Curator Dan’s Man Cave has also been put to good use over the winter preserving and restoring several items from the museum collection and also the reserve collection.
This included the flying helmet and oxygen mask from the Master Bomber of the infamous Dresden raid. The leather C-Type helmet had been nibbled by a mouse prior to joining the collection and the rubber oxygen mask was in urgent need of preservation due to drying out. Another flying helmet and oxygen mask from a 626 Squadron Lancaster Bomber Navigator, who took part in some of Bomber Commands last raids of World War Two has also been renovated and preserved for display.
Other items that have received some much needed TLC have included the peaked officers cap of Lt. Kiss who was a USAAF co-pilot onboard a C-47 during Market Garden and also Operation Varsity. The leather band was dry and brittle and had broken in one place. The Leather was treated with Neatsfoot oil and the band was repaired.
One of the largest items to receive attention was the personal foot locker box of a B-17 Ball Turret Gunner, Horace House who flew on B-17 “Ham on Rye” with the 384th Bomb Group. He was taken Prisoner of War when he was forced to bale-out of his B-17 on the 30th January 1944 having been hit by fighters and flak. The aircraft was so badly damaged and on fire that many of the crew assumed the end was close and decide to get out while they could. But unbelievably the aircraft was flown back and made it back to base. Ground crews were left wondering exactly how the aircraft had made it back to base.