After getting into New Orleans fairly late, I got some rest and then woke up early to head to the National World War II Museum. The museum itself is tremendous and exceeded my expectations. It originally was the National D-Day Museum, being located in New Orleans because of the Cajun inspired PT Boats that were so designed and tested in New Orleans and proved so critical to the success of the D-Day invasion.
Over the last 15 years the museum has expanded and now takes up multiple interconnected buildings, with unique exhibits dedicated to the pre-war years (“The Arsenal of Democracy”), the European campaign (“The Road to Berlin”), and the Pacific campaign (“The Road to Tokyo”).
Outside of the museum and in the lobby there are several items you can see without buying a ticket.
The main lobby area is dedicated to troops from Louisiana and the transportation vehicles inspired by life in the bayou.
The PT boats used for the D-Day landings were influenced by the air boats used by Cajuns in the swamps of Louisiana.
The entrance to the exhibits takes the form of a 1940s train station. You wait in line to board a train…
The windows inside the train are video monitors that simulate the crowds outside a 1940s station. People wave goodbye to you as the lights go down.
Every person is given a dog tag card that they can use at various points in the museum to interact with exhibits. Each dog tag is linked to a real person from the era and you learn more about what happened to them during the war years as you progress through the museum.
I took the elevator upstairs and the first place I saw was a special exhibit called “In Memory of What I cannot Say: The Art of Guy de Montlaur”. He was a WWII veteran that was highly traumatized by his experience and spent the rest of his life exploring his memories through his art.
This particular painting caught my eye because of the textures of the paint. When you look up close you can see layers of paint of various thicknesses. It gives the painting a truly three dimensional effect, but in a disturbing way because the peaks and valleys of the paint don’t match with the colors.
Upstairs has catwalks going around some of the larger planes you can see from the lobby.
The first permanent exhibit I saw was “Arsenal of Democracy”, covering the pre-war years. It starts off with the rise of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, showing how vastly outnumbered the United States was before the war.
There’s a display of various anti-war and “America First” pieces. FDR campaigned twice on staying out of the war and future veterans like JFK supported the America First movement to keep the US out of the war.
An average American 1940s house is recreated using real items. It reminds me so much of my grandmother’s house growing up. The same color schemes and picture of Jesus on the wall.
This is a radio that actually plays FDR’s fireside chats.
There’s an enclosed walkway to across the street and another building that contains the next exhibits.
“The Road to Tokyo” covers Pearl Harbor and the invasion of the Pacific Islands. The museum becomes incredibly immersive at this point and really recreates the jungle atmosphere. There are trees everywhere, cricket noises, bird noises, machine guns firing, lights flashing. The artifacts themselves are displayed on top of rocks that seem to blend into the jungle. The museum makes extensive use of digital technologies such as projectors to really make the displays come alive and active.
Seeing tanks, uniforms, and guns is fun, but what really hits emotionally are seeing the photos and letters sent home from people that never made it back to their families. The letters are almost all mundane, talking about the boredom of average days and thanking family members for sending care packages. And then there will be a little sign next to the letter explaining how a few days later the person was killed by a Japanese attack.
There is a section about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb.
The next exhibit is the “Road to Berlin” that covers the African and European campaigns. The jungle atmosphere transitions into desert and then snow covered forests.
Another building a few blocks away houses some of the larger aircraft (“The Freedom Pavilion”).
There are lots more parts of the museum campus of which I didn’t take photos. There’s the original museum’s exhibit on D-Day. A 4D movie theater showing a documentary hosted by Tom Hanks, (“Beyond All Boundaries”). There’s an old fashioned soda shop restaurant on campus (not at all wheelchair accessible due to cramped spaces so don’t bother if you’re alone…employees there also could not care less). Luckily the museum campus is surrounded by multiple other restaurants. Each building has its own gift shops and there’s an additional gift shop outside the main museum as well. I bought myself a tshirt, an army style mechanics bag, a music box that plays The Battle Hymn of the Republic, and a pen for my collection. I wanted a Zippo lighter, but I forgot to get one.
The museum has multiple expansion plans including a new exhibit on the liberation of the concentration camps, a hotel, conference center, an exhibit about how STEM research helped win the war, and walkways connecting all the buildings together.
The National World War II Museum is easily the most modern and immersive museum I’ve been to before and I almost want to call it the Smithsonian of the South. It not only brings the war years alive, but takes you back to a time when the delineations between good and evil could not have been clearer. I can not recommend a visit more.
