Week 12 of my internship with the Museum of Military History concentrated entirely on continued work trench construction. Roger and I are nearing the end of the structural building period. Though the “skeleton” of the trench system is complete Roger and I are adding additional lumber and hardware in a variety of places to ensure that the trench system is safe and secure for all museum visitors. Once we entirely complete the building process, we are planning on weathering the materials to provide a more immersive experience for museum guests.
Like last week nearly all of my time at the museum was spent by exhibition constructionist and historian Roger Ragland. Roger and I completed the skeleton of the trench system last week and most of this week was focused on reinforcing the trench system to ensure it is safe for guests to view and interact with. We added additional lumber and hardware to various “joints” of the moveable airwalls that one side of the trench system was built on top of. Once Roger and I strengthened the susceptible areas, we began adding standard sized (48x40) wooden pallets. These pallets are acting as our “firestep” and “duckboards” that would have been found in most trenches during the First World War. A firestep is an elevated section of the trench that front line troops would step up on to when they were prepared to go over the top into no mans land, or when they were surveying, or engaging with hostile forces from within the trench itself. Most trenches by 1917 were eight to ten feet deep, so the firestep was physically required to ensure that all frontline soldiers could see, maneuver, and engage with enemy troops. Duckboards are wooden planks that were placed between one to two feet off of a trench’s ground level. Duckboards allowed water, mud, and other runoff to flow under them and filled the one to two feet that was situated below them. Duckboards allowed soldiers to keep their feet out of all the rubbish that was collected in the bottom of trenches (water, sewage, mud, etc) and were used primarily to combat dysterny and the infamous trench foot. Adding these pallets was a long tedious process because we need to remove X amount of wooden planks from the pallets (either cutting with a buzzsaw, or removal by hammer and screwdriver, to create the correct dimension to fit in the prebuilt trench system.
After the pallets were installed to create the firestep, Roger and I began testing the area of where the museum’s German MG09 machine gun is going to be situated. We ran into a minor stag, and did not take into consideration that the machine gun is connected to a footed quad-pod that went past our initial measurements. To compensate we pushed the machine gun’s barrel further through the cutout we originally built in the trench to give us additional clearance, however the wooden cage Roger constructed for the machine gun now has to be rebuilt to fit the new dimensional specifications. Roger is planning on modifying/constructing the cage over the weekend. Once the cage is built and the machine gun is fitted and secured Roger and I are going to do one more pass through and safety checklist before Chris comes to inspect our work. Based on where Roger and I are at currently we should be weathering the trench system this upcoming week and then adding the mannequins and other elements to create an immersive façade scene. Once the mannequins are situated the plan is to add barbed wire, hanging model planes overheads, and either adding wooden branches/painting a mural over the top of the trench system to further enhance the experience. We are hoping the trench will be completed within the next two to three weeks before we soft open with museum guests.
Although my internship technically ends this week I am going to continue working with the museum going forward. Chris Roberston has asked me to join the museum’s board of directors and aid in upholding the museum’s mission to educate the public about American Military History. It's been a great summer and I have enjoyed every minute at the museum. This experience has really solidified that I made the right decision with my career path, and I’m hoping that I continue my work in public institutions. To everyone who has been following this blog post series, thank you for reading. If you would like to stay updated please feel free to reach out to me by email Harrisonsmith@knights.ucf.edu. Stay safe!