I want to share with all of you
something that we're doing behind the scenes at the museum. We've just acquired
an extraordinary collection that I want to give you just a little bit of a preview. This is the American Heroes collection
of American World War two uniforms we acquired this from the family of Ron
Bushaw, a veteran and patriot who spent 20 years or more scouring
the country, meeting veterans, getting their uniforms, getting the stories
that came along with their uniforms. And now we'v
e got all that here. We're just in the process of cataloging it, figuring out exactly
what we've got, and setting up a strategy for how can we work this into exhibits
in the program. One of the items, just to give you an idea
here, just an overview. This is a uniform from sailor
served on the USS Yorktown, sunk at the Battle of Midway
in June of 1944. We've got documentation. His name is Serial Number, the roster
of the USS Yorktown all tied together. Another item here
that's particularly intere
sting to all of us in the museum
is we've got an Elvis Presley uniform. Now, we don't know
if this is authentic or not. it was attached to the third
Armored Division in Mannheim, Germany, in the late fifties. Another uniform that we have
that we've now included in the Bushaw collection, but
we didn't acquire from the Bush family. We've got the actual uniform of General Westmoreland,
who is the supreme military commander of all American forces in Vietnam
during a large part of the Vietnam War. We
've got a couple of different pieces
of Westmoreland uniform. We also have a uniform
of worth of medal of Honor where this did come to us as part of the Bushaw
collection of American heroes. This is Louis Rocco,
awarded the Medal of Honor for his valor in combat
in Vietnam in 1970. Another favorite of mine is this Merrill's
Marauders uniform. This is the, to use the cliche, rarer
than houndstooth. Mary's Marauders were a special unit
formed for one mission. The mission was to go
deep behind Japa
nese lines in the jungles of Burma
beginning February of 1944. There were 2750 volunteers making up
Merrill's Marauders who went into Burma They stayed there
six months During that six months, they fought the Japanese
in more than 30 battles. They killed thousands of Japanese. They captured a Japanese airfield. When Merrill's Marauders came out of Burma
in August of 1944, only two of them survived that ordeal
without injury. Of that 2750 raiders who went into Burma, only 130 of them were still f
it for combat
six months later. Merrill's Marauders were named after the
commanding officer, General Frank Merrill. And believe it or not, we also have actual map case that belonged to Frank Merrill. And you see, this is the real deal. everywhere you look. We've got just wonderful history
I've got a couple of colleagues here. I've got our assistant curator, Jess,
and our director of education, Haley. They're really diving into all the details
here. Just as you pulled out a couple of items
that p
articularly caught your attention, why don't you share them with everybody?
Sure. So here we have a toiletry kit that belonged to the Desert Fox
himself, Erwin Rommel. We've got his straight razor here. We have a little mirror here. a comb,
a pair of very deteriorated sunglasses. So these are just some items in this
toiletry kit that I find humanize Rommel. He's seen as this kind of infamous
character in history. But when you look at this, you remember that he'd need to shave
just like every oth
er average guy. The other thing I found in this collection
that I think is incredibly important and very interesting is this typewriter
that is from the dock, how concentration in camp, which American forces
liberated in April of 1945. If you look close here,
you can see the SS key, which in many of these typewriters was filed off
postwar, given their symbolism. But ours is all authentic. We also have a Jewish
ghetto police armband. And the last thing I want to highlight
here is a uniform that w
e proved. Well, I have discovered
to not be authentic, and that is this uniform here. if you look at this,
it says Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It did not, in fact, belong to Rommel. Here's a few ways we debunked it. First, this fabric is polyester, not wore most uniforms in World
War Two were produced of wool. But this here is polyester. Polyester fibers were not invented until during World
War Two and were not widely used yet. Second thing is, we actually have
a laundry care tag in here. Tags l
ike these did not become popular
until the 1950s alongside the popularization
of washing machine. On the inside of the tunic here, we also have quite a few markings,
including and VA. We believe or we know the name
Mark and stands for the Armed Forces of the German Democratic Republic. and it was altered
to look like a Roman uniform. Also, I'll point out that this armband
here is a Hitler Youth armband. and Erwin Rommel
is certainly not in the Hitler Youth. So that is how we know
this uniform is
not authentic. But now I'm going to pass it
over to Haley, who also found some pretty cool stuff
in this new collection. Thanks, Jess. One of the most amazing things that I have found in
this collection is a uniform from Mike. She was silky. The reason that this is such a rare
artifact is simply because during World War Two Japanese-Americans
were extremely discriminated against. So much so 120,000 of them
were sent to internment camps. And so response to that discrimination. Soldiers of the 44
2nd volunteered for service
and created their own individual units. The second artifact that I found the most
interesting out of our whole entire Boucher collection
is this that you see right here. This is a model airplane of a Boeing B 29. And you might be wondering,
why is this so important The reason for that
being this signature that you see up top. The signature is of Colonel Paul Tibbets. Colonel Paul
Tibbets was the pilot of the Enola Gay, which is most known for dropping
the atomic bomb
known as Little boy on Hiroshima The third artifact that I found interesting
is this that you see right here. This is Poppy Burlington's blood kit. A blood
chip was a common form of identification the pilots in the Pacific
Theater would carry with them. A blood chip represents a US government
promise to monetary reward. to Anyone who provided assistance
to a downed pilot. Poppy Barrington was one of the founding
members of the Flying Tigers that fought on China's behalf
in the Pacific before Ame
rica joined in. After America joined World
War Two, Poppy became a marine where he fought in the Pacific theater,
and he became a medal of Honor recipient. We've barely scratched
the surface of everything that we're looking forward to sharing with you
and the collection of American heroes. If some of you want access
to the collection before we begin to displayed in the museum,
we have about a hundred copies of a book called That Old Jacket that Ron Boucher
published during his lifetime. And it's
just a it's a great resource. It's just interesting. It covers just about every major American unit of size and talks about the combat
history, talks about the origins of the shoulder
sleeve insignias. And it's just really a treasure. As long as our supplies last. You can order it online
by clicking the link below.
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