Enlarge

Airplane model, 1942

Source: Wisconsin Historical Museum object #1966.298.34

Enlarge

Enlisted carving plane models, 1945

Enlisted craftsmen carve plane models for the Navy’s Bureau of Aeronautics Special Devices Division as pictured in Popular Science, August 1945. Source: Image courtesy of the CollectAir Museum

Enlarge

Plane model schematics

An example of one of the ninety patterns distributed by the Bureau of Aeronautics, as duplicated in the June 1942 issue of Flying Aces. Source: Image courtesy of the CollectAir Museum

Enlarge

Poster advertisement soliciting help of model builders

A patriotic ad from model airplane company Comet soliciting the help of young model builders from around the country. Source: Image courtesy of the CollectAir Museum

Airplane identification model constructed by junior high school students in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1942.
(Museum object #1966.298.34)

"Friend or foe?" One of the many questions on the concerned minds of Americans following the December 7, 1941 attack by the Japanese on Hawaii's Pearl Harbor, servicemen and patriotic civilians alike quickly rose to the challenge of learning how to identify enemy from allied aircraft. One of the most effective means for training was to provide classrooms with airplane models painted black to simulate the silhouette seen from the ground or while in the air. This airplane, a model of the Japanese Mitsubishi 96 (pattern number B-14), is one of 50 made throughout the Milwaukee area early in 1942 and donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in August of that same year by the Department of Public Instruction through State Aircraft Project Director W.B. Senty.

Shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Office of Education put out a call to model builders — particularly school boys — to construct half a million airplane models just like this one. Initially, the Bureau of Aeronautics Special Devices Division had employed skilled model builders from the Navy. These enlisted men built models of enemy airplanes that they had never even seen before, often relying only on the information found in blurry photographs taken at crash scenes.

By February 1942, a total of ninety 1:72 scale official patterns for planes had been devised, arranged in seven sets, and distributed to schools participating in the National School Model Building Program around the country. By the end of the following month, the effort had even made the cover of "Life" magazine, with an article entitled "How to Make Plane Models."

As promoted in the June 1942 issue of "Flying Aces,"

Your country needs scale model planes for the emergency. They won't be used in a display gallery or to show the handiwork of one's leisure time. They will serve a definite purpose. They will be used for training military personnel in aircraft recognition and range estimation in gunnery practice. These models likewise will be important in the training of civilians in enemy plane detection, an essential element in civilian defense.

Established model building companies like Comet and Strombecker likewise stepped up for the war effort, providing pre-made official identification model building kits.

Nearly all of the plane identification models in the Society's collection are still labeled with their original tags identifying both the type of airplane and pattern number, as well the school that constructed each model. Contributing schools include Milwaukee high schools Juneau and Bay View as well as Auer, Steuben, and Peckham Junior Highs. This plane model was made at Walker Junior (now Walker International Middle School) located on the Milwaukee's south side on 32nd Street. In addition to schools, the Muirdale Tuberculosis Sanitarium, located just west of Milwaukee in Wauwatosa (closed in 1975) also provided several of the plane models now in the Society's collection.

Rear Admiral John H. Towers of the United States Navy and Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics wrote of the project in "Air Trails" magazine,

As the war continues, the importance of this work increases ... all those who are taking part in the building of model planes, both students and instructors, have accepted a responsible job. Obviously, these models are useless for training purposes unless they are accurate reproductions of the true plane. Shoddy, careless work has no place in aviation. It's too costly. The same rigid care and craftsmanship must be the rule for the school workbench.

Despite the Admiral Towers's statement, however, Steve Remington, Curator of the CollectAir Museum in Santa Barbara, California, noted that many supervisors often did not have the heart to turn down a schoolboy's inferior work. That, combined with the fact that highly accurate and easily-produced plastic models became widely available by mid-1942, may explain why so many models of this type were donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in the midst of the ongoing war.

Learn More

• See the Official Patterns for the 1942 Scale Model Planes (PDF, 85 KB)

  See scale model plane patterns at 1:72 scale from the Smithsonian Institution

• Curators' Favorites

Have Questions?

For more information or to purchase an image of one of the objects featured in Curators' Favorites, contact our staff by email below:

museumcollections@wisconsinhistory.org

[Sources: "Friend or Foe? Museum" as published on the CollectAir Museum website;"Navy Modelmakers Build Enemy Planes" as published in "Popular Science," August 1945; Weider, George T. "Build Model Planes for Defense," as published in "Flying Aces," June 1942.]

ALH

Posted on December 07, 2006