The forthcoming Flying Leatherneck Aviation Museum at the Great Park just got word that it will be even richer with history. 

The museum, set to open in 2027, will include over 500 oral histories documenting the stories of aviators, veterans and civilians whose lives intersected with the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station from World War II through the Vietnam War. 

The interviews were conducted around 2007 by students and faculty at Cal State Fullerton’s Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History. 

But for nearly 20 years, the original interviews have remained archived on the sixth floor of the university’s Pollak Library where people must schedule appointments to review them. 

Once the museum opens, a copy of the collection will be donated to the museum, making history more accessible.

Natalie Fousekis, director of the Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History, said the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station Oral History Project is different from other military collections because it focuses on the human element. 

“We focused on the person’s whole life, so you get a feel for the stories of the men and women who worked at the El Toro base,” Fousekis said.

The oral histories include interviews with the Marine Corps’ first brigadier general, Margaret Brewer, and the corps’ first Black general, Frank Petersen. 

In her testimony, Brewer, who grew up in Michigan and completed her basic training at Quantico in Virginia, talks about getting transferred to El Toro in 1952 as a communications watch officer and becoming promoted to brigadier general in 1978.

In his, Petersen shares what it was like to grow up in Topeka, Kansas, in segregated schools, before the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. 

Born in 1932, Petersen joined the Navy in 1950 and shortly thereafter became a Marine Corps pilot, arriving at El Toro in 1952 and then flying combat missions in the Korean War. 

It’s still unclear how the oral histories will be featured at the Flying Leatherneck Museum. 

The 131,000-square-foot museum will ultimately showcase numerous artifacts and exhibits related to Marine aviation history, including 40 military airplanes and helicopters.