{"id":500,"date":"2020-02-13T13:54:12","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T18:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.messysuitcase.com\/?p=500"},"modified":"2020-02-13T13:54:12","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T18:54:12","slug":"new-orleans-part-2-the-national-world-war-ii-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/13\/new-orleans-part-2-the-national-world-war-ii-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"New Orleans, Part 2: The National World War II Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On our single full day in New Orleans, we opted for history instead of entertainment and headed to the National World War II Museum<\/strong>. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular, illuminating museums I have ever experienced in my life. This museum, which started out as the D-Day Museum in 2001, and is located in New Orleans because most of the landing craft used on that turning-point day in history was manufactured here. The D-Day Museum was so well received that it was expanded a few years later to become the National WWII Museum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Lisa’s dog tag<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

You start by getting a dog tag to represent a soldier you\nwill be tracking all day at check-in stations, and board the same kind of train\nmany soldiers took when they embarked on their journeys. It was a truly\nimmersive experience as, with seats rocking, the train whistle blowing and the\ngrainy black-and-white landscape flying by, the conductor welcomed you aboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Beyond Boundaries Film<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After getting off the train, we started our explorations by watching the 48-minute film Beyond Boundaries<\/em>, a 4D experience narrated by Tom Hanks that used film and other sensory effects, including a 1930s wooden-cabinet radio, falling snowflakes, a plane cockpit that lowered from the ceiling to punch out an air battle scene, and more to introduce us to the sheer magnitude of World War II. The mini-documentary stunningly put into perspective the global threat presented by German Furer Adolph Hitler, Italian Benito Mussolini, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan, the Axis leaders who wanted nothing less than global domination. It ended at the climax, the bombing of Pearl Harbor that dragged the United States in the war and engaged every person in the country in the fight for the very survival of democracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We learned how the ill-equipped United States, previously hesitant to join in the war as Nazi forces took over country after country, stepped up when it came under attack. Men young and old rushed to join the war effort and defend their country against the invaders. Women, who were home raising children, took factory jobs and churned out an incredible volume of planes, jeeps, weapons, artillery and more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The European Theater<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WWII Museum is comprised of five buildings, and we only\nhad one day, so we chose to enter the Road\nto Berlin: European Theater<\/em> gallery. I don\u2019t even know how to describe the\nexperience after this. We spent five awe-struck hours being assaulted from all\nsides by grainy black-and-white film, sound and lighting effects, real-life\nvoices telling their stories, radio broadcasts, flashes and explosions, and\nmuch more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This breathtaking exhibit took us through the major steps in the European campaign, starting with North Africa and moving across Italy, southern France, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, D-Day, England, and  Germany, that culminated in the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany. We experienced the shock that troops felt when they discovered the atrocity of the concentration camps and the slaughter of 6 million Jews, as well as millions of others deemed inferior to Hitler\u2019s Aryan race. We met military leaders and foot soldiers, journalists (including Ernie Pyle\u2019s life and death) and pilots. We saw airplanes and jeeps, nurses\u2019 uniforms and bomber jackets. We shivered in the snowy woods in Germany and leaned away from incoming anti-aircraft fire from a small plane. I thought of my three Troisi uncles who flew many missions in Europe and for the first time had a concept of what their experience was like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A plane goes down during an air battle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

My dog tag soldier, John, was a 17-year-old who went to\nCanada to pursue becoming a pilot when the United States rejected him because\nof a previous broken neck. He ended up doing bomb runs for Canada, and then\nEngland, before the United States decided to let him join. He won a medal of\nhonor and was a prisoner of war in Germany for more than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planes, Jeeps and\nSubmarines<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We also visited the US\nFreedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center<\/em>, where we saw a number of WWII planes\nand jeeps, as well as the Medal of Honor Exhibit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wartime aircraft<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Medal of Honor recipients<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

We still need to go back to see the other Campaign of Courage: The Pacific Theater<\/em>, especially since that\u2019s where Bob\u2019s dad was stationed on a Destroyer Escort in 1943-45. There\u2019s a whole hall, the Arsenal of Democracy<\/em>, that we didn\u2019t have time for, and a doomed submarine experience I\u2019m interested in. The outdoor area is under construction to create a Freedom Garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Orleans is about a lot more than Jazz and Jambalaya. If you visit this city, definitely devote a day or two to the National WWII Museum. To get the full experience of the museum, watch Bob’s video on the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On our single full day in New Orleans, we opted for history instead of entertainment and headed to the National World War II Museum. It was, without a doubt, one of the most spectacular, illuminating museums I have ever experienced in my life. This museum, which started out as the D-Day Museum in 2001, and … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “New Orleans, Part 2: The National World War II Museum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,229],"tags":[25,232,7,27,231,129,9,29,12,5,6,233,234],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lisa-blogger","category-new-orleans","tag-cross-country-travel","tag-louisiana","tag-messy-suitcase","tag-messysuitcase","tag-national-world-war-ii-museum","tag-new-orleans","tag-retirement","tag-road-trip","tag-travel","tag-travel-blog","tag-travel-blogger","tag-world-war-ii","tag-wwii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions\/556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messysuitcase.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}