues recommended that I stay away.  But how could I?  It was only a 4.5 hour flight from China (where I would be attending the Lishui International Photography Festival November 5 – 9) and photographing the Bangkok (BKK) air traffic control tower at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport was a high priority on my “to do” list.  Actually, the highest.  It is the tallest freestanding air traffic control tower in the world at 132.2 meters (434 feet) and a major tower to include in my upcoming book and Smithsonian exhibition The Art of the Airport Tower.

 

BKK

BKK Air Traffic Control Tower at Suvarnabhumi International Airport, Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 2011.

Getting to the various locations to photograph airport towers is only part of the job. First I must obtain official access to photograph each tower.  For towers in the United States, I have a process in place with the FAA for approval.  International access is another story. However, so far, so good with towers now completed in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, and Italy.

But after several weeks of unanswered e-mails  to different airport authorities at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, I became worried and turned to a personal contact in Bangkok, my childhood pen pal.  As pen pals, Choedkrid  “Jon” and I had exchanged letters throughout high school, and we met once during his visit to the United States in 1989.  We had reconnected earlier this year on Facebook and I found that he works for Thai Airways, quite coincidentally.

So, “Jon” made the calls for me and forwarded my requests to the proper authorities, which resulted in an official letter of permission – my golden ticket.  The BKK tower is a gigantic beauty, the weather was great for shooting, and I had a perfect photography session.

Photographing airport towers all over the world is an ambitious undertaking. Working in partnership with the Museum’s Development Office, we have created sponsorship opportunities that would open up the possibility of traveling to and highlighting as many of these historic landmarks as possible.

 

 

BKK

BKK Air Traffic Control Tower reflections on AeroThai building at Suvarnabhumi International Airport. Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 2011.

And about those floods —  Jon provided me with a close-up view from a military-style truck that drove through the flooded streets.  My feet stayed dry as I photographed the flood damage below.  I watched people navigate their way in trucks and boats on the newly formed waterways. Some on foot were partly submerged.  The citizens of Bangkok helped each other and readily adapted to new transportation and relocation adjustments in order to continue with their daily business routines.  I brought back from this recent trip not only new photographs for the Art of the Airport Tower, but a reconnection to an old friend and the utmost respect for a culture that stood tall in the face of a national crisis.

 

Floods

Downtown flood water in Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 2011

 

Bangkok

Downtown flood water in Bangkok, Thailand Nov. 2011 Credit: Carolyn Russo

Carolyn Russo is a museum specialist/photographer in the Aeronautics Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

 

Remembering Steve Jobs

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Like so many of us, I too was saddened to hear of the death of Steve Jobs last week. I never owned an Apple II, but I recalled very well those early days of personal computing, when one had to choose among a variety of machines with different operating systems, hardware configurations, and processors. My first computer used the same processor as the Apple II (A Motorola 6502, if you care about these things), but it had a different operating system. Unfortunately, my memory is not as clear about the time, years later, when Steve Jobs visited the National Air and Space Museum.

 

NeXT

NeXT Workstation. Source: picture taken by Alexander Schaelss, 15 April 2004. License: GNU FDL; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike

I believe it was around 1988, when the Beyond the Limits gallery was being installed. At that time Jobs had left Apple and was the head of a company called “NeXT,” which was selling a workstation, whose capabilities went beyond those of SUN or Silicon Graphics machines, not to mention ordinary personal computers.  In any event, Jobs had enough faith in what we were doing to make a donation to the Museum to support the Beyond the Limits Gallery. He also gave us a NeXT workstation, which we promised him we would use to develop a flight simulator for the gallery. But after some efforts, we eventually gave up. I regret we were not able to make his NeXT donation work. The NeXT computer was tricky to work with, but it did have its fans. One researcher at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland got one, and while we were struggling to program ours, he used his to write a program for the Internet that he called the World Wide Web. Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Business Card

Steve Job's business card.

We searched in vain for photos of that evening when Jobs was here, but I did manage to find his business card in my card file. So long Steve, and thanks for having faith in the National Air and Space Museum. We will miss you.

Paul Ceruzzi is the Chair of the Space History Division at the National Air and Space Museum.

 

 

Telstar and the “Global Village”

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Since October 1997, the Space History Division has been celebrating a number of fiftieth anniversaries: Sputnik, Vanguard, Yuri Gagarin’s flight, Alan Shepard’s Mercury Flight. Next July we hope to celebrate another. On July 10th, 1962 at 11:47 GMT, the world’s first transmission of a television image by satellite took place, using the Telstar satellite. Prior to Telstar’s launch that summer, NASA experimented with a passive reflector—“Echo” to transmit signals over the horizon, but engineers soon realized that the most practical way to transmit television, with its high bandwidth requirements, was by an “active satellite”: one that would receive a signal and then retransmit it to a ground station on another continent.  (Most people know the name “Telstar,” if not for the satellite, then for the hit instrumental song by the Tornados, with its “space age” synthesizer sound.)

 

Telstar

An engineering back-up of the Telstar satellite, in the collections of the National Air and Space Museum.

dome

The antenna was located in a remote area of Brittany, the westernmost part of France. It was protected by a flexible Dacron dome, which was transparent to microwave radio frequencies. Photo: Musée des Télécoms, Pleumeur-Bodou, France.

Last week I had the great fortune to visit the French village of Pleumeur-Bodou, on the Brittany coast, where that first transmission was received. The microwave antenna in the US, at Andover, Maine, was dismantled years ago, but the one in Brittany has been preserved and is in excellent condition (although it is no longer used). Because Telstar flew in a low-Earth orbit, it was only visible to the ground stations for a few minutes at a time, unlike today’s geostationary satellites, whose 24-hour orbits position them in the same place in the sky at all times. So the antenna had to track the satellite carefully as it passed overhead. Unlike modern dish-shaped antennas, this one was shaped like a giant horn, based on the design of microwave repeaters built by AT&T for long-distance telephone in the U.S.  Entering the 64-meter (210 foot) diameter protective Dacron dome, and climbing onto the giant horn was an experience I will never forget.

Telstar Antenna

The antenna was not a dish but a horn, mounted on bearings to track the satellite as it passed overhead. The design was adopted by AT&T, which built it, based on existing microwave telephone relay antennas. Photo: Musée des Télécoms, Pleumeur-Bodou, France

It worked. The initial test on July 10 was followed by images of the U.S. flag waving, Mt. Rushmore, and a “live” portion of a press conference held by President Kennedy. The French, in turn, transmitted a tape of Yves Montand singing “La Chansonnette.” After a string of Soviet firsts in space, this was one the U.S. could claim as a first, finally. A modest beginning, but look at what Telstar has brought us. We take it for granted that whenever there is a major event happening anywhere in the world: a Royal wedding, a benefit rock concert, an earthquake—anything—we expect to see it “live.” Marshall McLuhan prophesized that the “cool” medium of television would make us all inhabitants of a “global village.” That did not happen right away, which led people to dismiss his predictions as mere fancy. But with the combination of satellite telecommunications, the Internet, and Facebook (the last two appearing after McLuhan’s death), who would say that he was wrong? And it all began with Telstar.

Paul Ceruzzi is Chair of the Space History Division of the National Air and Space Museum.

“Spirit of Tuskegee” arrives at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar – Part II

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This post is a follow up to the following:
Tuskegee Bird Flies North
Spirit of Tuskegee Arrives at Andrews AFB

During the Stearman trip to DC, while each and every moment created either a new and exciting memory for me or revived one of the old ones from my Air Force flying days, there were two moments that I will vividly remember forever.

The first took place after departing the Blue Ridge Municipal Airport near Martinsville, VA. We flew over the NASCAR track at Martinsville, a short track famous for exciting, tight, hard-nosed races and then turned northeast toward Lynchburg. Approaching the Virginia border, I reminded Matt that Appomattox Court House was just a few miles off course to the east. We had discussed the significance of the location before we took off and with excellent weather and some keen eyes we found the McLean House in Appomattox Court House, VA, and flew a few orbits over the very location where Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant—essentially ending the American Civil War.

 

NASCAR

Martinsville Raceway, Virginia. The only NASCAR track that hosted a race in the first official season of cup racing that still holds NASCAR events today.

 

Appomattox

McLean House in Appomattox Court House, VA. The location of Lee’s surrender to Grant in April 1865.

 

Here we were, flying an airplane that had been flown by the Tuskegee Airmen during a conflict that had taken place 80 years after the Civil War—a war that brought an end to the institution of slavery. It was these Airmen who continued the civil struggle. Their struggles resulted in the desegregation of the U.S. military in 1947, and eventually, the entire country. But the real significance of this aircraft really began to sink in at this point. Not only did segregated Tuskegee Airmen fly this plane, but in the past three years, many of those same Airmen had flown in it once again—only now in a racially integrated nation that they themselves had helped to create! It is this contemporary story that is crucial—it is a story of both “history” and “culture” that is to be preserved and documented by the new museum for generations of Americans not yet born. This aircraft represents a nation’s ability to change. It was a humbling moment that we two shared in silence below the purr of the Lycoming engine.

 

signatures

Signatures of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen that have flown in the Stearman in the past three years

 

 

spirit of tuskegee

Captain Quy and Tina make their final approach to landing at Dulles

The second moment occurred at the back door of the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar after Matt and Tina flew the final hop before transferring the plane to the Smithsonian.  After eight hops, eleven hours, 800 miles, and countless visual and physical experiences during the journey north, I fell in love with the Stearman. The freedom of the open cockpit, the smells, and the historic significance of this plane, the skill and whit of a youthful Air Force pilot, the exhilaration and just plain fun of the entire experience—it was miraculous! But the moment that I will always remember was when Matt and Tina, having just ferried the Stearman from Andrews AFB to Dulles Airport, removed their flight headgear for the final time and looked over at the small group that had gathered at Hazy for their arrival. It looked to me like a few tears had been shed during the taxi from Dulles, through the taxiway gate, and to the restoration hangar. For six years, this young couple—an active duty USAF Captain and a full time sales rep—had invested blood, sweat, money, time, research, and now tears into this artifact and it was part of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture’s collection where it will continue to tell the Tuskegee Airmen’s story. I must say, when Matt and Tina’s parents joined them at the aircraft with hugs and pride bursting from their faces, my happy tears stained the tarmac along with rest of them.  Matt and Tina were giving up their baby, and they knew it. After just a few short hours flying in that plane, I understood the emotions—a part of that Stearman will stay with me forever.

 

Spirit of Tuskegee

Captain Matt and Tina Quy

 

Captain Matt and Tina Quy

Tina and Matt look at the Mary Baker Engen Restoration Hangar with a bit of awe

 

proud parents

Matt and Tina with their extremely proud parents

Soon the Spirit of Tuskegee will move from the restoration hangar to the south end of the Udvar-Hazy Center where it will remain on display until 2014. Then it will be moved to the exhibition space of the not-yet-built National Museum of African American History and Culture. 

Spirit of Tuskegee

The PT-13D Stearman Spirit of Tuskegee parked inside the restoration hangar awaiting retrofit for display

In future installments, I’ll recount some of the really fun, funny, and awesome trip happenings, some background on the collaborative efforts that have taken place within the Smithsonian that made this acquisition possible, and also fill you in on the aircraft retrofit and display location at UHC.

On Thursday, 25 August, I will be presenting a talk at 1230 at the Udvar-Hazy Center about the Stearman. Please join me at the Hazy Center next Thursday for “Ask an Expert.”

 

Dik Daso is curator of modern military aircraft in the Museum’s Aeronautics Division.