FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 21, 2002

Contact: John Martin
      (401) 521-3600

The artifacts potentially at risk include the fuselage of a former presidential helicopter used by Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter; an AV-8 Harrier vertical takeoff/landing "Jump Jet"; a disassembled F-4 Phantom; and a 36-foot-long model of the Battleship Nevada, the only battleship to get under way at Pearl Harbor. (Paramount Pictures built this very realistic movie prop for filming "Winds of War".)

The USS Saratoga Museum Foundation, Inc. took the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation (RIEDC ) to task today for reneging on a promise to provide the non-profit museum temporary storage for a number of historic artifacts already at the former naval base.

The Foundation has in hand an unexecuted lease dated July 21, 2000, calling for an annual base rental of $1 for the Mitchell Hangar (Building 878, adjacent to the Quonset Air Museum).

"After receiving that lease document, we acquired a number of historic artifacts with the full expectation that we would have an appropriate place to store them adjacent to the Quonset Air Museum," said Foundation President Frank Lennon.

"Two years and three months later we still don't have access to that building -- or any other at Quonset, for that matter. Adding insult to injury, the Mitchell Hangar is now being used to store road salt," Lennon pointed out.

"For years the RIEDC has opposed our efforts to moor the USS Saratoga at Quonset, creating a major memorial and tourist attraction. They have argued that our concept was not the 'highest and best use' for the land we sought. Are they now saying that storing road salt is the 'highest and best use' for a potentially historic structure, while less than a hundred yards away we have historic and valuable artifacts deteriorating in the weather?"

In a letter dated September 28 addressed to RIEDC Acting Director William Parsons, Lennon formally requested reconsideration of that decision.

Lennon wrote, "Our use of this hangar is not connected to or dependent on the carrier ever coming to Quonset. Simply stated, we are a bona fide museum, and we have a number of historic artifacts that face potential damage or destruction if we cannot find appropriate temporary shelter. Our access to the Mitchell Mobile Hangar (itself a historic structure) would be the ideal marriage of convenience."

Another Pearl Harbor artifact needing a home (and a site for restoration) is the chassis of the 1938 Ford sedan driven, under Japanese fire, by Navy Petty Officer John Finn to his duty station at Kaneohe Naval Air Station on December 7, 1941. Finn earned the Congressional Medal of Honor that day. This is the only known private vehicle driven by a Medal of Honor winner to the battle in which he earned his decoration. Finn, a Saratoga veteran, donated the car to the Foundation and it is now in North Kingstown.

Last year the Foundation saved a pair of twin 40mm anti-aircraft guns and other memorabilia from USS Cabot, the last surviving light carrier from World War II, before the ship was scrapped in Harlingen, TX. They are languishing in Texas because there is no place to store them or work on them in RI.

The museum also seeks space for its 1/3 scale wind tunnel model of Textron/Bell's famous and controversial Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft.

According to Foundation Director William Sheridan, "The Quonset Air Museum has been gracious in providing temporary storage until now, but they face space constraints of their own. This winter there will be no room for these artifacts, or some of our larger donated equipment (such as three vehicles and two electric forklifts)."

Foundation officials contend RIEDC staff put off execution of the above-mentioned lease several different times, most recently to allow Cox Communications to use the hanger supply and equipment storage during installation of the park's fiber optics network.

"A year ago, RIEDC staff told us Cox would be out of the Mitchell Hangar within a matter of weeks, said Lennon. "Last winter, we were told the building would be available in the spring. Summer came and went with no contact from EDC, so I followed up again in September, only to learn that these symbols of the past sacrifices of American heroes have apparently been deemed less important than a pile of road salt.

"I followed up on the letter by phone a couple of times without success," Lennon said. "Finally, Paul McConnell from the Quonset staff called on October 16 to confirm the hangar was being used to store road salt, and it was therefore not available to us."

This hangar was built on rails, enabling both halves to separate in order to allow full engine power to be applied to aircraft under maintenance. "We think it is one of only two such mobile hangars in existence, and one can imagine preservationists would be horrified to learn its deterioration is being accelerated by storing salt inside," said Saratoga Foundation Communications Director John Martin, who previously held a similar post at RIEDC.

Martin adds, "We contend this latest decision is simply a continuation of a concerted effort by the administration of Governor Lincoln Almond to shun the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation. This time, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation has quite literally rubbed salt in the wound.

"Of wider concern, this is also the latest in a series of actions which calls into question the EDC's commitment to historic preservation," Martin continued. He referred to a recent letter from Edward Sanderson, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission, taking EDC to task for its failure to protect the Allen-Madison House, a property dating to the Revolutionary War. The Navy took over this structure in 1939 and turned into the home of the wartime commander of the Davisville Seabee base. In 1977 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

"While we recognize the Mitchell Hangar is not an officially designated landmark, this is not the only failure of EDC to protect a historic building under its care," Lennon points out. "In 1999 the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation attempted to save the Admiral's House, the former residence of the Naval Air Station's commanding officer. We proposed to restore the rapidly deteriorating quarters as the Museum's headquarters."

Lennon also brought the issue of the deterioration of the Admiral's House to the attention of Mr. Sanderson in a memo dated October 28, 1999, saying "...this historic structure is in a state of serious disrepair, and if something is not done very quickly chances are we will lose it completely."

"Those were prophetic words; within six months vandals burned that beautiful colonial home to the ground," Martin concluded.

Last Updated:
10/23/02