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Higgins Boat
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The
World War II Museum was our primary stop for the day.
It’s a new museum, in fact, later this year, the Campaigns of Courage pavilion
should open. The 4D movie, “Beyond the Boundaries”, was a must-see. It really
got me emotionally into the sacrifices made to win this war, both by the troops
and at home. The exhibits expanded upon the sacrifices made at home to devote
our resources to building a war machine: rationing, price controls, and the
conversion of factories to make planes, ships, tanks, ammunition, and guns.
Another surprise was the contribution of New Orleans: Higgins boats. A small
boat manufacturer who built shallow bottom boats for the swamps, pushed the
Navy to design the landing craft, allowing marine invasions of the Pacific
islands and the Normandy Coast. Eisenhower declared that these boats allowed
them to win the war! While the museum covers both the preamble to World War II
and most of its major battles in Europe and the Pacific, the real focus is on
D-day in Europe. One gets a feel for the finesse used to trick the Germans on
the locations of the invasion, the tough decision of when to invade given the weather conditions, and the
sacrifices made by the troops to gain control of Normandy. The Boeing Pavilion
has a small collection of World War II bombers and fighter planes. We were here
for almost five hours.
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St. Louis Cathedral
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We then walked the French quarter from
Bourbon Street near
our hotel to
Jackson Square. Even in late afternoon, there was
music everywhere. We stopped to listen to a few jazz bands as we walked. For
variation, we visited St. Louis Cathedral, and then down to the Mississippi
just to record our southern-most point on the river. After some dinner, with
renewed energy, we walked back to our hotel observing the crowd as we walked.
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New Orleans View of the Mississippi
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