The National WWII Museum
How the story of one day, 75 years ago, grew to encompass all of World War II
D-Day was the largest seaborne invasion in history, an irrefutable symbol of America’s commitment to dismantling Hitler’s relentless hate machine. June 6, 2019, will mark seventy-five years since the allied forces stormed Normandy beaches, the start of a long campaign to liberate Europe from German occupation.
This anniversary is always significant, but the seventy-fifth is a particularly poignant milestone, noted Dr. Robert Citino, executive director of the National World War II Museum’s Institute for the Study of War and Democracy. “This will be the last time a major D-Day anniversary is celebrated with World War II veterans still amongst us—men who were there.” According to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, less than three percent of the sixteen million Americans who served in World War II were still alive in 2018. “These men and women are 95, 96 years old now and they are fading away. When we get to the hundredth, there will be no surviving veterans of the event.”
Why New Orleans?
The National World War II Museum opened its doors as the National D-Day Museum on June 6, 2000, a pioneering force in the revitalization of the city’s Warehouse district. The reason for the museum’s location might not at first seem obvious, but its landing in New Orleans is natural for two reasons. The Higgins boats vital to the operation—flat-bottomed shallow-draft boats created to operate in Louisiana’s swamps and bayous—were built by Andrew Higgins in New Orleans. Historian Stephen Ambrose, the author of the book D-Day, also lived in the city and spearheaded the founding of the museum, which Congress designated the National World War II Museum in 2003.
D-Day proved a crucial place to start. Citino, who has written ten books about the German army and World War II, has no doubt that if the Allies hadn’t landed in western Europe, we might still be at war. “All war boils down to seizing the other side’s territory. Our country was in full war production and we had the technology to potentially beat the Germans—but potentially isn’t good enough.” The meticulous planning, vast coordination, and courage that D-Day required is beyond description, he added. The landing soldiers had more than two hundred yards of beach to cover while facing the teeth of German fire; many, thousands, died in a matter of minutes.
For the seventy-fifth anniversary, the National World War II Museum has planned a year-long array of programming and events including an exhibit of paintings by French artist Guy de Montlaur, a D-Day veteran whose physical and psychological wounds influenced his art long before the term PTSD was coined. There will also be tours of the Normandy galleries, special lectures and screenings; and on June 5, the world premiere of a new film, Seize and Secure: The Battle for La Fière. Actor Mark Harmon narrates the story of the 505th Parachute Regiment and its battle to secure the La Fière bridge to allow the Allies to press inland from the beaches.
Realizing a $400 million vision
There’s a much-repeated story of the museum’s genesis that centers on a conversation between Ambrose and museum co-founder (and fellow historian) Dr. Nick Mueller. Toward the end of last century, the two friends were having a drink together in Dr. Ambrose’s backyard gazebo. “[They were talking] about the importance of preserving World War II history,” said Dr. Keith Huxen, the museum’s Senior Director of Research and History since 2011, “Stephen, who was famous for writing books about the period, was frustrated that there wasn’t a museum to pay tribute to the many heroes of the war. He said if he had enough money, he’d make one—and was sure it wouldn’t even cost that much, maybe a million dollars. Dr. Nick, who was in administration at UNO, called him naïve and said it would be at least a $4 million project. Here we are, close to $400 million later.”
The master plan for the official WWII museum of the United States was released in June 2005; a six-pavilion vision would weave together the disparate aspects of the war, illuminate its many theaters of battle, and reveal its complex impact on Americans, then and until today. That vision was abruptly derailed by Hurricane Katrina a few months later. “There were questions about whether we’d ever get back on track,” recalled Huxen. But by 2009, the museum expanded to the former Louisiana Building, a derelict brewery in the Warehouse. Besides housing the American Sector restaurant and BB’s Stage Door Canteen, this building is also home to the Solomon Victory Theater where the bespoke 4D film, Beyond All Boundaries, debuted. Still the museum’s most popular stop, the film was a game changer, said Huxen.
“Having Tom Hanks involved brought us to another level,” he said. Thanks to 4D technology, visitors are immersed in an impressive theme park-style attraction that combines education and entertainment in a stirring and inspiring package. From rumbling seats to high-tech sound and smoke effects, the film includes a generous amount of war footage and photographs that deliver a broad overview of America’s wartime experience.
In 2013, the museum opened the U.S. Freedom Pavilion, a soaring space hung with original World War II aircraft suspended from the ceiling, including a restored C-47 that dropped paratroopers over the fields of Normandy. Visitors can also tour the USS Tang Submarine Experience and peruse a tribute to Medal of Honor recipients. The Campaigns of Courage Pavilion opened in 2014 and includes the permanent immersive Road to Berlin exhibition, capturing stories of the war from December 1941 through 1945. The Road to Tokyo theatre gallery exhibit debuted in June 2017.
“What started for us as telling this one story [of D-Day] has grown into telling the comprehensive story of the war and all its theaters,” —Dr. Robert Citino
“To this point, we’ve covered how we got into the war and what we were fighting for,” said Huxen. “Our next step was to address the home front.” This look at what Main Street USA was like during the war touches on rationing and economics, along with an exhibit called United but Unequal, which peels back the layers of discrimination faced by African Americans as well as Americans of German, Japanese, and Italian descent.
“The three-story Liberation Pavilion is the final piece, which will open in 2021,” he added. “The world is a smoking room at the end of the war, a wreck in 1945. These galleries will look at displaced persons, the after effects of the Holocaust, POW camps, the wounded warriors who returned home.”
Throughout the entire museum, videos and oral histories of some 10,000 men and women who served in the war shed personal insight and light onto the war experience. Now the most popular tourist attraction in New Orleans, the National World War II Museum attracts visitors from all over the world and boasts a membership base that is the largest of any American museum.
This fall brings the opening of the Higgins Hotel and Conference Center, a 230-room hotel with meeting space designed to host military history events and conferences onsite. There will also be a media center and broadcast studio, allowing staff to push out content all over the globe. Working with Arizona State University, Huxen and his colleagues will soon offer a master’s degree of arts in World War II studies.
Planning your visit to the National WWII Museum
The museum is vast, a six-acre campus that extends three city blocks. “If you just have a few hours, I’d choose one major exhibit, the Road to Berlin, for example, and focus on that,” suggested Citino. “If you have more time, explore the Road to Tokyo exhibit, which details the war in the Pacific, and the Arsenal of Democracy exhibit, about efforts on the home front.” For sure, don’t miss the U.S. Freedom Pavilion. In the building’s Louisiana Memorial exhibition, explore a Higgins boat, the craft that was created in New Orleans and helped win the war halfway around the world.
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“What started for us as telling this one story [of D-Day] has grown into telling the comprehensive story of the war and all its theaters,” said Citino. The seventy-fifth anniversary of D-Day is a reminder of the sacrifice, courage, and commitment to freedom shown by these last few remaining members of America’s greatest generation. A visit to the National World War II Museum offers all Americans the opportunity to remember at what cost liberation came and salute the heroes who secured it.
945 Magazine Street
New Orleans, La. 70130