Tyler, Texas USA — Sarah Willett is standing in the Historical Aviation Memorial Museum in Tyler. Everywhere she turns are memorabilia that tell fascinating stories of how the United States conquered the sky.
There is so much to see, it is almost overwhelming.
“I’ve already learned a lot about aviation, but I still have a lot to learn,” Ms. Willett said.
Since being hired a few weeks ago as HAMM’s curator, she has been on a fast learning curve. Ms. Willett, whose background is in anthropology, is facing the huge task of identifying and creating a computerized record of each and every artifact she sees — literally hundreds of thousands of objects.
The items on view are only part of the museum’s vast collection. Carolyn Verver, president of HAMM’s board of directors, said many more items are in storage. So many items exist that no one knows for sure how large the archives is and exactly what it includes.
“That’s why we hired Sarah to come in and help us,” Mrs. Verver said. “We need her technical expertise.”
THE EARLY YEARS
When the nonprofit Historic Aircraft Memorial Foundation was chartered in 1985, its officers launched plans to build a hangar at Tyler Pounds Regional Airport to display aviation memorabilia and restore old aircraft.
In 2000, the corporate name was changed to Historic Aviation Memorial Museum to more accurately describe its mission to “present the advancement of aviation during the twentieth century through the collection, preservation and display of aviation memorabilia and aircraft for the education and benefit of the public.”
After Tyler built a new terminal on the west side of the airport, HAMM in 2006 entered an agreement with the city to occupy the old 1950s-era terminal building.
“This wonderful expansion opportunity enabled us to more than double our exhibit space, enlarge our gift shop and library, add a multimedia theater room, and provide additional educational programs,” notes a history of HAMM on its website.
PRIZED POSSESSIONS
Walking through HAMM is like taking an express shuttle through aviation history. Topics span from flight pioneers such as Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean, to the space age. Several rooms are devoted to the history of air combat.
The exhibit chronicling the explosion of the space shuttle Columbia over East Texas in 2003 includes the famous photos of glowing shuttle debris streaking across a blue sky taken by Tyler cardiologist Dr. Scott Lieberman. Around the corner from that is a flight simulator once used to train commercial airline pilots.
Several military aircraft on view on the tarmac outside the museum — including an F-4D Phantom II, a T-33 Shooting Star and an F-105D Thunderchief — were either donated and then carefully restored or are on loan from the Naval Aviation Museum and the Air Force Museum.
Mrs. Verver counts among the museum’s prized possessions a Norden Bombsite, a device used during World War II on high-altitude bombing raids. Calculating numerous factors such as altitude, plane speed wind direction, the computer told the bombardier exactly when to release bombs in order to hit designated targets.
“It was a top-secret weapon,” said Mrs. Verver. “They were told that if the plane was ever shot down to make sure it (bombsite) was destroyed and never got in the enemy’s hands.”
The Norden Bombsite was donated by the late Bob Layton, a former mayor of Tyler and one of HAMM’s founders. Also on view is part of the photo collection of the late Elmer Dixson, another HAMM founder.
Dixson, a photo officer in the Army Air Corps during World War II, was a member of the squadron that took aerial photographs of potential bombing sites in Japan. His collection includes the Army’s official pre-strike and post-strike photographs of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (photos that at one time were classified information).
Mrs. Verver estimates that this collection alone has about 30,000 individual items.
Read more: http://www.tylerpaper.com/article/20130120/FEATURES01/130119769