Thefts at USAF Museum.....

Damn!!

Back some years ago, I wrote a history of the 57 Fighter Interceptor Squadron. As a product of that effort, the squadon commander of the 57th Pursuit Squadron (the WW2 predecessor of this unit) loaned me his ORIGINAL WW2 black-and-whie photographic negatives of aircraft and personnel in the unit.

The AF Museum learned that I had the negatives (I lived in Dayton then) and asked to borrow the negatives so that they could make prints for the museum's collection. Long story short, they LOST THE NEGATIVES and took forever to fess up to the loss. I made the Museum contact the former commander and explain their loss. Somehow I don't think he believed the museum could be so careless. Needless to say, the unit's former commander never spoke to me again.

This might explain it. Ed "The French couldn't hate us any more unless we helped 'em out in another war." --Will Rogers

(Delete text after dot com for e-mail reply.)

The Smithsonian had a huge scandal a few years ago when it was found that a curator was selling off rare historical artifacts donated by veterans. One of these was a leather flight jacket from WWII that had art on it, and a friend of the guy who donated it later saw it for sale at a militaria show.

One of the findings of the investigation is that the Smithsonian had (to put it mildly) loose aquisition policies, and had a poor inventory system. Also not know to the general public is that donated items are often traded or sold off by various museums for stuff that they really want. Unless you are a big donor you can't ensure that the museum will keep your stuff.

The US Army Aviation Museum at Ft. Rucker was also plagued with internal thefts.

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@erols.com)

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, John Hairell at snipped-for-privacy@erols.com wrote on 11/20/03 10:36 AM:

Museums usually operate on bare-bone budgets. The ones I've been associated with always went for donated items first or "horse-traded" for items they could get no other way.

Also, people must remember that museums aren't just show-cases for the general public to admire artifacts. They are working institutions where a lot of study goes on which involves the artifacts and all the notes and records that can be recovered. That means that scholars and students alike will have access to the collections from time to time. Security and policing will always be a big and difficult job.

MB

Unbelievable! I have a uniform that belonged to one of the original flying Tiger Aces from when he rejoined the AAF and flew in the CBI, with his Chinese wings and all. I was considering donating it to the Air Force museum but now I think I'll just hang onto it for a while.....last thing I'd want to do is see it show up on eBay!

"The world would be a much simpler place if every one could pick and choose their obligations, but we can't and we shouldn't." Major Charles W. Whittlesey

where is the original message?

Yup...that's pretty much the story of what happened with teh B-29 "Doc" that was pulled out of here...

Yeah, but the Smithsonian asked for these specific items from WWII vets and then when the curator sold them off didn't know they were gone, i.e. no internal audits, no inventory checking, etc.

Also, despite appearances the Smithsonian is a government-run operation and gets most of its funding from the Congress.

That should be especially important at the Smithsonian, which until recently used a card catalog for inventory control, and which has a bad reputation for internal controls. If you are a national-level institution you want to keep archived materrials from being stolen not only by members of the public but by also visiting scholars and especially employees.

The Smithsonian had lax internal policies, and those that it had were not properly enforced.

John Hairell ( snipped-for-privacy@erols.com)

in article snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, John Hairell at snipped-for-privacy@erols.com wrote on 11/21/03 10:37 AM:

Believe me, the Smithsonian's controls are tighter than a LOT of other institutions.

MB

At Fort McCoy some years back several people were caught selling WW2 tanks and other vehicles. They got away with it for years.......................Joe

I recall a similar situation at the Army Ordnance Museum at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in MD. several decades ago involving German uniform military equipment and a M-8 scout car.It was listed as 'excess' and sold to private collectors and the cash put into even more private pockets. Mike IPMS

The most galling thing about most of these thefts from our Government's various museums is that when they are caught, most of the thieves go un punished. The worst that happens is they are usually fired. Under the Civil Service system it is so hard to get rid of a crooked employee that they usually can plea bargain any prison time away in return for not contesting their termination of employment.

Bill Shuey

And then 3 years later the guy contests the termination, wins, gets a huge tax free settlement + 3 years backpay, seniority reinstated, a promotion and a cushie job in another department until he decides he's too bored from doing nothing to go to work any longer.