Op-Ed Article

Canadian War Museum Display

I am the vice chairperson of the Canadian Transportation Museum in Essex Ontario.  My comments below represent approximately 100 people who agree with my message based on our discussions on the subject at our museum.

 Museums have a difficult task but one that is all important none the less, which is to reflect and present the public mood, sentiments, economics, fears, motivations, politics and conditions that existed at the time of the history being reported and displayed today.  Mixing the above elements from the past with those of the politically correct times of today is a major shortcoming when attempting to capture and convey what happened then to those that will view it now.  The Enola Gay display that was shown at the Smithsonian Institute's 1995 presentation of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945 grossly misrepresented the public, military and political mood of 1945 by trying to suggest that perhaps the war with Japan had already been won and that dropping the bomb was overkill.  There was a hint of shame and poor judgment mentioned in the Smithsonian's display about the decision to drop the bomb.  The Veterans of Foreign Wars in the U.S. did not take this lying down. They demanded and won their right to have the display wording changed to reflect the more accurate conditions that prevailed when the decision was taken 50 years earlier.  The revisionist, rear view mirror history professors and museum curators of 1995 were presenting 1995 not 1945.  This was wrong on their part.

 The same situation now exists at our new Canadian War Museum in Ottawa.  All the people who were not there in 1940 to 1945 but who took the requisite university courses, and are bilingual and who may have lived through the Vietnam War controversies, Gulf War I and II, 9/11, and Afghanistan have allowed their adulterated, politically correct, view of the 1940's to be blended into the message at the CWM regarding the bombing of Germany.  This action took a terrific toll of lives on all sides and cost billions of dollars of collateral damage.  Yes its true that during the waning months of WW II, while Belgium and Britain were being bombed by V1 and V2 rockets and Paris was on the verge of being blown up by Hitler's orders, some allied leaders questioned whether the bombing of Germany should be reduced somewhat.  Perhaps Dresden should not have been bombed.  Who knows?  But it was and it does not take away from the correct strategy of the day which was to do everything possible to defeat Nazis Germany including bombing its factories, infrastructure and cities.

 The CWM has committed the grave error of reporting yesterday using today's values.  This makes the museum much more contemporary and much less an historical reflection of the past.  The CWM diminishes itself and all the vets who sacrificed their youth participating in the air campaign against Nazis Germany.

 The sooner the wording is changed to reflect the actual feelings of 95 per cent of the people who lived through WW II at the time, the better for everyone, not the least of which are the vets who fought, were wounded, died and survived the horrors of those WW II years. 

 I urge everyone to simply listen to the people who were there.  Their views are the history.

  Mickey Moulder

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