Studio Friday - {COLLECTIONS}

Studio Friday topic for October 27th:
This week's topic for Friday October 27th suggested by Silvia:
"MY COLLECTION(S)!"

"Most people collect something, it would be fun to see what others have in their collections."
~ Silvia

Oh boy... are you sure you're ready for ME? Just kiddin'!!
Well this is a topic that's really, really fun and easy for me! My husband and I collect WW2 memorabilia. We own a WW2 museum that houses our personal collection. What we focus most on is USA Army Air Corps and Paratrooper Memorbelia but we have a LOT of stuff from all branches of the US services and also Allied and Axis troops.
Here's part of our reenactment group. My husband is on the far right.

We own a traveling museum. Though we have a complete field hospital, we generally take the smaller, field hospital with us to events. We set up (takes about an hour and 1/2) at out door as well as indoor events. My husband does an excellent Field Surgeon impression and since he is a physician by trade, he is able to answer questions about the equipment and medical supplies. Our display really is very impressive. I wish the photographs did it justice! This particular collection, obviously, focuses on the medical aspect of WW2.

Here are a few photos that just show a small fraction of what our museum has.
Below are 2 photos of our field aid station. A field aid station was the 2nd medical contact that the wounded had. The 1st being the medic. About 90% of wounded men who made it to the field aid station, survived.
The 1st photo is the triage area and often the ONLY area they had.

This next photo is of their aid station. Under the tent would be supplies, a few stretchers (called 'litters') and possibly room for emergency surgery; often done outdoors due to lack of space and light.

Our passion is to display parts of our collection at various events. One of our favourite displays is our Veteran's Day display. We bring a lot of smaller memorabilia such as war time magazines, housewares, uniforms, paper items and general WW2 militaria. We love to set up for WW2 veterans!! The next few photos I took last year at Stonebrige Assisted Living Center. We put up a nice Veteran's Day display for the residents. We LOVE it when Veteran's are present and start telling
us about their war time experiences. They love it when we visit and we love visiting them!

Below is a litter (stretcher) with a bunch of Field hospital memorabilia. Of course you recognise the Medic Helmet. The other various instruments and gadgets would be found in the field hospital. IV pole and Plasma bottle, ether mask,gauze/bandages, syringes, wash basin, medic bag stocked full of bandages and morphine.

On this stretcher are various medical instruments used in the field hospitals of WW2. Some of the instruments are downright scary lookin'!


Here you will see a small display of wooden cases. Inside these are some of my favourite things. Soldiers rations, various insignia, sweetheart jewelry, matchbooks from different bases with various sayings on them. Spotter cards of enemy tanks and planes and lots of other small wartime trinkets. Most of these things we had found at various flea markets, garage sales and of course, ebay!


We not only focus on WW2 Medicine. We also have a pretty intense collection of G.I. memorabilia. Below is a photo of the basic contents of a regular G.I.'s backpack.
Helmet, gas mask, mess kit, shaving kit, 1 morphine syrette, canteen, cigarettes, toilet paper, lighter. K-Rations, comb, flashlight and a few miscellaneous things.


The photo below is a small portion of the collection also. Some of these items belong to some of the members of our WW2 Reenactment group. We had set up a small display at a WW2 Veteran's Conference at Brookdale Community College in NJ.

So here we have it, the collection that I most cherish! We plan to continually add to the collection indefinitely!