WGN_Keyart_Warplanes_to_SiberiaThe re-creation of a historic World War II military air route kicks off on Saturday out of Seattle, in large part thanks to a gaming company.

Wargaming.net, the 17-year-old MMO developer and publisher of games like World of Tanks, helped put together the re-creation of a historic 6,000-mile Alaskan-Siberian military air route from Montana to Russia that commemorates the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Pilots were en-route to Seattle on Friday, and they plan to kick off the formal festivities Seattle’s Museum of Flight all day on Saturday. The re-enactment flight will take 18 days, with 11 stops.

Wargaming partnered with BRAVO 369 Flight Foundation, which originally created the recreation flight, and Rusavia to have pilots retrace the flights in actual World War II airplanes like the historic AT-6 Texans.

Photo via Wargaming.
The AT-6 Texan. Photo via Wargaming.

Wargaming said it wanted to honor the Russian and American pilots who flew 10,000 warplanes from Alaska to Siberia as part of the Lend-Lease plan, a U.S. program that supplied France, Great Britain, China, the USSR, and other Allied countries with food, oil, supplies, warship, warplanes, and other weapons during World War II.

Tracy
Tracy Spaight.

So why is Wargaming involved with something like this?

Tracy Spaight, director of special projects for Wargaming, told GeekWire that Wargaming is “not a typical game company,” having worked with government organizations, museums and non-profits to increase visibility of military history in a digital age.

“We take history seriously, both in our games and in the real world,” he said. “For World of Tanks, World of Warplanes, and World of Warships, our team went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the historical accuracy of all the vehicles in our games. The Wargaming.net designers studied original photos and blueprints, took measurements from surviving planes and tanks, and toured historic battleships and aircraft carriers to capture their look and feel as accurately as possible.”

Spaight added that one of the challenges museums and historians face today is figuring out how to engage with young people.

He said that museums need to figure out how to “speak digital,” and Wargaming can help on that front. For this particular event, Wargaming is producing video that documents the re-creation of the route, developed the website, and is sharing information about the event on social media.

“Museums need to essentially speak digital to engage young people, to get them interested in history, and to turn them on to learning about the past,” Spaight noted.

wargaming121

On Saturday, the re-creation gets underway with an opening event from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Seattle’s Museum of Flight, where attendees can meet some of the pilots and check out the aircraft, which will eventually make their way to Yakutsk, Russia.

Seattle was chosen as the kick off location for the festivities because it is close to the Bravo 369 team, which is based in Bellingham, and they wanted to celebrate Dorothy Olsen, one of the original WASP plane ferriers, who lives in the Seattle area.

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