National Museum of the Pacific War, Fredericksburg Texas

My husband and I went on a weekend retreat to Fredericksburg Texas and while we were there we visited  the 'National Museum of the Pacific War' (WWII)

Outside the National Museum Of The Pacific War

Both my husband and I had family members that were involved with World War Two and have always been interested in things relating to it since most of the time the living survivors really didn't want to talk about it. After visiting these museums I could understand why.  To me all those who were involved with the war were hero's and should be respected for it.  Unfortunately most of the people that we knew that were involved are now dead but if anyone sees this and was involved with WWII I give you my sincere thanks and respect.
    Connected with this museum was also the Admiral Nimitz Museum, the George H.W. Bush Gallery and the Pacific Combat Zone.  My husband had seen the Nimitz Museum before and we looked at it but we got there at about 4 and things closed at 5 so we hurried through it to get to other things.  Fortunately the tickets were good for 48 hours and we were able to come back and see the things we missed.  The museum was dark inside and I did not take any photo's.

To get to the Pacific war museum we went through the
George H. W. Bush Gallery
and I got these shots.

George H.W. Bush Gallery, Fredericksburg Tx

It was a nice tribute to the presidents that were involved with World War 11 and other people that served in it too and made contributions to its victory.

We then went to the National Museum of the Pacific War and got into it for about 20 minutes when we just plain pooped out and it was so close to closing time we knew that there was no way we could see thing in it since we were still in the first galleries and decided we'd come back in the morning to finish it.  I was glad we made that choice because there was so much to see and do in it, plus when we came back they had wands to give us that gave us an audio tour of the place.  I guess they were all in use when we got there the 1st time and those wands made such a big difference in enjoying the museum.  If you ever do visit the museum please allow at least 2-3 hrs for it and more time if you do the other things too. 

Also we were told that at the Pacific Combat Zone you could only see it with a tour guide and the best time to see it would be when it open at 10.  So the next morning we were there at the

bright and early for the 10 am tour.  As it turned out we were the only ones there and ended up with a private tour which was great for us since the guide let us go behind some things that most people don't get to see.   The guide really loved his job and was very knowledgeable about things and did an excellent job explaining things.
    Here are some of the stuff you got to look at while you were waiting for the tour to begin.
One of my children is named Mark and he was always a little torpedo after seeing this now I know why we called him that - only thing is this isn't so small as I thought it was. 

 Here's the stats on that Mark X1V torpedo.

 This was a water depth charger mine.

 Nothing like seeing a couple of bombs to wake you up in the morning.

 or depth chargers.

The guide came and took us into the room.  He explained that this is what it looks like inside the hanger of a aircraft carrier.
But first I'm going to show what an aircraft carrier looked like during WWII.  It was pretty long and flat.  

 It amazed me that anything could land on something like this.

 They had these charts on the wall to help them identify the different aircraft that was being flown.

 Now for what it looked like inside the hanger.  The room was built to the exact dimension of a hanger section.  They had big huge steel doors to keep them separate in case a fire ever broke out it wouldn't sink the whole ship.  It amazed me that these things were all built before computers and everything was figured out on a slideruler.  
     Noticed how the wings collapsed - pretty ingenious if you ask me. By doing that they were able to increase the number of planes that could be on each ship.

 Here's how they moved those bombs around.

 A frontal view of it.

 From the left side.  The pilot would get in on this side.

 While the rest of the crew would use this small door down below.

 Another frontal view. 

After we saw the hanger they took a to another building.  There was some stuff in between the buildings too.

In the next building they had an actual PT boat that was used during the War.  President Kennedy had a PT boat under his command during the war and they built a model that looked like his.

 The one that was in the building.

 The building was so small you really couldn't get a good angle to capture its profile and to show it in its entirety.

 This was the engine that propelled it through the waters. I forgot which auto manufacture made it.  We came to find out that the American car manufactures made the engines that were used for so many different vehicles during this war with General Motors and Ford being two of the major ones.

I thought we were now down with this part of the museums but I came to find out I was wrong.  The guide took us out a back door to a huge area that was built like an actual combat zone setting.  He explained to us that about once a quarter they have live reenactments of certain pacific war battles there.   All the machinery there was the actual machines that were used during some of the battles.  They were even able to recover some Japanese machines that were used too.
It's so different from reading about the stuff verses being up close and touching and seeing the real things.  I just all came to life and made such an impression on me. 

 A Higgens type boat used for unloading soldiers.

 Wouldn't you enjoy something like this to tootle around town in?  The guide said that there is actually a man in town that owns a Sherman tank that he sometimes brings to these reenactments.   All I could think was "only in Texas".

 This was one of the Japanese tanks that was captured.  What surprised me was how thin the armor was.  The guide said at first the thin armor was a problem because the shells were going right through the tanks and not disabling them.  They had to use less powerful shells to inflict maximum damage to stop them.

 This was a Japanese gun that caught the US off guard.  The gun could be totally dismantled and reassemble any where.  The Japanese were able to transport these massive gun through the jungle just by each man carrying a piece of it.  He pointed out the carter type pins that held it in place. 

 The last building we went into was what  a typical medical unit would look like.

And finally we saw this memorial to the different forces.  On each cross was how many were killed  and how many were injured.  The numbers were very sobering to see.

That ended our tour of the Pacific Combat Zone.  It was well worth the effort to come back and see and I was pleased that we did see it.

Now we  moved back to the National Museum of the Pacific War.

As we were walking to the entrance there were a lot of different things to be seen on the outside too.  we saw this interesting thing outside.  It's a device for loading torpedoes.

This was the first gallery and it was very nicely done.  You could tell a lot of thought and effort went into designing this museum.  This section was all about Japan and the Orient explaining the politics that was going on before the war and why they ended up getting involved with it.  It was very informative and different from some of the other war museums we've seen by giving the enemies point of view. 
   As we were going around this time we did have the wands and those helped tremendously because you didn't have to read everything but could listen to the narratives as you looked at the displays.

They actually had really vehicles in it too.

and airplanes.  I think this may have been a plane that George HW Bush flew at one time.

This was a captured Japanese gun that actually shot down something that was across from it in the museum. The lighting wasn't the best and I did not get a picture of the vehicle.  What was nice in the museum there was a lot of videos of the actual people talking about what happened and why it happened the way it did.

This was one of the first remote flying drones used during the war.

 This was just a model of the flying sharks that were fighting over in China.

 Here's the uniforms of the different serves during the war.

 The was a battleship during the war. 

 And finally this is a bomb casing you never want to see except in a museum.

 Do you recognize it?   Its the shell to the atomic bomb "Fat Boy".

 So if you ever see something like this you know its too late to take shelter and just hope for better things in the hear after.

I really liked the museum and would highly recommend it if you are a war buff like my husband is.  The only thing I did not like about it was the layout was confusing.  We got separated and had to find each other by using our cell phones.  If they just would have painted a white line with arrows on it showing which way to go it would have helped a lot.  I noticed I was not the only person who got separated from there group so it wasn't just me that was having that problem.  Also if you go make sure you allow plenty of time to thoroughly enjoy it. This one museum not to be rushed through.