Museum CRASH '40-'45, Aviation war museum in Aalsmeerderbrug, Netherlands.
The CRASH '40-'45 museum is an aviation museum in Aalsmeerderbrug near Amsterdam that displays aircraft wreckage and military equipment from World War II. The collection comes from roughly 750 planes that crashed in the region, including well-known aircraft types like the Fokker D.XXI.
The museum grew from discoveries of aircraft wreckage that were excavated from around Amsterdam after World War II. These remains are now preserved and documented in a fortress building to maintain a record of the region's air war history.
The exhibition tells stories of people who resisted occupation, showing how ordinary objects like a powder box became tools for hiding secret documents. These personal narratives bring a human dimension to the collection beyond machinery and weapons.
Visits are possible on Saturdays and every second Sunday. Comfortable shoes are recommended since there are many exhibition areas to walk through and some parts of the grounds can be uneven.
The Spitfire Hall houses a fully reconstructed full-scale Spitfire fighter aircraft, which stands as one of the museum's most impressive display pieces. The radio room next to it was designed as a replica of a wartime English air control center, allowing visitors to see how the technology of that era worked.
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