Vet calls out museum for inaccurate salute
‘IT’S OUR HISTORY AND HERITAGE. IT’S ALSO CONVEYING A WRONG IMPRESSION.’ — TERRY HUNTER
OTTAWA• Details matter to army veteran and history buff Terry Hunter.
So when he noticed a Canadian War Museum poster of Second World Warera women using a wrong “American- style” salute, he decided to say something, calling out the error on the museum’s Facebook page.
“It immediately jumped out at me,” Hunter said last week. “All the women are in Second World War uniforms; however, that salute didn’t come in until unification in 1968.”
During the Second World War, Canadians soldiers and air force personnel used an open palm, British- style salute — one still used today by the RCMP. Sailors, however, have always saluted palm down, according to tradition, to hide hands dirtied by shipboard work. The current, palm- down salute was adopted during unification to have one style salute for all three branches of the military.
The museum has been using the poster since the exhibit World War Women opened in October. The colour- tinted poster features a line of women in army, navy and air force uniforms, a nurse, a factory worker and a civilian saluting as squadrons of fighter planes roar overhead. The style evokes patriotic wartime propaganda images.
The museum responded to Hunter on its Facebook page, acknowledging the salute was inaccurate.
“He’s right,” said Chantal Schryer, the museum’s vicepresident of corporate affairs. “It’s a stylized image that was developed by our marketing team to be used as a marketing tool. It was never meant to be a real, historical representation.”
The poster was intended to drum up interest in the exhibit, which highlights the role women played in the First and Second world wars. The question of the wrong salute was raised by some museum staff at the time, “but we took the position to move forward with the poster as a typical marketing tool,” Schryer said.
“It did exactly what we wanted it to do. It triggered a conversation among people on our social media platform about the roles their mothers, t heir grandmothers played in t he First and Second World War.”
The World War Women had drawn more t han 20,000 visitors as of Dec. 31, she said. It runs until April 3.
Hunter, who said his Facebook comment was meant as an observation, not a criticism, doesn’t buy the museum’s marketing argument.
“Stylized or not, the salute is still incorrect,” he said. “I’m sure a lot of money has gone into the marketing of this poster.”
Hunter is an army veteran who served in Sudan as a UN peacekeeping observer in 2008- 09.
“I think this is important,” he said. “It’s our history and heritage. It’s also conveying a wrong impression. Part of the War Museum’s mandate is to educate today’s youth and the people of Canada and they’re doing it i ncorrectly.”