National WWII (D-Day) Museum

While in New Orleans, I had to take a quick trip to the National WWII (D-Day) Museum. I'm a big WWII buff, especially the European theater, from all sides of the conflict - English, French, US, German, Russian, Italian - it's a very interesting period of world history. This museum was interesting in that it told the story of WWII fairly well through photographs, battlemaps, audio, video, and had a number of artifacts. Originally built as the D-Day museum, it was founded by Stephen Ambrose, who wrote such books as Citizen Soldier, D-Day, and Band of Brothers. It's also based in New Orleans, LA because the landing craft (Higgins Boats) that carried so many thousand brave soldiers to storm the Normandy beaches on D-Day were built by the Higgins company of New Orleans. There were a lot of artifacts about the Higgins boats, but it was a good general overview of the conflict. While we were there, the staff kept buzzing about a $300 million expansion that was being built across the street. Since the original museum was built merely as a D-Day Museum, it didn't have enough room to adequately cover North African, European, Pacific theaters of operation. It was definitely worth a visit, and will be really worth a visit when the expansion is complete.

A Higgins Boat, or LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel)

Check out the U-G-L-Y welds on the armour plating on this Sherman Tank!

Seven Steps to be a good citizen and control inflation. I wonder if we'll see posters like this again?

Nothing like a little devalued currency - Steel Pennies were minted during the war.

Plans for a Higgins Boat - build your own!

Personal Message from the British Commander, Bernard Law Montgomery on the eve of D-Day