We have American, British, German, Russian and Japanese aircraft.

ACG: Japanese planes of World War II are pretty rare.

AH: They’re really rare. The American troops basically destroyed what wasn’t lost in the war, and wrecks in the humid Pacific climate didn’t survive very well.

Our rarest is a Nakajima Ki-43 Oscar. It’s the best preserved one anywhere. It was rescued at the end of the war by a New Zealand officer who found it hidden in the jungle where it wouldn’t get bombed. He took some parts from other aircraft to repair it.

ACG: What are some of the most popular planes?

AH: We have a lot of interesting aircraft. One big favorite is the P-51 Mustang we have, which flew in Europe at end of war. It had several kills, including an Me262 jet fighter. We have a video taken with the man who flew the plane then, visiting it here at the museum.

Another plane that always attracts attention is the Messerschmitt Bf109E-3 Emil with original engine. This is a Battle of Britain vintage craft.

We also have a V-1 flying bomb and a manned V-1 rocket—a cockpit was mounted on a V-1, which was basically a huge bomb with an engine on the back of it, so that a pilot could guide it for greater accuracy. It would have been a suicide weapon if it had ever been used.

Another of our unusual aircraft is a Polikarpov 303 Russian plane. Those were used by women bomber pilots (called the Night Witches by the Germans—ACG) and serviced by female ground crews. We have a video about the courageous 18, 19-year-old women who flew these antique, out-of-date biplanes. They had to fly at night on their bombing missions to avoid the Luftwaffe.

We have several video kiosks with oral histories like the one of the Russian women night bombers and the pilot who flew the P-51 we have. We have several histories from pilots who flew craft similar to the ones we have in collection.

ACG: I believe you also have a Homefront display as part of the museum, to put the collection into a social and political perspective as well as a military one.

AH: That’s right. We’re interested in the context of things, so we have these areas where we talk about what was happening at home with long photomontages and text talking about what was going on in the U.S., England, Germany, Russia. Our other exhibits are written in past tense, but these are in present tense to try to catch the feel of a newsreel of the time, to try to give a feel of what actually happened in these countries during this tumultuous time.

ACG: The town of Everett is close to the Pacific Coast in Washington. Does the moist climate there pose special challenges in maintaining the aircraft?

AH: We treat them very carefully. We don’t let them get wet. We only fly in spring and summer, usually May to September. The rest of the year, we have plenty of maintenance work to do.

ACG: When are the flying days held?

AH: Generally every two weeks in spring and summer, in the middle of day. We fly two planes. The main airport sets aside a space for us to have the flights. Beforehand, we open the hangar doors and introduce people to the planes and pilots that will fly that day.

We treat these planes with a lot of respect. We don’t do loop-the-loop and fancy maneuvers, mostly fly-bys. We don’t want to treat these as entertainment objects. We want to do this to honor the technology and the veterans who flew them.

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