The National World War Two Museum
NEW ORLEANS, LOUSIANA
The National World War Two Museum, New Orleans, LA
How, you might wonder, did the Smithsonian-affiliated National World War Two Museum end up in New Orleans? It opened as the National D-Day Museum in 2000, the Higgins landing craft that ferried troops through roiling Channel seas built by New Orleans-based Higgins Industries. Author Stephen Ambrose, who wrote the books D-Day and Band of Brothers (among many others), made his home in New Orleans and helped found the D-Day Museum, leaning on some of the Hollywood connections he’d made through the HBO production of Band of Brothers to fund an incomparable museum experience. In 2004, Congress designated it the National World War Two Museum. The exhibits are vast and focus on the American experience in the war. I’ve spent many days here and still don’t feel I’ve fully absorbed everything there is to see.
As you enter the main museum atrium, you’ll see the Higgins boat featured in the 1998 movie Saving Private Ryan, one actually used to carry troops to the beach at Normandy in 1944. There are also some tanks and other military vehicles on display that you’ll want to spend some time with.
Higgins Boat on display at Utah Beach in Normandy, France
Next, you’ll board a mock-up of a 1940’s-era train car that begins your journey through the museum in a way that parallels the journeys of millions of American GIs. It was this type of Union-Pacific passenger car that many American men boarded once they received their draft notices and learned where they were to report for duty. The trains took them first to boot camp, then to various military bases, airfields, and posts as they progressed in their training. Eventually, the trains took them to departure points to embark on their missions overseas.
At the train, you’ll be given a digital dog tag connected to a real soldier who fought in the war. As you continue through the exhibits, don’t miss the opportunity to check in at kiosks along the way to learn where your soldier was deployed, the battles he fought, and whether he made it home.
Visitors to the the National World War Two Museum in New Orleans begin their tour in this replica Union Pacific Railroad train car.
Posters encourage women to fill wartime jobs. This image embodied Rosie the Riveter, popularized in a song performed by Kay Kiser: “All the day long, whether rain or shine, she's a part of the assembly line. She's making history, working for victory, Rosie, the riveter.”
The museum’s detailed exhibits make clear that winning the war was a complex, multi-layered enterprise involving contributions from practically every American. The Arsenal of Democracy gallery illustrates the enormous scope of the effort to keep the troops fully-supplied with all they needed. As war in Europe loomed, American factories built to produce consumer goods quickly pivoted to produce war matériel. Car assembly lines were re-tooled to produce jeeps and tanks instead. Toy companies shifted their focus to make compasses for naval ships. A factory built to produce upholstery nails instead made cartridge clips for Springfield rifles. The road and dam building company Brown and Root turned their resources to shipbuilding, producing some 355 warships in their Houston shipyard. Women captained many of these assembly lines, having moved in staggering numbers into the work force to replace the men now overseas.
The War Production Board oversaw the strict rationing of the metal, oil, rubber, and paper needed to produce the ammunition and supplies the fighting forces required. Keep in mind, the United States provided tons of matériel for British and Soviet forces as well. The U.S. Merchant Marine Gallery tells the story of the brave merchant sailors who risked their lives getting supplies through treacherous waters, as enemy submarines, warships, and aircraft did their best of sink convoys that traversed the Atlantic and Arctic seas.
Beyond All Boundaries is a multi-sensory theatre experience that provides an overview of what was at stake in the war. It’s an intense visual presentation, appropriate for tweens and older. Visitors can then follow The Road to Berlin, a series of exhibits that trace the early Allied stands in Africa and Italy, the development of the air war, and Operation Overlord that begins with D-Day as the Allied Expeditionary Force moves into France. The Road to Tokyo galleries illuminate the brilliance of the Navy, as warships island-hop across the Pacific, taking one tiny atoll at a time to cut off Japan’s ability to strike the United States and its territories. Eventually, General Douglas McArthur DOES return to the American protectorate of the Philippines as he vowed he would, but not without a series of bloody battles that draw the Allies ever closer to Japan. It’s only after the two atomic bomb fall on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the Japanese finally surrender.
Walking the galleries, you’ll be struck by just how much was happening across the world simultaneously. Imagine the complexity involved in coordinating the deployment of many tens of thousands of Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen—under the command of American, British, and Soviet leaders—all undertaking specific, critical missions. Personal testimonies and videos share tales of early struggles in North Africa, the seemingly endless slog through Italy, the bomber pilots who limped back to England in badly-damaged aircraft. You can practically feel the chill air in the Battle of the Bulge exhibit, where soldiers—with limited supplies and lacking winter uniforms—spent Christmas 1944 and eventually repelled Hitler’s final thrust of the war.
The GrummanTBM-3E Avenger, the aircraft flown by then-Lieutenant George H.W. Bush, was introduced in 1941. It became the Navy’s standard torpedo-bomber throughout the war. Bush was on a bombing run on Chi Chi Jima in the Bonin Islands off Japan when his plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire. He bailed into the sea and was rescued on a life raft. Two crew mates were lost. Bush as awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his 58 combat missions.
The Freedom Pavilion features the George H.W. Bush Aviation Gallery with six restored World War-two era aircraft, including a TBM Avenger like the one then-Lieutenant Bush flew as the youngest pilot in the Navy during the war. You’ll also see a B-17 like Jack flies in WAR BONDS, as well as B-24 and B-25 bombers and several other fighter aircraft. Open stairways and walkways allow visitors to view the aircraft from multiple angles. And don’t miss the interactive exhibit Final Mission: USS Tang Submarine Experience. Visitors become the crew of the most successful American submarine in the war as it makes its final war patrol on October 25, 1944. Things get a bit overwhelming, but do your assigned task and you’ll come out just fine.
The final permanent building of the museum, Liberation Pavilion, will open on November 3, 2023. This gallery will cover the post-war years, the Holocaust, and examine how the war shaped our world and impacts it today. Here’s more on the impressive list of opening events for this newest museum gallery.
The human story is played out in every exhibit at the National World War Two Museum, from the leaders—political and military—who made the pivotal decisions, to the men on the front lines freezing in Bastogne or sweating on Iwo Jima, to stateside aircraft engineers iterating on bomber designs in real time. And of course, there were the folks back home, working in factories, growing victory gardens, praying in church on Sundays, doing whatever they could to support the war effort.
This is a must-see museum both for people who’ve studied the war, and for those who might not know many of the particulars. Make sure you block out enough time to see everything and absorb all there is to see.
