The-PITTSTOP: National WWII Museum, New Orleans

As I mentioned in a previous post, we spent Monday afternoon touring the WWII Museum and we returned today for a couple of hours to finish up.

If you would like to see the post I made about my visit here in January, 2017, you can click HERE

We actually managed to park in the same parking lot I found back in January, but this time I had Jack to help with squeezing into the spot.

Guess people do not like this spot with a heavy metal railing and steep drop-off on the side!

We like it because no one can park behind us as it is the turn at the end of the row and we can just back straight up.

TripAdvisor has rated this museum as the number two museum in the country and is a MUST SEE for anyone that has any interest at all in World War II.

The exhibits begin with background on Nazi Germany and the Japan Empire conquering neighbors and the USA's reluctance to get involved.

Troop Numbers at the beginning of the War

It progresses to show how the U.S. began ramping up war preparations to provide Britain with the armaments it needed to continue to fight Germany as the only democracy left in Europe - "Arsenal of Democracy".

Roosevelt started out asking for unheard-of number of airplanes to built at 50,000. Eventually, the homefront (mostly women) produced 100,000 airplanes in one year!

Of course, we entered the war after being attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and subsequently, Italy and Germany declared war on us. The exhibits about the Pacific front and the European front are huge and cover the main battles using extensive photos and video.

They also cover the myriad ways that the war was fought at home, including a special exhibit about Bob Hope and his courageous efforts to bring laughter to the troops.

Jack has always admired Bob Hope because he advocated a daily nap - and he lived to be 100!

Bob Hope got some unusual fan mail. One of his first shows overseas was to an audience where 45% were subsequently killed in fighting.

Many Hollywood stars toured for the troops or did extensive war bond programs

Homes that had a family member in the service hung these flags. Jack still has the one his mother hung in the window for his father.

They also covered the racial and gender prejudice that was legal and rampant in the armed services as well as the the Japanese camps.

While keeping families in these camps, 33,000 Japanese Americans fought in the war.

Jack and I saw these concrete walls and bunkers when we visited Utah Beach in Normandy.

We left New Orleans after lunch, heading north across 24 mile Lake Ponchartrain - the longest bridge over water in the world. Got a nice site on the Tchefuncte River for the night.