How do you tell the story of World War II – through airplanes, tanks, uniforms, and the voices of those who lived it? At the National WWII Museum in New Orleans, the answer is yes. Exhibitions with 300,000 artifacts and over 12,000 personal narratives fill three floors of six buildings across seven acres.
Told from the American perspective, the museum tells the tragic story of the deadliest war in human history. Give yourself four to six hours to experience it fully.
Don’t Miss These Galleries: D-Day, Europe, and the Pacific
You’ll walk through a timeline of battles, such as North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy, surrounded by maps, videos, audio broadcasts, photographs, written and oral histories, weapons, and personal items. Both Allied and Axis artifacts are on display.
The galleries use simulated environments to make visitors feel like they are there. For example, in the Rising Sun exhibit, first, you’re on a ship with lifeboats and sleeping hammocks and later, you’re walking in a dark island jungle amid sand, palm trees and a simulated pill box. Add shouted commands, gunfire, sounds of airplanes – even a P-51 fighter hanging overhead – and you feel you’re in the fight.
One visitor, John Powell of Rochester, Illinois, said he liked “the level of immersion and audio-visual to support the artifacts and personal stories. It’s better than what I expected.”
Real People. Real Stories
The museum tells stories of the 16 million Americans who served. One heartbreaking moment is reading the telegram notifying the family of Private First Class James W. Oglesby that he was killed in action at Bougainville on March 25, 1944. Alongside it is a letter from his chaplain and a photo of Oglesby and his girlfriend – whom he secretly married just before departing.
Corporal Kenneth Kassels, who landed on D-Day, survived a gunshot wound to the head. His helmet, still bearing a bullet hole, is on display.
I met three members of the 150th Engineering Battalion, a Mississippi-based Army Guard unit visiting in uniform after field training and asked for their thoughts.
“You get the experience of what the soldiers went through at the time…” said Sergeant Major Micquel Miller. Captain Joel Baldwin said the WWII generation was “born into a time when the common man was needed to do extraordinary things.” And Lieutenant Colonel Seth Davidson said “leadership hadn’t changed much in 80 years, it (the museum) is helping us understand what past veterans went through and helps us as leaders today.”
Beyond the Battlefield
The Arsenal of Democracy exhibit explores America’s internal debate – isolationism vs. interventionism – from 1939 to 1941 before Pearl Harbor and how the nation mobilized its economy for war.
The Liberation Pavilion focuses on the aftermath: the Holocaust, the Monuments Men who searched for stolen art, war crime trials, and civil rights and other changes to inequality. The role of non-white men and women were also explored – 1.2 million African-Americans served; 350,000 women joined the military and 19 million worked; and Japanese-Americans were incarcerated.
In the Freedom Pavilion, enormous aircraft hang above you, including a B-17E Flying Fortress and a B-25J bomber, and vehicles of war are displayed.
I spoke with Chesley Hines, an 85-year-old Vietnam veteran and museum volunteer. “I grew up knowing about the war. I relate to these guys and girls (that served). It’s so important to the city (New Orleans)…I enjoy meeting people.
Other exhibits
The museum includes more than 15 smaller exhibits and interactive features: Higgins Landing Boat, Voices From the Front (interactive conversations with members of the WWII generation), U.S. Merchant Marines: We Deliver the Goods, U.S.S. Tang Submarine Experience – an interactive mission, Freedom Theater on the war’s global stakes and the 4D film “Beyond All Boundaries”, narrated by Tom Hanks (temporarily unavailable). Whew!
A take-away is learning that WWII killed about 76,598 million people and reshaped many nations and formed new ones. Through it all, one truth resonates: freedom is never free.
Plan Your Visit
The museum is wheelchair accessible, fully air-conditioned, and offers three types of guided tours for $20 each. Hours: 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Tickets: $26 for children (K-12), $33 for seniors, $26 for military (active, retired, or veteran). There are no audio phones.
There are two cafés inside and two more restaurants at the adjacent Higgins Hotel. Four gift shops offer everything from books and apparel to WWII-themed games.
In 2024, the museum estimated that 658 WWII veterans in Oklahoma were still alive. Their stories live on through this remarkable museum. • story by Lt Col Richard Stephens, Jr., USAFR, Ret.
