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9.

equipment was attended February ^[[10]], 1947, by high ranking officers of the Army and Navy, government representatives and officials of the donor company.

Another very important accession also related to World War II is a series of 82 scale model airplanes received from the Navy Department. They embody the finest features of modelmaking craftsmanship and are an outstanding example of the utility of scale models as a means of illustrating the features of original aircraft. These are the identical models of enemy planes which were assiduously constructed within the restricted shop areas of the Navy Department's Special Devices Division and the Technical Air Intelligence Center while the war was in progress. They were made and used under the joint cooperation of the Navy, Army and British. Details for these models were received from films taken by our fighter planes in combat; photographs made during battle or by dangerous reconnaissance over enemy airfields; from the reports of spies, and other sources often involving great danger and sacrifice. Dimensions were secured, often under fire, from actual specimens which had been shot down. Such information was sent with all possible speed to a corps of draftsmen who produced three-view drawings which were then turned over to skilled craftsmen who made these models. Each one embodies hundreds of hours of painstaking effort; sometimes features had to be changed to incorporate new facts. The completed model was then posed in a photographic laboratory against authentic projected backgrounds. A series of attitudes in imitation of actual flight were photographed; the results were very realistic. These photographs as well as slides for projection were quickly dispatched to the front and to training centers where they provided up-to-date information on enemy developments. This activity was of vital importance during the war. It may be considered as another one of the numerous war projects in which the Smithsonian was