Missy and Andy joined us at Marriott's Shadow Ridge Resort, in Palm Desert, for a few days. Andy and I left the ladies at the Resort yesterday and went to the Palm Springs Air Museum. Kathie and I had been there on a previous visit. We left the girls home, because I knew that they would be bored, but I was pretty sure that Andy would love it. He did! He wished that his friend Wallace, from Australia, could have been there. In fact, he said that the museum was a "must see" stop for Wallace one day.
The museum is privately owned and self supporting. They had a sponsor who died a couple of years ago. Half of the planes are owned by his estate, but on permanent display at the museum. There are six paid employees and about 350 volunteers...who talk to visitors, restore planes and fly planes. Most of the planes are operational; they used to fly one every Saturday. Recently they have only flown one monthly due to the high cost of insurance.
The museum has two separate indoor sections: 1. WWII in the Pacific. 2. WWII in Europe. Outdoors they have static displays of modern jets, and a few other planes yet to be restored in a yard. While we were there, about 30 privately owned WWII T-34 trainers arrived. That plane was a Beechcraft Bonanza without the V tail. They were a club making a weekend visit to the museum.
Most of the museum exhibits were immaculate...and they were all beautiful...not the least of which were the P-51, Spitfire and bent-wing Corsair. We even crawled through a B-47 "Flying Fortress" and marvelled at the primitive conditions which flight crews endured. 12000+ of these planes were built. 4,000+ were lost. 47,000 young men were lost in bombing raids over Europe. My dad once told me that 35% of the Australian pilots trained for WWII were killed in action. It was apparently about the same percentage for all Allied pilots and flight crews.
Andy and I agreed that the best part of the museum experience was the volunteers. They were WWII Air Force/Navy/Marine Corps veterans...mainly pilots. They are a dying breed, so it was a privilege to talk with them. We got to spend private time with about five of them. They were extremely knowledgeable, and they all had something special in common...they were all really humble men...with great pride in their country...and a profound respect for their comrades who did not come home. It was obvious that they had a message to leave with people.
The first volunteer we met was not a pilot. He proudly showed us his belt buckle, which had sea serpents around a submarine. He was in the Submarine Service. That gave me goose-bumps. I asked if he served in the Pacific. Turned out that he served his entire duty in the Pacific, out of a submarine base located in Fremantle, Western Australia. He did not know Commander Henry Sipple...because he was an "ordinary seaman" and did not associate with the "brass". But he said he loved Fremantle and Perth; everyone treated him and has fellow seamen wonderfully.
It was a great experience, but it will not be long before the best part of that experience will all be gone.
No comments:
Post a Comment