Good points, Ted. Yamamoto's 'end' was dramatized by the exhibit I mentioned earlier. The USS Arizona remains commissioned to this day, obvious reasons. Vets who survived her can have their ashes interred there.
I've somewhere mentioned seeing the pilot's seat from Wiley Post's last airplane - the Sirius-Orion-Explorer hybrid - said artifact distorted and crushed, just as it was when Post was crushed to death in it. It sits in a lone case, probably not much noticed as anything other than an oddity - and of course the museum refrained from garish explanation of what the item was exactly, and how it came to be the way we see it. The observer must know the history to 'get it'.
And walking away from that exhibit - the first encounter with a civilian-disaster artifact that I can recall, I had to ask myself if I had truly done the right thing in studying it closely and considering Post's last moments. Did I do well to take photographs of such a thing? I knew the details - I am intimately familiar with how the two bodies were found, and how their condition was shielded at the time. Rogers, crushed in the cabin - sever impact injuries; he'd been in his sleeping bag for warmth. Post, sitting in that nose cockpit (similar to that of the Vega 5 series arrangement) crushed and disemboweled when the engine rammed back into his person: the reason the seat is so distorted is because poor Post was sandwiched between the brutal force of the engine and relatively unyielding properties of the seat and bulkhead behind it. A dreadful scene.
There's some contrast here to me, between military history and civilian: Yamamoto and Arizona both figure into the national consciousness in major iconic ways, no doubt. When Yamamoto was shot down and killed - gunned down as it were, it was a huge historic war event, however one sees it or cuts the ethics of it. BTW, I don't regret it nor as an American would I ever apologize for it - he was a 'war lord' who was a worthy target - call it assassination if you will; Bin Laden was no more worthy for the taking than a Japanese Admiral in WWII as far as I am concerned.
Same for the Arizona - hallowed 'ground' there - she stands as tall under the waves as Gettysburg, Flanders, you name it.
Earhart? At least with the prospect of a Niku theory we have a chance of discovering a less-violent end in the airplane than poor Post suffered. But it still gets violent, if 'Thirteen Bones' and other views ever prove true - it had to have been at least a gruesome ending of dehydration, possibly hunger and debilitating injury, infection or disease - and a final insult to the human victim by nature's own devices, possibly while the human was in a state of awareness.
But in the airplane? Not likely if Niku is correct - so that artifact would be relatively sterile of the garish things I've mentioned. It would be more of an icon of her last existence, finally understood - but also perhaps approaching a gravestone of sorts - even if she wasn't near it at the end.
Post's seat is one thing; had that crushed airplane been displayed I'd have turned away - I hope. I've seen the pictures. I've also - like Ric and many others, seen the real aftermath of many a fatal crash, up close and too personal. But hopefully NR16020 did not issue the coup d' grace to our brave, lost aviators and we'd have a neater decision to make.
But will the public buy? What is it that they will get from 'interpreting' a long-submersed and buried P-38 (which was not involved in a fatal accident, pilot having swum away to fly another day)? Curiosity? What is the lesson - "this is what a P-38 looks like after an unintended ditching near a coast, after 7 decades of exposure"? Don't get me wrong - I hope this comes off - but I believe it could be an important test case of what the public gets from it and how well they accept it.
In terms of ethics, no one died in it. In terms of ethics, as to Yamamoto and any sensitivity, I say "tough shit", I WANT to know how they got him (and respect that he was very westernized and not without some peculiar empathies for America (mostly cautions, I think) - but also a mortal enemy). In terms of ethics, there lies Arizona - deserving of solumn recognition - a pause and reflection of what was sacrificed in those terrible moments in that place - we refuse to let her die, after all.
Oh, the stories need to be known - and when there were people lost it should be recorded and told as best we can interpret it. But do I want to see the wrecked remains of the P-38 that Capt. Robert de Vlieg was lost in (a friend of my dad's) in the CBI theatre? Too personal - he was a line pilot in a photo outfit and deserves individual respect. YMMV, but I would not want to see the shattered cockpit that he likely died in displayed in a museum in situ, too much.
Earhart's plane? I don't know - except of course we want to find it and 'understand' what happened. Are we prepared to find a machine that did not find its end as we thing, e.g. a harsh water landing that may have mortally wounded its occupants?
It is just not a clear path to me as I think it all over. There can be many ethical questions. Those who find wrecks and rebuild are often criticized for overlooking the human history attached to that wreck, and losing evidence of it for all time in their haste to recover a rebuildable wreck. I abhor the loss of human story in those things - but am ambivalent as to the airframe being restored.
Matter of balance - and what works. What will the public 'buy' - ultimately that is what pays the bills to allow any sort of effort to develop. All I can say is that while there are a lot of good ideas, I think we're treading on fairly new ground with this prospect of retrieving and displaying wreckage - it is not all so clear as-yet. Not like looking at an 800 year old Viking ship which is far past projecting any sense of tribal loss as we gaze at it - as opposed to seeing shoes and such from the Titanic.
So, how to build on that? Carefully, I'm sure.