CRACKS IN THE FAÇADE: Rust and ruin put Gqeberha’s air force history at risk

{JSON.stringify(article.attachments[0], null, 2)} --> Historic artefacts from the country’s rich air force history are at risk — the buildings at the South African Air Force Museum in Nelson Mandela Bay are steadily deteriorating.

The South African Air Force (SAAF) Museum is one of Nelson Mandela Bay’s hidden historic treasures.

From the exhibits on display, the people running the facility and even the buildings themselves tell stories of South Africa’s Defence Force and the eyes in the sky that played a crucial role in the country’s military prowess.

At first glance, the facility situated behind the Chief Dawid Stuurman Airport looks like a bottomless source of information and intrigue, and a playground for young and old.

But look a bit closer, and you will quite literally see the cracks in the façade. So much so that the volunteers who keep the doors open are concerned for the safety of the people who work there and the visitors who frequent the museum.

Broken windows, cracked walls, corroded metal structures and large, heavy hangar doors that seem to be on the brink of collapse pose a serious risk to people and the priceless historic artefacts housed at the facility.

The Friends of the SAAF Museum has voiced concern over the lack of maintenance that has led to the deteriorating state of affairs. However, the landlord, Airports Company South Africa (Acsa), said it had recently performed necessary maintenance on the structures, and more work was planned.

While the SAAF Museum was officially opened in 1992, the site at the far end of Forest Hill Drive dates back to the 1940s, when it formed part of 42 Air School. The main building served as a training facility for air force gunners under a joint training scheme between the SAAF and the Royal Air Force during World War 2. In fact, the museum’s main exhibition area is still known as the Gunnery Building.

After the war, the site belonged to the municipality before it was later bought by Acsa as part of planned expansions to turn the existing airport into a major international airport. However, these plans never materialised, and in the early 1990s the site was leased to the SAAF for the establishment of the museum.

“The exhibits in the museum are not limited to any specific era of SAAF history, but show many different craft and artefacts throughout our country’s proud military history,” chairman of the Friends of the SAAF Museum, Peter Clark, said.

Some of Clark’s fondest childhood memories are of when his father Herbert, a former Air Force pilot, used to train pilots at the facility in the years after World War 2.

He, with other members of the Friends of the SAAF Museum, still remembers the days when the buildings were in their prime, hosted air shows and welcomed engineers to assist with repairs to historic planes.

“Now, we are afraid to bring people into certain sections of the museum. What if a piece of glass falls on someone?

“Also, the leaks in the roof are putting our exhibits at risk. We can do all we can to keep the inside neat and tidy, and keep the planes and artefacts in good nick.