<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=192888919167017&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

Linkedin Pinterest

Chkalov flight documents land at Pearson

Russian consulate's donation helps Vancouver museum expand exhibit

By Tom Vogt, Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: July 31, 2015, 5:00pm
5 Photos
National Park Service curator Theresa Langford goes into a Fort Vancouver archive for documents that will be part of a Pearson Air Museum exhibit.
National Park Service curator Theresa Langford goes into a Fort Vancouver archive for documents that will be part of a Pearson Air Museum exhibit. The museum recently acquired about 30 documents from the Russian consulate in Seattle relating to the Chkalov flight. Photo Gallery

The president of the United States took a couple of minutes out of his schedule on June 20, 1937, to send a telegram to Vancouver Barracks.

Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Soviet Ambassador A. A. Troyanovsky to convey his warmest congratulations to three Russian airmen who had landed at Pearson Field a few hours earlier, completing the first transpolar flight.

So, yes, the arrival of Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov and Alexander Belyakov was seen as a pretty big deal. That aviation milestone was followed by parades and receptions in this country and a welcome-home party in Moscow.

Seventy-eight years later, documents related to that first flight over the North Pole — as well as the crew’s extended victory lap — are in a Vancouver museum.

Representatives of the Russian consulate in Seattle donated about 30 items to the National Park Service on June 20. It was part of the 78th anniversary celebration of the Chkalov flight at Pearson Air Museum.

The acquisition process started after the National Park Service took over management of the museum, said Bob Cromwell, Pearson museum manager.

Russian officials expressed interest in a higher-profile telling of the Chkalov story. Fort Vancouver officials agreed that it would be great to do more interpretation and refresh the Chkalov flight exhibition at Pearson.

And that, Cromwell said, is when the Russian officials made a proposal: “Well, we have additional archival material: Would you be interested?”

Most are copies of documents that have been in the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Moscow for decades, said Cromwell. There is one original item — a felt banner that reads, in part: “U.S.A. hails Soviet Flyers.”

An original artifact does have greater historic appeal. “But with documents, it’s the information that is of great value for researchers,” Cromwell said. “It’s great having these copies of documents here.”

They include a copy of FDR’s telegram from the White House. (The telegram misspelled “Pierson” but, by all indications, got “Troyanovsky” right.)

There also are copies of photos taken on June 20, 1937, at Pearson Field and newspaper clippings displaying celebratory scenes.

A letter shows some of the game-planning for the flight. Sent by a Soviet official in Washington, D.C., on June 2, 1937, it asks American meteorologists to help with weather forecasts.

Theresa Langford, curator at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, said that work on the expanded Chkalov exhibit has already started. Mary Rose, a local author, is writing the material and a designer is working on it.

“We’re hoping to open it in the fall,” Langford said.

The Russian-provided documents will be supplemented by material Cromwell is researching in our National Archives, thanks to some help on the other side of the country.

“The D.C. office of the National Park Service has interns,” Cromwell said.

He can have them search through records and documents that have never been digitized.

“It’s been fun combining sources in Moscow and Washington, D.C.,” Langford said.

Loading...
Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter