Heading West
Soon leaving Kansas for the Colorado border. In the distance I can see the Rockies, all snow-topped. Lovely sight.
Yesterday I reached Chicago with three hours, and the weather was exhilarating, about forty degrees, with clouds scudding overhead, so I raced down to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the U-Boat exhibition.
So glad I did! That museum is world class, the presentation of info and artifacts terrific, and a real effort made to include all kinds of people within the context of whatever is viewed, not just the white men at the top of history's lists.
This exhibit included the German crew members, and what their lives were like on the U-Boats. The exhibit draws you down and down a curving ramp packed with interesting displays, then you round a corner and suddenly there it is, all 200 feet of the submarine. You continue down past info about the sub, the attack team who captured it, how it was captured, and the crew involved, who had to race aboard and save the sub that the Germans, according to orders, were in the process of scuttling with both water let in and explosives placed. Among the things captured was an Enigma machine--on display. Adjacent to it were hands-on displays at kid height so you could encode messages using the Enigma process.
Here is a view of crew quarters. The men hot-bunked, in an atmosphere with zero air conditioning, and no water allowed for washing. Cleanliness was a matter of alcohol rubs, which of course didn't include one's uniform . . . as the sub often reached 100 degrees F.
At the end of the exhibit was the story of how they got the sub to the museum, a saga in itself.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/966983.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Yesterday I reached Chicago with three hours, and the weather was exhilarating, about forty degrees, with clouds scudding overhead, so I raced down to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the U-Boat exhibition.
So glad I did! That museum is world class, the presentation of info and artifacts terrific, and a real effort made to include all kinds of people within the context of whatever is viewed, not just the white men at the top of history's lists.
This exhibit included the German crew members, and what their lives were like on the U-Boats. The exhibit draws you down and down a curving ramp packed with interesting displays, then you round a corner and suddenly there it is, all 200 feet of the submarine. You continue down past info about the sub, the attack team who captured it, how it was captured, and the crew involved, who had to race aboard and save the sub that the Germans, according to orders, were in the process of scuttling with both water let in and explosives placed. Among the things captured was an Enigma machine--on display. Adjacent to it were hands-on displays at kid height so you could encode messages using the Enigma process.
Here is a view of crew quarters. The men hot-bunked, in an atmosphere with zero air conditioning, and no water allowed for washing. Cleanliness was a matter of alcohol rubs, which of course didn't include one's uniform . . . as the sub often reached 100 degrees F.
At the end of the exhibit was the story of how they got the sub to the museum, a saga in itself.
This entry was originally posted at https://sartorias.dreamwidth.org/966983.html. Please comment there using OpenID.