National Museum of WWII Aviation, Colorado Springs, Colorado

I read that this museum is one that should not be missed, so we made it a point to visit the National Museum of WWII Aviation. It was not just airplanes in the museum, but a history of World War II.

The mission of the National Museum of WWII Aviation is to provide unique educational experiences that promote a deeper understanding of the historical importance of American aviation in World War II and its role in shaping the world we live in today. It does this to preserve and strengthen the best traditions of the American aviation past and inspire new generations of leaders and innovators in the future.

The Vickers Machine Gun

The Vickers .30 caliber air or water-cooled machine gun was the standard machine gun of the British Army in World War I. Air cooled versions were used on many Allied WWI fighter aircraft after 1916.

A German aircraft breaks apart during combat

WWI was the first air war. In 1915 the Germans perfected a mechanical device that allowed machine guns to fire through a propeller, shutting down the guns as the propeller blades passed. The Allies eventually adopted the German's machine gun technique, dominating the air. Air strategies developed during WWI laid the foundations for the more destructive forms of air warfare that followed in later conflicts.

WWI witnessed unrestricted submarine warfare, machine guns, poison gas attacks, the introduction of the tank, and the emergence of the airplane.

British Mark V Tank

Vickers Machine Gun

German Type UC-1 Submarine

The Fokker D-VII

Poison Gas Attacks

The Junkers J7, the first operational aircraft with a metal skin

Most WWI aircraft were manufactured of wood, struts, tension wires, and canvas. In 1917, the Junkers introduced the J7, the first monoplane made of corrugated duralumin.

Hard times in Germany followed its loss in WWI

The legacies of WWI were many -- economic turmoil, apathy, barbarism, isolationism, appeasement. The Versailles Treaty that ended the war required Germany and her Allies accept the responsibility for all the loss and damage during the war. Germany was required to disarm, make large territorial concessions, and pay reparations to the Allied powers. It was the reparations, equivalent to $422 billion in 2019, which consigned Germany to eventual chaos.

Post-war Germany suffered first from severe inflation, experienced a period of prosperity in the 1920s, and then suffered an economic collapse brought on by the Great Depression. It was the economic collapse that opened the door to Hitler's dictatorship and his promise of prosperity.

The newly formed League of Nations was a feeble attempt at a mechanism for peaceful resolution of disputes. Some in Europe concluded that the horror of WWI must never happen again. Yet, total war was to erupt again in 20 years because European democratic states preferred appeasement to confrontation. Their appeasement emboldened Hitler. The U.S. returned to isolationism -- an approach that said European problems were not U.S. problems.

WWI broke the old world order. Apathy on the part of the victors enabled the rise of movements that used violence to enforce their ideas of social order: fascists in Italy, Communists in Russia, and Nazis in Germany. WWI foretold that future wars would be total wars: the commitment of all resources and populations of nations to victory. The long-held distinctions between soldier and civilian were blurred. Civilians would suffer greatly in the conflict to come.

England 1918

Britain was to be the first nation to develop an effective air defense network based on electronic detection of attacking aircraft. It was called Chain Home.

Airpower advocates

General Billy Mitchell demonstrates the potential of airpower by sinking the captured German battleship "Ostfriesland" during a bombing demonstration of July 21, 1921.

The court martial of Billy Mitchell

When the U.S. entered the war Major Billy Mitchell was en route to France as an observer. On April 24, 1917, he made the first flight by an American officer over German lines. Before long, Mitchell earned a reputation as a daring, flamboyant, and tireless leader. By the war's end he was a brigadier general and commander of all U.S. air combat units in France. He returned with a belief that future air power would become the predominant force of war, and that there should be an independent air force equal to the Army and Navy. 

His relations with superiors soured when he criticized them for being weak on the potential of air power. In 1921, Mitchell orchestrated tests of bombing of obsolete battleships to convince skeptics that aircraft could sink Navy ships. Mitchell's 1925 book, "Winged Defense," predicted that aviation would be the dominating factor in military power.

Also in 1925, Mitchell accused senior leaders of the Army and Navy of "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." In December 1925, he was court martialled and convicted of insubordination. Mitchell resigned from the Army and spent the next decade writing and preaching air power to all who would listen.

General Billy Mitchell

Aviation icon Charles Lindbergh was a barnstorrmer
during his early years in aviation

Airways light beacons and wind socks were installed
beginning in 1926 to aid air mail flyers

Barnstorming was a form of paid entertainment in which pilots performed tricks, either individually or in groups called flying circuses. Barnstormers sought to impress the public with their skill and daring.

Bessie Coleman thrilled audiences with her skills as a barnstormer. Coleman died in a crash in 1926.

Lighted beacon

F3F-2 Grumman

1919 through 1941

1919 through 1941

1919 through 1941

Lindbergh JYM

                 The Supermarine 5.5 and Army Pilot Jimmy Doolittle next to the Gee Bee R-1 Racer

Air Racing embodies the spirit of the age ~~ The inter-war years were a time when aviation captured the public's interest. It was an era of flying ministers, wing walkers, barnstormers, air races, and new aviation records. Air races embodied the spirit of the age. They were exciting, dangerous, and competitive. Air races pushed the aviation industry forward toward faster and more maneuverable aircraft. Sometimes the pilot and aircraft were pushed beyond the limits of what man and machine could do. But that did not stop the racers.

For America's air racers the premier event was the National Air Races. Begun in the 1920s as an odd collection of racing events, military demonstrations, stunt-flying, and parachuting exhibitions, the National Air Races had grown by the 1930s into the nation's outstanding aeronautical event. During the 1930s Jimmy Doolittle and Charles Lindbergh were the most famous pilots in the world.

Jimmy Doolittle was the first man to perform an outside loop maneuver, and the first to complete a "blind" flight from takeoff to touchdown by instruments alone. He had been the first to cross the U.S. in less than 24 hours, the first to cross it in less than 12 hours, and the first to fly from Ottawa, Canada to Mexico City via Washington, D.C., in one day.

Germany unleashes war on Europe ~~ In 1938, Germany, with help from Nazi sympathizers, occupied Austria. It re-occupied the state of the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Germany then claimed parts of Czechoslovakia. England and France, whose military power far exceeded that of Germany, refused to stop Germany. In the face of weak British and French opposition, Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. Finally recognizing Germany's duplicity, England and France declared war on Germany.

In Poland, German forces employed new tactics known as "blitzkrieg" or "lightning war." German armored divisions smashed through Polish lines while the German air force destroyed the Polish air force, provided air support for ground troops, and indiscriminately bombed Polish cities.

In April 1940 Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. French and British troops manned the northern French border. Beginning in May 1940, German troops overran Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France in six weeks. German tanks and infantry quickly broke through the French and British defensive lines and advanced to the North Sea coast. Belgium and the Netherlands surrendered quickly.

More than 300,000 French and British troops were evacuated from the beaches near Dunkirk across the English Channel to Britain. Paris was occupied and France surrendered on June 22. Germany occupied northern and western France. A pro-German French government ruled the unoccupied southern part of France. Britain was then the only country in Western Europe opposing Germany's grab for territory and resources.

In 1940 Britain was standing alone against Germany. Prime Minister Winston Churchill pleaded with President Roosevelt for help. Roosevelt believed that Britain might collapse without U.S. aid. On December 29, 1940, Roosevelt gave one of his periodic radio "fireside chats." Roosevelt said, "The people of Europe who are defending themselves do not ask us to do their fighting. They ask us for implements of war, the planes, the tanks, the guns, the freighters, which will enable them to fight for their liberty and our security. We must be the great arsenal of democracy." America was now committed to aid the British. War was to come to America a year later.

The Axis Powers: Japan, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy

Economic hardship caused by WWI and the Great Depression led to an international surge of social unrest. Weak democratic governments did not meet the economic challenges. This opened the way for totalitarian, militaristic, super nationalistic governments to seize power. They were known loosely as Fascist governments. The tern "fascist" comes from a Roman term "fasci." The fasci of Roman times was an axe surrounded by a bundle of rods.

The symbolism of the term suggested strength through unity. The first fascist movement arose in Italy. Benito Mussolini came to power in the 1920s. He immediately began using the powers of his office to advance the Fascist cause. Through violence and intimidation of opponents, Mussolini was able to proclaim himself dictator.

In Germany, the turmoil of WWI and the Great Depression contributed to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi), a fascist movement led by Adolph Hitler. The party, through appeals to nationalism and promises of economic stability, and by intimidating opponents, established a fascist government in Germany in 1933 as Hitler as dictator.

Like the Italian fascists, the German Nazis operated as a dictatorship controlling all the elements of power. The Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups.

In Japan, two factors drove the government toward a military dictatorship, not fascism: 1) its ambition to become the dominate power in the Pacific; and 2) its need to modernize its feudal society. Japanese leaders believed military power would lead to both prosperity and modernization. Also, the military was seen as a way to bring population into the nationalization project through large scale military mobilization.

In the Japan of the 1930s, the military was independent of civilian oversight and control. In 1940 Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, officially forming the Axis Powers. The march to war in the Pacific was underway. The world was on the brink of another major war.

The bombing of Chongqing was part of a terror bombing operation targeting civilians conducted by the Japanese Army and Navy Air Forces.

WWII in the Pacific did not start with the Japanese attack on Hawaii on December 7, 1941. It started with the Japanese invasion of China. The Japanese military controlled the government, and the emperor gave a free hand to the military. Japan had already seized Manchuria, so it was present in some parts of China. 

On July 7, 1937, Japanese troops attacked Chinese units at the Marco Polo Bridge near Bejing, leading to a formal state of war between China and Japan. To the north, Inner Mongolia and China's northern provinces were invaded. Japan used indiscriminate bombing on Chinese cities.

The U.S. and United Kingdom did what they could to assist the Chinese without entering the war themselves. Anti-Japanese feeling strengthened in the U.S., especially after the Japanese sinking of a small U.S. Navy ship in the Yangtze River in 1937. The U.S. reacted to the Japanese occupation of Indochina by embargoing oil shipments to Japan. The Japanese now faced the choices of either withdrawing from Indochina, and possibly China, or going to war with the western powers. Japan chose war.

Japanese aircraft bombed and sank the
USS Panay in the Yangtze River

German troops march past the Arc de Triumph
after occupying Paris

The Soviet Air Force suffered disastrous losses during the German invasion. Under Lend-Lease 14,833 U.S. aircraft were sent to the Soviet Union.

The British people carry on as best they can 
in the face of German bombing of cities

Londoners spend the night in underground stations
to avoid German bombing

Britain's King George VI and Queen Elizabeth
meet with Londoners during the Blitz

The Blitz was the period of Luftwaffe nighttime bombing raids against London and other British cities from September 1940 to May 1941.

Edward R. Murrow

Edward R. Murrow was a pioneering American broadcaster who gained international attention while reporting the German bombing campaign in 1940. Murrow reported first-hand observations of "the Blitz" live over shortwave radio from the roof of his hotel, often at the risk of his life. Beginning each broadcast "This is London," Murrow told the world of the stoic courage of the British people under indiscriminate German bombing of London while bombs and anti-aircraft shells burst in the background.

Major Claire Chennault

In the mid-1930s, U.S. Army Air Corps Major Claire Chennault was a leading pursuit (fighter) advocate. In 1937 Chennault took a job assessing the capabilities of China's fledging Air Force. When China asked for American combat aircraft and pilots, Chennault was picked to lead the effort. When the AVG (American Volunteer Group) was disbanded, Chennault was reinstated as a U.S. Army colonel and later promoted to major general commanding U.S. Army air units in China. 

Flying Tigers

These are P-40 Warhawk fighters of the 3rd Squadron, American Volunteer Group (AVG) that fought for China against Japan before the U.S. entered WWII. The AVG existed for less than a year.

Because they were discovered by a Japanese ship the
raiders launched from 200 miles further than planned

B-25Bs on Hornet's flight deck prior to the raid

The April 28, 1942, Doolittle Raid was both a retaliation against Japan for the Pearl Harbor attack and a demonstration to the American public that the U.S. could strike Japan. The plan was to launch the aircraft 450 miles from Japan for a night strike on military targets. The aircraft were then to fly on to airfields in China. On April 18 the Hornet was discovered by a Japanese ship that radioed its position to Japan before it was sunk. The Hornet was 200 miles further from Japan than the planned launch point.

Doolittle was promoted to Brigadier General for the raid. He also received the Medal of Honor. The raid did significant damage to the targets, but its greater effect was on Japan's leaders. Japan returned fighters from forward areas to defend Japan. It also fought a great sea battle near Midway Island in an effort to sink three U.S. carriers. In the battle Japan lost four aircraft carriers and hundreds of its best pilots. The Doolittle Raid changed the course of the Pacific War.

In April 1942, China lost the Burma Road, its last remaining supply line to the outside world, when the Japanese invaded Burma. The Burma Road went from Lashio, Burma to Kunming, China (425 miles). China's eastern seaports had already been closed by the Japanese Army and Navy.

The U.S. determined to keep up air attacks on Japanese forces in China. The only means left for getting supplies to China was by air. The only available air route to China was via the "Hump" route from Northern India over the Himalayan Mountains. The north end of this mountainous range exceeded 20,000 feet. All flights over the hump required use of oxygen. 

Severe weather existed over the Hump throughout the year. Hump operations began in May 1942, with 27 aircraft and 1,100 personnel. This grew to 640 aircraft and 81,000 by July 1945. In total the airlift delivered over 650 tons of materials to China. The airlift was conducted at great cost -- 594 aircraft lost, 1,314 crew members killed, and 345 missing.

C-46 Flying the Hump

TBM-3 E Avenger

The Battle of Midway was the most important Pacific naval engagement of WWII. The battle occurred between June 3 and 7, 1942, six months after Pearl Harbor.

Many consumer items were strictly rationed; women with no previous industrial experience
rivet aircraft fuselage parts; drafted young men getting their Navy physical examination

From the outset, WWII changed American society in dramatic ways. The Armed Forces grew from a total of 370,000 in 1939 to 12 million in 1944. Young men were drawn mostly by a draft lottery from a total U.S. population of 150 million. Those young men were gone from the factory and the farm. That work force had to be made up for and increased. It was women and minorities that stepped up. The wartime military required huge quantities of equipment and supplies -- tanks, trucks, aircraft and ships. Industry had to both convert from consumer-oriented products to military equipment and to greatly increase production capacity. The need for new and better weapons drove the need for a large research and development establishment.

The absence of young men burdened wives, children, mothers, and fathers, both physically and emotionally. There were no high tech communications to stay in touch -- no cell phones, no internet, no Skype. Young men, most away from home for the first time, communicated with loved ones by letter. In overseas areas there was sometimes no contact for months, if even at all. 

The story of WWII Aviation must include the Home Front -- the social change and disruption, the building of a large military, the training of airmen, the building of aircraft, the innovation, in short: the marshaling of America.

V-mail is short for Victory Mail, and was the primary mail process used by the U.S. during WWII to correspond with military members stationed overseas. In the days long before the internet and communication satellites, a V-mail letter would be censored, copied to film, the film forwarded overseas, and the letter printed back to paper upon arrival at its destination. V-mail ensured that thousands of tons of shipping space could be reserved for war materials instead of paper. 

This room captures the look and feel of life
in America during WWII

During WWII, small service flags, either blue or gold, were hung in home and apartment windows to indicate the immediate family members were serving in the military or had died while serving. The flags were known as the Blue Star, War Mother's, or Service Flags. Each blue star would indicate a family member serving. A family with four servicemen could hang a flag with four blue stars. A gold star would indicate a family member who had died while serving. Only members of the immediate family (wife, husband, mother, father, stepparent, children, brothers, and sisters) of an active duty service man or woman were permitted to display the flag. On September 21, 1948, the U.S. Post Office issued the Gold Star Mothers postage stamp to honor mothers whose sons had been killed in WWII.

Women expanded their opportunities; U.S. residents and citizens with ties to Japan, Germany and Italy were interned; African Americans joined the industrial work force.

Republic Aviation produced P-47 Thunderbolts at plants in Farmingdale, New York, and Evansville, Indiana; A team of technicians assemble the midsection of a Martin B-26 Marauder Bomber. B-26s were built in Baltimore, Maryland and Omaha, Nebraska.

The H.J. Heinz Company, a food producer, secretly built wooden glider wings. The wings were then shipped to other locations for assembly of completed gliders. The Waco Aircraft Company supervised the program.

Flight Nurse Lt. Mae Olson takes the name of a wounded soldier being placed aboard a C-47 for air evacuation from Guadalcanal in 1943; and Flight Nurse Lt. Katye Swope checks patients being evacuated from Sicily to Africa for further medical treatment in July 1943.

Flight nurses learned crash procedures, received survival training, and studied the effects of high altitude on various types of patients. In addition, flight nurses had to be in top physical condition to care for patients during these rigorous flights. Five hundred Army nurses served in medical air evacuation transport squadrons operating worldwide. Seventeen flight nurses lost their lives in aircraft accidents during the war.

P-38F Lightening

Martin B-26 Marauder named "Big Hairy Bird"

This is the type of plane that Jim's Dad flew in during the war. He was a turret gunner in Africa. There are not many of these airplanes on display at any of the aviation museums that we visit. 

F7F-3N Tigercat

A-1E Skyraider

Okinawa -- the last major battle of WWII

The Battle of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, was the last major battle of WWII, and one of the bloodiest. By the time American troops landed on Okinawa, the war in Europe was nearing its end. On April 4, the Japanese unleashed their suicide pilots on the U.S. Fleet. The Kamikazes dove their bomb-carrying planes into ships causing catastrophic damage. During the battle, the U.S. Navy suffered 36 ships sunk, 368 damaged, 4,900 men killed, 800 men wounded, and 763 aircraft lost. Both sides suffered enormous losses.

The capture of Iwo Jima supported the air campaign against Japan. The island of Iwo Jima is located between the Marianas and Japan. It was strategically important as an air base for fighter escorts supporting long-range bombing missions against mainland Japan.

After the successful 1944 Allied invasions of France, Germany gathered its forces and launched a counter-offensive in the Ardennes in December 1944. The attack failed with massive German losses. By March, Western Allied forces were crossing the Rhine River, capturing hundreds of thousands of German troops. The Red Army was converging on Berlin. British and American bombers pounded German territory. Germany put up a fierce defense, but rapidly lost territory, ran out of supplies, and exhausted its options. On April 30, Soviet forces took Berlin and Adolf Hitler committed suicide.

Germany surrendered unconditionally on the western front on May 7 and on the eastern front on May 8. The Allies took 1,500,000 German military on the western front. The advance into Germany uncovered numerous Nazi concentration camps and forced labor facilities.

Germany was then divided into four sectors, each administered by one of the four Allied powers. With the Soviet Union controlling the eastern half of Germany as well as Poland and other Eastern European countries the stage was set for the Cold War that followed.

PBY Catalina

SBD Dauntless

B-26 Marauders attacked pinpoint targets

B-17 Flying Fortress took the strategic 
bombing campaign to Germany

P-47 Thunderbolts provided bomber
escort and ground attack

Your International Clock

This clock is a vintage Minute Impulse Secondary Clock (also called a "slave clock"). It is one of a lot discovered in an old unopened wooden crates obtained by the museum in 2014. The clocks were made for the US Army Air Force.

Minute Impulse Secondary Clocks were invented around the turn of the 20th century, secondary (slave) clocks were used in large institutions such as factories, schools and military bases that needed to show the same time in many locations at once. Large numbers of secondary clocks could be remotely controlled over wires by a master clock that might be located in a principal's office for a school or a headquarters office for the military. Master/slave time systems are still in production using modern technologies.

The impulse type of secondary clock is not a true clock; by itself, it cannot keep time. The minute-impulse clock received a pulse of current from its master clock each minute to advance the hands. Minute impulse clocks are sturdy and use no power save a small amount when advancing hands. 

The Museum staff designed and constructed a small clock driver unit powered by a "wall wart" to provide master clock pulses to your clock can keep time. A fast-forward switch on the driver box can be used to advance the clock if it falls behind the actual time.