'Owning' Military History

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Originally Posted by 45jim

Interesting thread. Upon re-reading the original comments that started this thread it appears the author is more concerned about the disposition of the "history of a thing" rather than the "thing" itself. In that he is probably correct.

The "history" should be maintained in a public archive open to all as "the public" paid for that history through effort and tax dollars. The history itself really has no monetary value that can be realized at the time of disposal (that value only develops over time) and there are tangible reasons for its retention. That is in a perfect world.

A perfect world, indeed: for example, much of the data surviving today on Royal Netherlands Army Sherman numbers etc. came from two men who collected vehicle registration numbers. They copied the data from cards which were slated for destruction after the vehicles were struck off charge. They could not have the cards, but were allowed to copy the information. Then they were destructed by the Army. Sadly not all cards could be copied as they had to write down the information on paper, photography was not allowed.

Just as an aside, the US government spent billions on the Saturn V rocket to launch their moon missions. After the missions were complete, there came a need to retain this new and expensive technology and that meant a huge amount of work. Drawings had to be converted to CAD from paper, special materials developed for the program needed to have all that data archived so they could make it again if required, special processes developed needed to be transcribed and a team of people kept on staff to keep the specifications up to date as new materials were developed and old ones obsoleted. Faced with that cost, the US Government and NASA decided just to let it fade. The had the unused rockets to set up at museums but couldn't make another Saturn V if they needed it. Preserving history isn't just the "thing" there are many other facets that need to be preserved for posterity.

Back in the mid-1980s, various projects were launched to build those wooden sailing ships as the Dutch used exploring and conquering the world back in the 17th and 18th century. 300 to 400 years ago they were churning out these ships by the hundreds without power tools, computers etc. In this day and age it takes much much longer (years versus months) to build a replica, and the best shipwrights were breaking their heads over some of the construction features, even when they could rely on period drawings and ship wrecks. The expertise, both in engineering and construction, has been simply lost. As mankind, we should strive to preserve just that, learning from how things were done in the past to prevent making mistakes in the future and to further mankind's knowledge.

Just ask yourself: what could modern military vehicle acquisition programs learn from the Canadian Military Pattern vehicle design, manufacture and use?

Just my EUR 0,02 worth

Hanno