Disney fan and wartime historian Kent Ramsey ’77 curates exhibition on studio’s role in WWII
November 13, 2024 — On Dec. 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a portion of the Disney studio lot in Burbank, California, was requisitioned to serve as an Army anti-aircraft base. Five hundred men from an artillery battalion were stationed there to protect the nearby Lockheed Aircraft Company, and overnight the Walt Disney Studios were ushered into World War II.
For the next few years, the company that released Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Dumbo devoted more than 90 percent of its output to producing war-related training, propaganda, entertainment, and public-service films; publicity and print campaigns; and more than 1,200 insignias for different branches of the military.
Kent Ramsey ’77
It’s a part of Disney history that’s rarely discussed, but in March 2021 an exhibit featuring many of those war-era pieces, curated by World War II historian and longtime Disney fan Kent Ramsey ’77, opened in San Francisco at the Walt Disney Family Museum located in the Presidio.
The Walt Disney Studios and World War II exhibit went on to the Museum of Flight in Seattle and The National World War II Museum in New Orleans. It’s now on display until the end of the year at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum in Hawaii.
A retired commercial banker who serves on the board of Seattle’s Museum of Flight, Ramsey spent nearly 20 years collecting the 550 pieces that make up the exhibit – from art and video to puzzles, patches and other memorabilia – visiting private collectors as well as the National Archives, The National Museum of the United States Air Force, The Boeing Company Archives, The Imperial War Museum, Walt Disney Archives, The Walt Disney Archives Photo Library, and The Walt Disney Animation Studios Animation Research Library.
“Everyone along the way said it’ll never work, that Disney isn’t a war company and that’s not their image,” says Ramsey, about pitching the idea of the exhibit to the studio. But Ramsey’s knowledge, enthusiasm and personal connections to the war convinced them. Ramsey’s father and other family members served. His uncle, whose photo reconnaissance group sported Disney-designed insignias, was killed in action in April 1945.
Ramsey’s interest in Disney and World War II stemmed from his Des Moines childhood. “Where I grew up, every father in my neighborhood was in the war, and you’d hear war stories,” he says. “My father was in a Sherman tank, my uncles all served, and my uncle who was killed was a pilot in the Pacific and European theaters.”
The nose of a World War II aircraft displays an image of the Disney cartoon character Pluto.
Ramsey researched his late uncle’s life, met his fellow squadron members and friends, and later hosted reunions for them across the country.
His Disney fascination began when he watched Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (1961–69). He also drew cartoons, and at age 9 he sent one of his creations to a Disney animator, who sent a nice letter back to Ramsey.
“But the big thing for me was when Walt Disney World opened. I was in high school and the whole family visited,” says Ramsey. He fell in love with the park, and from the summer after his senior year in high school to every summer through his time at Grinnell, he worked at Disney World as a keel boat skipper dressed as Davey Crockett, cracking jokes as he navigated the Rivers of America.
A book cover from the exhibit
“Disney required you to have a very short haircut, no facial hair, about as clean-cut as possible,” recounts Ramsey, who loved the Disney training and learned as much about the company as he could. “But when it came time for me to go back to Grinnell each year, I stuck out like a sore thumb.” After his second Disney summer, Ramsey, who was on Grinnell’s swim team, kept his short hair because it was easier to swim.
A biology major, Ramsey planned on doing pre-med studies but changed his mind after his advisor suggested he talk to a few doctors about their work. He graduated, worked as a flight attendant on charter flights for an airline, then earned an MBA from Willamette University.
Married and the father of three, he began volunteering at Seattle’s Museum of Flight in 1987 and eventually began hosting and getting to know visiting World War II vets. He co-wrote a photo book on WWII aviation, Storm of Eagles (2017), and in 2026 he’ll serve as chairman of the museum’s board.
With the Disney exhibit wrapping up after a four-year run – Ramsey visited each museum for a week to answer questions and give talks – his upcoming project is another aviation book, called Aluminum Canvases. It’s a collection of photos and information on the nose art on World War II planes, much of it done by professional graphic artists to boost military morale.
“If you follow your natural interests, you’ll usually succeed,” says Ramsey. “When I first got to Grinnell, it was emphasized that you’ll challenge yourself and set goals your whole life. Grinnell challenged me to do something intellectual and stay involved with the community and pushed me to do things others might not have the drive for,” he says. “I wake up every day and say, ‘what can I do better?’ And the human interest stories are always what drive me.”
—by Anne Stein ’84