Outside of Washington, D.C., there’s probably no more appropriate place to commemorate Memorial Day than the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.
For most travelers, New Orleans plays up the celebratory side of Memorial Day – the parties, the food and the drinks that salute the joys of freedom fallen soldiers worked to ensure.
However, the massive National World War II Museum just a 15 minute walk from the French Quarter has a program planned this coming Monday that anyone within range of southern Louisiana (or, indeed, the great American southeast) should consider attending.
Opened in 2000, the museum expanded last year with new wings and attractions to illustrate the scope of the global conflict — including the new $35 million Boeing Wing.
A visitor’s experience begins with “Beyond All Boundaries,” a 4D movie hosted by Tom Hanks covering the war from beginning to end. Other attractions include “Final Mission: USS Kang Experience” and Boeing’s Freedom Pavilion. The latter is a look at air power — with real B17 Flying Fortress and B25 Mitchell bombers hanging in the rafters overhead.
There’s a strong historical reason for the destination to be settled in New Orleans. As the Allies prepared to invade Fortress Europe, they faced Hitler’s Atlantic Wall – thousands of miles of concrete and iron studded by manned defenses stretching from the south of France through Norway. By design, it was impossible for the Allies to use standard vessels to mount an invasion.
Enter Andrew Higgins, a New Orleans-based industrialist. He knew bayou locals used boats with flat bottoms and low drafts to navigate the area swamps. If a door could be fitted to such a boat, it could clear the Nazi defenses. So, it was a fleet of “Higgins Boats” that invaded Germany on June 6, 1944, D-Day. Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower was quoted as saying, “It was Andrew Higgins who won the war for us.”
So, jump ahead several decades, and the massive World War 2 Museum sits proudly on Magazine Street in New Orleans.
For this year’s Memorial Day, the museum will highlight the “artifacts, images and stories that honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice in one of the world’s darkest hours.”
Now through June 4, the museum will have a Special Artifact Display, Remember Them: The Crew of the USS Tang. On Memorial Day itself, New Orleans will host a Marine Corps Quintet Performance, a Memorial Day Ceremony and a Memorial Day National Moment of Silence and Bell-Ringing.
Those who can’t make the trip south to New Orleans, you can visit the museum’s online memorial to fallen heroes and tweet their own salute here.
