Chapter 10 



World 

 War II 



WORLD WAR II WAS QUITE a different affair from 

 World War I. The Great War fiad been a shock 

 to most people, destroying what had been half a century 

 of peace and tranquility. The second war was antici- 

 pated by many, and America's involvement was longer 

 and deeper. To the National Museum community, the 

 second had two distinctive effects. It caused funda- 

 mental modifications in the relationship of science to 

 government. And on the practical side, there was real 

 concern about destruction in Washington — a point never 

 seriously considered in 1917, but one that had worried 

 the Museum staff even before the bombing of Pearl 

 Harbor on December 7, 1941. 



"For the past year attention has been given to the 

 designation of categories of specimens that were to be 

 evacuated from Washington in case of entry into the 

 War or should air raids come to Washington," read the 

 1941—42 report. "The work of selecting and packing 

 this material has occupied the staff for months, and 

 part still remains to be accomplished. In some of the 

 collections type series have been maintained separately 

 for some time, while in others types were kept with 

 other material so that it was necessary to segregate them, 

 with many thousands of specimens concerned. . . . Type 

 specimens preserved in alcohol, wfiich offer some dif- 

 ficulties in handling, were evacuated together with se- 

 lections of insects. Other type material will go to a ware- 

 house in another location."' (A type specimen is the 

 standard to which other organisms are referred to see 

 if they are the same species.) 



Safeguarding Type Specimens 



Karl Krombein, newly on the staff of the Department 

 of Agriculture, was given the task of separating insect 

 types from the general collection in his charge. Looking 

 back on it forty years later, he judged it to have been 

 a worthwhile effort, for the separate type collections 

 received more care and attention. Any museum curator 

 worth his salt will be extremely protective of the types; 



Triceratops in the early Dinosaur Hall, -with 

 Stegosaurus behind. 



from a scientific standpoint, they are by far the most 

 valuable part of any collection. 



Little is said in the annual reports about this evac- 

 uation of material, and the few participants still on the 

 staff do not dwell on it. Specimens were taken to Luray, 

 Virginia, where they remained for three years. "It is 

 with considerable relief that we were able during the 

 year [1944] to bring back to Washington the thousands 

 of valuable type specimens and other irreplaceable ob- 

 jects that early in the war had been removed from the 

 (Capital for safekeeping. . . . Return of this material, 

 which aggregated more than 60 tons, was completed 

 in November, 1944, and by the end of that year most 

 of the specimens had been reinstalled.""' 



The Museum had only a single great auk, so it was 

 taken off exhibition, wrapped in paper, and sent away. 

 The help was inexperienced and neglected to put moth 

 balls in the package. As a result, many of the feathers 

 were eaten and dropped off. Watson Perrygo glued 

 them back on one at a time. Eventually, the specimen 

 was restored, but it looked so bad until all the feathers 

 were replaced that Wetmore told Perrygo to keep a 

 cover over it at all times so that no one else would see 

 it. 



LJnwrapping and returning the types to the collec- 

 tions was far worse than packing them. Inevitably some 

 specimens were lost, and the packing and unpacking 

 disrupted research for years. Like the similarly disrup- 

 tive conversion of the building to office space din ing 

 World War 1, evacuation of the types was a unique 

 event. Should a global conflict come again, with the 

 Museum at ground zero in Washington, evacuating types 

 and rare specimens would be futile. 



Pearl Harbor spurred planning tor the protection of 

 the works of art in the National ('ollection of P ine Arts. 

 A portion of the wall behind the mural Diana uf the 

 Tides was fortified to resist bomb fragments. Plans were 

 made for the evacuation of some paintings, and others, 

 including miniatures and part of the Gellatly collection, 

 were assigned to the ground-floor lobby, which was 

 considered safe from incendiary bombs. 



An important safety measure was "the removal of 



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