Over the course of a couple weeks, Duchesne and Long emailed each other and Long provided scanned images of some of the photos from his scrapbook.Long's scrapbook included many photos of nose art and civilian life on Saipan. The scanned photographs that were emailed to Duchesne were beautiful and very interesting.

After some deliberation, Long generously decided to donate his scrapbook and its almost 100 photos to War in the Pacific National Historical Park in Guam. Long's donation will enable people from all over the world to see what the Pacific looked like during WWII in 1944.

In addition to generously deciding to donate the scrapbook and all its contents, Long was also so kind to agree to be interviewed. Long was interviewed by Duchesne and the audio tape containing his oral history will be placed in WAPA's oral history collection which will allow future researchers and historians the opportunity to hear the first-hand accounts and memories of someone who was integral in the Liberation of Guam.

William Long and his beautiful wife Joan were kind enough to meet Duchesne in New Orleans where Long described the photos and detailed his experiences while serving in the Pacific during the war. The meeting between Bill and Tammy was long awaited and the memories that were created will last even longer. Photographic resources and first hand accounts of WWII will be preserved forever, as will the meaningful friendship that evolved from this meeting.

Long’s irreplaceable photographs from 1944 will be carefully protected in the museum collection while selected images from Long’s scrapbook will be included on the Park’s upcoming website. In addition to using web-media to share these images with the public, War in the Pacific NHP, American Memorial Park, and the Arizona Museum Memorial Association are exploring the possibilities of using aircraft art images from the Long photo collection to develop a traveling trunk exhibit which can be easily assembled, displayed, transported, and sent among different venues and exhibit halls in Guam, Saipan, Micronesia, Hawaii, the US Mainland, and other interested geographies. While War in the Pacific NHP remains without a museum and American Memorial Park waits for their museum to be constructed, this traveling trunk exhibit will provide people with the opportunity to view and appreciate the museum collection photographs while the corresponding text will interpret the history behind the aircraft art or “nose art” phenomenon. In addition to these images gracing a traveling exhibit and interpreting a portion of WWII, aviation, and Pacific history, these images will also be used on mugs and merchandise items in both the park’s bookstores. These images, which use to grace B-29 bombers, can now accentuate various merchandise items so that veterans and park visitors can remember or reflect on an art-form that was popular on the runways and airfields of bases throughout the Pacific and European theater during the Second World War. Thanks to Bill Long’s scrapbook donation, a traveling exhibit will educate people at different venues and sites while merchandise objects will allow veterans, historians, park visitors, and nostalgia-seekers the ability to take a part of WWII history home with them to remind them of the history they learned at War in the Pacific, American Memorial Park, or at one of the venues that hosted the traveling exhibit. This cooperative venture shows how while museum collections are kept under tight lock and key, creative and inovative ideas and strategies can be used to make collection items available and accesible to teach history in non-traditional methods and eye-catching venues.
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