9 Jan 2019 - National World War II Museum

9 Jan 2019

One of the challenges we have when we travel is with our towing vehicle, a big, wide pick-up.  Short of changing RV's there is nothing I can do about it.  It is just big.  Hard to find parking.  Hard to maneuver through old, narrow city streets.  Height limits, etc.  We use mass transit as much as possible, but it is something we have to deal with.  Not whining, just stating fact.

The other limiting factor is our dog.  It is 'self-inflicted' but we accept that.  She has a small bladder, so we walk her good before we leave and then we have to plan out touring carefully.  The target time is about 6 hours, give or take.  She has never messed in the RV but it is not fair to her to push the limit.  Usually it is not too much of an issue, but here it is 30 minutes just to the ferry, so we have to plan our days carefully.

Today is a good example.  Here is our timeline:
0907 hrs Depart
0934 hrs Arrive at Ferry
0954 hrs on ferry
1014 hrs on Hop-on Hop-off bus
1034 hrs arrived at Museum
1100 hrs tickets purchased and at museum movie
1347 hrs boarded Hop-on Hop-off bus
1447 hrs on ferry
1457 hrs at dock
1535 hrs at RV

So we were gone 6:28 hrs and of that we spent about 3 hrs at the museum.  Driving to this museum is not too practical as the streets are narrow and the parking is very limited and very expensive.  So, this is an example of what we have to deal with when we travel. 

Back to the museum.  This morning we headed for the ferry again and via the Hop-on Hop-off made our way to the National World War II Museum.

Many of our friends had recommended this as a 'must see' and they are spot on. The campus is huge.  There are four main buildings now and two being constructed currently.  We entered and stood in line to purchase tickets.  There is a will-call and I was regretting not doing this in advance until we met a very nice lady and her son standing in line in front of us.  They had some sort of library pass that gave them access to the museum.  Doreen and I were discussing which venues we wanted to see and which movies we wanted to see, and the lady turned around and offered to share their pass.  Bottom line is she saved us about $50!  How awesome was that?!

So first stop was the movie in the Solomon Victory Theater called Beyond All Boundaries, narrated by Tom Hanks.  Many we had spoke with highly recommended this and we are glad they did.  It was a panoramic 4D journey through World War II.  The seats vibrated as bombs exploded on screen.  Displays drop from the ceiling and up from the floor.  Cold air blew and snow fell in the theater with the wintry cold as Soldiers fought in the European Theater.  The movie was awesome! 

Video Clip - Intro to Beyond all Boundaries by Tom Hanks

From there we made our way across the street to the Campaigns of Courage displays including the 'Roads to Tokyo' and Roads to Berlin' displays a separate building. 

A person could easily spend a day just in this building if you thoroughly read each display and listened to each audio-visual presentation, but we had to keep moving.  We might have time tomorrow to come back to certain areas, such as the south Pacific where my dad and uncle Bernard fought the Japanese.  It is difficult to describe the detail of the displays.  Outstanding!  Here are a few pictures:

Unbelievable audio-visual graphics

Videos playing around every corner and artifact displays

Amazing detail, from the floor to the trees

Great weapons displays

Overhead aircraft

More weapons!

Realistic jeep display with dirt on the tires

We headed back across the street to the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion and toured the special exhibit focusing on Bob Hope and his years of contributions to the war effort.

Bob Hope

The original handwritten lyrics of 'Thanks for the Memories'

Other Bob Hope memorabilia including his military ID cards, etc

We also toured the Arsenal of the Democracy and the D-Day invasion of Normandy. 

Killed in action

The typical American living room with the primary means of keeping informed - the radio

Instructions for Japanese in America

Aircraft recognition

Jeeps being built

Technology - the Walkie Talkie by Motorola

A display on the development of the atomic bomb

The Enigma Machine - cryptography captured.  The Allies turned the tide on the war by decrypting the German messages

Simulated paratroopers dropped during the D-Day invasion to make the Germans believe we had a larger force

A jeep transported in the cargo hold of a glider during the D-Day invation

The wooden wing of a glider

A graphic to depict the sea and air invasion during D-Day.

This was a very small fraction of the displays we saw today.  It is so outstanding. 

Tomorrow we are going back to visit the Merchant Marine Gallery and the US Freedom Pavilion - the Boeing Center.