Memorial Day Activities

Time: Monday, May 27, 2013 - 12:00pm - 4:00pm

Event Type: Public Program

Location: Side Gallery

The Museum of Flight honors military service with patriotic music and ceremonies on Memorial Day, May 27. Veterans and active U.S. Military personnel receive free admission to the Museum with identification. The Boeing Employees Concert Band will set the stage by performing patriotic music, beginning at noon. At 1 p.m. Museum President and CEO Doug King will preside over a ceremony with City of Tukwila Mayor Jim Haggerton.

At 2:00pm a public program on B-52 operations in Vietnam will be featured. “Taking It Downtown” highlights the lead-up to the Presidentially ordered Linebacker II air strikes on the defining missions of the Vietnam War against Hanoi/Haiphong in December 1972. The presentation looks at the build-up of B-52 strategic bomber forces in the Southeast Asia, some key capability differences in the B-52D and G models, and the SAC planning errors that impacted air operations. See the B-52 launches on these hgih pressure missions to press the attack home. Hear combat audio on the bomb run into the target including multiple Surface to Air Missile (SAM) launches against the largest B-52 mission in history. The story covers the combat losses of aircraft/ aircrews in a salute to their memory.

The program will be conducted by Howard Butcher, a Lt. Colonel, US Air Force –retired, with 2500 flying hours in B-52Fs & Gs as a Radar Navigator (Bombardier) and Navigator and in F-4C, Ds & E model Phantoms as a Weapons Systems Officer (WSO) in US and Europe. Howard flew 66 Vietnam B-52 combat missions including Operation Linebacker II – the Presidentially ordered air strikes on Hanoi and Haiphong in December 1972.