VETS SUPPORT MUSEUM DONATED ITEMS SHOW AIR POWER.

Byline: Cecilia Chan Staff Writer

Emmett Nolan, a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Division, was barely 20 when he jumped out of an twin-engine C-47 in the pre-dawn darkness of D-Day, under enemy fire behind Utah Beach.

Ed Holt, a regiment commander with the 83rd Infantry Division, was facing down a German machine gunner when he was wounded by shrapnel on a battlefield in France.

For these two Ventura County veterans, walking into the WWII Airpower Heritage Museum housed in a hangar at Camarillo Airport brings back vivid memories.

``I think it is a damn good thing,'' said Holt, now 87 and living in Thousand Oaks. ``It keeps the memory. The people who don't remember the past go on to make the same mistakes.''

The nonprofit museum was formed in 1981 with the intention of simply restoring World War II aircraft in an old aviation hangar. But visitors to the facility began sending in their wartime artifacts, which the museum began displaying in 1993.

The museum eventually moved its growing collection to temporary bungalows and in April into the two, 15,000-square-foot aviation hangars at Camarillo Airport.

And the number of visitors to the museum has grown over the past seven years from 200 to 7,000 a year, said Maurice Cathalifaud, one of the members of the all-volunteer museum.

The museum's collection includes an authentic Nazi Party banner, weaponry, pilot uniforms and historical photographs.

``All the artifacts here have been donated,'' museum spokeswoman Pat Brown said as she pointed to some unique items on display such as a replica of an escape map of Europe, which could be concealed in a deck of playing cards sent to U.S. servicemen in enemy POW camps. Prisoners would pull off the face of the cards and assemble them into a map.

The rare items also included two escape compasses, one the size of a dime and the other less than half that size, which could be easily hidden by pilots, and 80 model vintage warplanes crafted out of soda and beer cans by the late Virgil Cooper of Camarillo.

The museum's half-dozen aircraft include a Japanese Zero that bombed Pearl Harbor and is being restored. It is one of three flying Zeros left in existence, Brown said.

Fund-raising director Michael Ayers said museum organizers need $120,000 and two to three years to create the interactive facility they envision.

``Anyone who knows the WWII era will be impressed,'' Ayers said. ``We want to make this one of the finest museums dedicated to the Second World War and to the women and men who fought it.''

The first step is a fund-raising gala scheduled for Saturday that will be reminiscent of the 1940s, with music from The Ink Spots, the original Tex Beneke Orchestra and Beryl Davis with their tribute to Glenn Miller. Also scheduled to appear are Skip Cunningham, known as ``the last great song and dance man,'' and comedian Al Lampkin who has performed in five overseas USO tours.

Helping to set the mood will be celebrity look-alikes, such as Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and Joan Crawford, who will mingle with the crowd.

The fund-raiser is named after the Hollywood Canteen, a club formed by Hollywood stars such as Bette Davis and John Garfield to entertain servicemen during the war.

``We older people from the WWII era are dying 1,000 a day,'' said Nolan, 77, of Camarillo, who retired as career counselor at Newbury Park High School. ``I was 18 years old when I went in. I've been through the whole war and back home at 22.''

``A museum for young people will have historical value,'' said Nolan, who also parachuted into Holland in Operation Market Garden and fought at the Battle of the Bulge, which crushed Hitler's last great counteroffensive. ``This thing that happened on Sept. 11 - a lot of young people are waking up, thinking freedom is a pretty precious thing.''

THE FACTS

--The Hollywood Canteen fund-raiser will be held 4 to 10 p.m. Saturday at the WWII Airpower Heritage Museum, 455 Aviation Drive, Camarillo. The cost is $55 for couples, $30 for singles, $10 for children under 12 and $25 each for groups of 10 or more. For information, call [phone] or visitwww.wwiiairpower.com.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1) The WWII Airpower Heritage Museum features a Japanese Zero being restored to flying fit.

(2) Veterans Ed Holt, left, and Emmett Nolan remember battle experience during a visit to the Camarillo museum.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News

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THE FACTS (see text)