March 28 is D-Day. That’s the final date for the Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum in San Diego, now set to close, to get a reprieve or furl its flag forever.
The museum, currently the largest facility refurbishing, displaying, and maintaining Marine warbirds, has no backup. There is, in effect, no Flying Leatherneck Site B.
The Flying Leatherneck Museum lies within the perimeter of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, opening there in 1999 after a move from its original site on the former Marine Corps Air Station El Toro.
Twenty-odd aircraft share the grounds with a Spartan prefab visitor’s center and a leavening of Marine and “liberated” ground equipment, including a Soviet PT-76, and a rare 16-18 passenger variant of the Bell 214ST Huey, which was recovered in Kuwait.
The well-kept paths and grass easements do not hide Miramar’s history. There have been Marine boots on the ground here since 1940. Their ghosts do not simply linger in the air, but tread upon the soul.
Before COVID, more than 30,000 visited the museum each year. Most were locals, but they came from across the country and around the world, attracted by the exhibits and the free admission. In addition to its unique exhibits, the museum is good neighbor, opening its doors and grounds to school groups, military and professional organizations, reunions, and promotion, retirement and reenlistment ceremonies — and the occasional wedding. Whenever possible, the museum hosts these events without charge. Middle and high school students participate in the museum’s essay and art contests for cash prizes and bragging rights.
The facility is a designated Marine Corps Command Museum, under the purview of Col. C. B. Dockery, the present base commander. Dockery requested the museum’s closing last year in order to save five full-time employees’ pay and other expenses totaling $400,000 per year. As it stands now, the museum will close this month, with any savings eventually applied to supporting Miramar’s other operations.
These savings are apparently illusory. The museum is operated by a private nonprofit. The entire restoration and maintenance crew are volunteers. Liquidation of the several dozen exhibit aircraft and museum assets would take three years and cost an estimated minimum of $3 million to $4 million.
A speedy closure would also be an enemy of efficiency. Last month, the City of Irvine, on its own initiative, expressed a solid interest in taking on the museum project as a major partner, if not on its own. Negotiations would require more time than remains and, pointedly, an entity with whom to negotiate.
The non-monetary value of the Flying Leatherneck Museum evidently carried little weight in the closure decision. The closure request skated through Marine Corps Headquarters with ease. Were the Corps’ existential values– honor, courage, commitment — forgotten?
The Marine Corps was the country’s first military branch to unite land, sea, and air forces in the field. The history of Marine air-ground coordination is an unbroken chain linking Gen. John A. Lejeune in Vera Cruz (1914) up to today. The Marine Corps today means utilizing all these arms. The USMC may one day break with its identity and tradition for a phantom $400,000 savings, but that day has not yet come.
The Commandant of the Marine Corps has the final say on the museum, and his decision will come before the end of this month. With time at a premium, the Flying Leathernecks are asking supporters to write directly to their Congressional representatives and the Commandant of the Corps, and to sign an online petition.
Visit their website to send those letters and make your voice heard and preserve the aviation history of the Marine Corps.
W. Mike Youngblood, a photojournalist, covered Southeast Asia from Vietnam in 1971 to Laos in 1975