November 12, 2023

We spent our last day in New Orleans touring the expanded National World War II Museum. We had visited what was then the D-Day Museum 20 years ago and what an incredible change from one small building. Today the Museum consists of a 7 building campus, with 5 main exhibit buildings with over 19,00 square feet and 19 galleries to tell the story of World War II. We were met and welcomed again by Boysie Bollinger. We viewed the Museums introductory film called “Beyond all Boundaries” and then went on two private behind the scenes tours. The first is a taste of the archives conducted by one of the curators, where we viewed a very small sample of the over 250,000 artifacts from the war. We then toured a gallery focused on “the Arsenal of Democracy” that tells the story of the mobilization of U.S. industry to produce the incredible amount of war material that overwhelmed our enemies. After our tours we had lunch in the Hall of Democracy library and were welcomed by the Museum CEO, Stephen Watson and enjoyed a presentation by Dr. Mike Bell entitled The Battle Front/ Home Front, which focused on President Roosevelt’s leadership. We then had an opportunity to visit some of the galleries on our own before heading back to our hotel.

We left vowing to return since we just scratched the surface of this incredible exhibition. That evening we walked to Bourbon Street and the famous Galatoire’s restaurant for a fabulous farewell dinner. We took the opportunity to express our appreciation to Wendy and Judy of Pangburn for organizing and leading a great trip.

The next morning it was up early for a 9:00 AM flight through Atlanta to Savannah and then a limo back to Hilton Head Island. A very interesting trip shared with a group of very nice people.