The Juno Beach Centre, Canada’s only Second World War Museum in Normandy, France, will be getting a special Kingston visitor next week. Bruce Hector, Kingston’s local rust expert, will meet with the Juno Beach Curator, Marie-Josee Lafond, on September 8. The Juno Beach historic site is located at Courseulles-sur-Mer where the Canadian Army made its D-Day landings on June 6, 1944.
Lafond appreciates Hector’s enthusiasm and dedication to the protection of irreplaceable monuments and historic vehicles. As the Juno Beach Centre is a Canadian non-profit organization with a museum’s tight budget, the free consultation and donation of Rust Check corrosion inhibiting materials by Hector is very welcome.
“I’m really looking forward to this,” said Hector. “I’m ex-military myself, and if there is anything I can do to save these historic artifacts, I am honoured to do it. It’s 65 years since the Canadians fought in the Battle of Normandy. Of course, Juno Beach is right on the Atlantic. Salt is always in the air. Metal at the site is very vulnerable to corrosion.” Hector treats over 70 military monuments in Eastern Ontario as a free community service and is eager to help preserve the historic Juno Beach military artifacts. Rust Check will be supplying aerosols of corrosion prevention compounds as a community service. As it is difficult to ship aerosols by air, they are being shipped to the Juno Beach Centre specially from Rust Check in Norway.
Hector, CEO of Rust Check, has written research papers in co-operation with Pierre Roberge, Professor of Chemical Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada. (Professor Roberge is a world renowned corrosion expert and has consulted on such international projects as the restoration of the Statue of Liberty.) The two men have published three scientific papers and a technical article on the preservation of outdoor military monuments. Both men are members of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers.
During his visit, Hector will be visiting Juno Park with the remains of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall and a restored World War Two German Bunker. This German observation post was part of the Atlantic Wall defense system. In 1944, it contained radio equipment linked to the other bunkers and was a machine gun post. Hector will also inspect an amphibious vehicle used in D-Day landings and the “Bold” tank as well as other monuments. He will also advise on the museum’s indoor collection.
Kingston is a severe corrosion zone and so is the Juno Beach Centre. Now, by reaching out across the Atlantic to protect military monuments on two continents, Rust Check’s community service project will help keep our military history alive for future generations.
Hector maintains a Yahoo group to promote the preservation of monuments by anyone at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/memorialpreservation/
For several pages on the subject and some published papers, see Hector’s business site at:
www.rustcheckkingston.com.
