School event
Fri Nov 11, 2022 4:24 pm
My living history group is asked to give a series of 20-30 minute military history lectures on specific topics each year around Veteran's Day at a High School in Olympia, WA. As they get the 11th off, we had this on the 10th.
We can't bring weapons of any kind into the school, so we have to get creative of the subjects. In years past, I've covered War Correspondents but this year I decided to talk about the crippling losses and experiences of bomber crews from the 8th AF. We couldn't go over too much, so my display had to be smaller than I normally set up. It'd been many years since my AF stuff saw the light of day and it was nice to have it out again.
Except the jackets and my uniform, it's all original. The dummy has an Avirex A2, that's an At The Front B-10 next to that. My pinks are from What Price Glory, my crusher was custom made and my A2 didn't come with any tags, so I have no clue who made it (I added the nametag and the 91st BG insignia I painted).
The display case has personal items given to me in the 90s by a veteran B-17 co-pilot with the 323rd BS (91st BG), which includes flak pieces recovered from one mission, a bomb tag pulled from each of his 9 missions before he ditched in the North Sea, and his escape/evasion photos.
Behind that is a piece of the pilot's side upper wing of a crashed B-17 from postwar.
it went over pretty well, and it surprised many of the kids to learn that bomber crews from the 8th were greater than all the USMC losses for the duration of the war.
We can't bring weapons of any kind into the school, so we have to get creative of the subjects. In years past, I've covered War Correspondents but this year I decided to talk about the crippling losses and experiences of bomber crews from the 8th AF. We couldn't go over too much, so my display had to be smaller than I normally set up. It'd been many years since my AF stuff saw the light of day and it was nice to have it out again.
Except the jackets and my uniform, it's all original. The dummy has an Avirex A2, that's an At The Front B-10 next to that. My pinks are from What Price Glory, my crusher was custom made and my A2 didn't come with any tags, so I have no clue who made it (I added the nametag and the 91st BG insignia I painted).
The display case has personal items given to me in the 90s by a veteran B-17 co-pilot with the 323rd BS (91st BG), which includes flak pieces recovered from one mission, a bomb tag pulled from each of his 9 missions before he ditched in the North Sea, and his escape/evasion photos.
Behind that is a piece of the pilot's side upper wing of a crashed B-17 from postwar.
it went over pretty well, and it surprised many of the kids to learn that bomber crews from the 8th were greater than all the USMC losses for the duration of the war.
Re: School event
Sun Nov 13, 2022 8:06 am
This is fantastic. Thanks for bringing that into the school. I always read and discuss "In Flanders Field" to my 7th graders.