You might think Scott Gerych is a greedy man. With a collection 300-400 vintage military uniforms, the Grass Lake resident wants more. He's looking for uniforms and personal effects from veterans of recent U.S. military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But he doesn't want the military clothing for himself. He's looking to add to the collection at the Yankee Air Museum where he has been working with his father, Merv Wygant of Plymouth, since February to organize and catalog donations.
“There's a huge need to have them in the collection,” said Gerych. “This isn't just an air museum, it's about global warfare from the time of aviation.”
The museum lost its entire collection of artifacts in a fire in 2004 and has been slowly rebuilding. Up until a few months ago, donations had been stored in boxes in the collections room of the museum located in a hangar at the east end of Willow Run Airport.
More room
By moving the museum library to a nearby schoolhouse, the department has been able to expand and “almost all of the boxes” have been opened.
The uniforms now hang on racks by the year they were received, starting with 2004.
“Hopefully, we'll be able to sort them further to identify even more,” Gerych said. “The collection goes from World War I to current, but we want more World War I stuff to go with the Spad, which is almost done, and we need jungle fatigues from Vietnam. We have a lot of uniforms and some enemy uniforms, but we'd like the personal stuff, anything that will give the story that goes with the uniform.”
The Spad is a French SPAD XII World War I fighter that a group of volunteers have been building from scratch using the original blueprints. The plane will look as it did as part of 103d Aero Squadron in 1918, complete with the Hat in the Ring emblem.
Gerych sounds like a walking encyclopedia when talking about the uniforms. His interest in collecting began when he was nine years old. His grandfather, a World War II veteran, took him to gun shows and would “buy me stuff to keep me quiet.”
A veteran himself, Gerych was studying for his master's degree in history and was required to do community service during one semester. His father-in-law wanted to volunteer at the museum and one thing led to another.
Gerych wanted to work on airplanes, but that was in flux, so he went into collections. It's been “very interesting” and he's learned a lot, he said. Now the two men are working on making the museum's catalog system better.
“When we find something in the collection, we search to see if a number exists for it, sometimes we find it was brought in and not cataloged,” said Wygant who was working on a pair of Vietnam jungle boots. “They're not in the system, so I have to track them back.”
Painted jacket
In addition to uniforms, the collection includes such things as a hard-to-get painted bomber jacket belonging to J.D. Asmussen who was credited with seven kills as a member of the crew of the Yankee Queen.
The collection also includes World War I aviator uniform Henry Rex Waddell, who was a personal secretary for the Ford family, Marie Mountain Clark who was a Women's Air Force Service Pilot during World War II, and her husband, John Alden Clark, a B-17 pilot.
Waddell's uniform is in a display case near where the World War I fighter is being built.
The museum also has several North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong uniforms. And in boxes in the collections room are items such as Nazi banners.
While some people don't think the flags should be shown, it was the flag and flew in Germany in the 1930s through 1945, Gerych said.
“One thing my father-in-law says is that if it wasn't for Germany and Japan, we wouldn't have had a bomber plant in Detroit,” said Gerych. “They started the war and we responded.”
While Gerych would like younger veterans of recent wars to consider making donations, he can understand them wanting to pass it down to their kids. He recommends that they take care of their items. The collections room has the distinct aroma of moth balls and some of the wool uniforms are moth eaten.
People can call and make an appointment to drop off items, and museum volunteers will go out and pick up donations.
“We're not just looking for uniforms, we really need the average soldier stuff - uniforms and personal effects,” Gerych said.
Story and Photos: http://www.hometownlife.com
http://yankeeairmuseum.org
http://www.willowrunairport.com
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KYIP
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