On 8 December 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made a historic speech to Congress in which he called the 7 December attack on Pearl Harbor “a date which will live in infamy.” The United States promptly declared war on Japan, and for the next four years engaged in one of history’s bloodiest conflicts—which ended with the dropping of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What was the cost of this Allied victory? Nearly 300,000 U.S. servicemen killed, wounded, or missing in action.
Six decades have passed since the attack on Pearl Harbor and the devastating World War II campaigns that followed. It is important that the price of freedom and peace that made today’s world possible is not forgotten. The National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas, the premiere museum in the United States that tells the story of those involved in the Pacific Theater of World War II, is dedicated to this mission.
Prior to 1999 the Museum of the Pacific War was housed in the Admiral Nimitz Museum and Historical Center on Main Street in the old Steamboat Hotel once owned by the grandfather of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. The Texas State Legislature purchased the hotel property in 1969 and it became part of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department in 1981. Before long this facility became inadequate to tell both the life of Admiral Nimitz and the sprawling panorama of World War II in the Pacific. An expansion program followed whose campaign collected more than $1 million to build a new exhibit hall adjacent to the museum. First completed were the Plaza of the Presidents and exterior portions. The 26,000-square-foot complex opened in 1999 as The George Bush Gallery. A new Pacific War Combat Zone opened in December 2001, and more new exhibits are planned for the future.
The story of the war with Japan unfolds chronologically. Visitors weave through winding corridors filled with rare and priceless relics: the telescopic sight from a gun on the Ward (DD-139), which fired the first U.S. shot at Pearl Harbor; a hatch door from the Arizona (BB-39); and old radios that replay broadcasts such as Lieutenant General Jonathan Wainwright’s surrender of the Philippines and the Japanese surrender ceremony on the Missouri (BB-63) in September 1945. Other artifacts include the diary of Army Major General Edward King, who surrendered U.S. troops on Bataan; Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s dress tunic; a U.S. flag sewn together from parachutes by U.S. prisoners of war; a wooden rice bowl that belonged to a prisoner who stuffed its cracks with paper so soup would not drain out the bottom; and countless other objects associated with the war.
Three large environments, strategically located between exhibits, recreate key events of the war: a Japanese midget submarine used in the attack on Pearl Harbor; a B-25 bomber similar to those used in the Doolittle raid on Japan in April 1942; and a recreation of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal.
On 7 December 2001, the museum opened its new exhibit, the Pacific Combat Zone, which features four macroenvironments with associated exhibits in between. As visitors enter the Combat Zone, they first pass through the recreated hangar deck of an aircraft carrier where a TBM Avenger torpedo bomber readies for its next mission. In the logistics support building, they come in contact with an actual World War II PT boat docked along a pier. A short walk down a stepped hill reveals a landing craft on a fortified beachhead facing a Japanese tank. The last environment, a field cemetery, stands near a Quonset Hut that houses a MASH-style hospital on Okinawa. “Our goal is to make the entire experience very real and personal,” explains museum director Joe Cavanaugh, “and create a strong emotional impact that won’t be easily forgotten.” The museum also includes resources for researchers and educators. Scholars can use the museum’s Center for Pacific War Studies, whose collections include official documents, oral histories, 3,000 books, and nearly 15,000 photos. The museum also offers a symposia series, as well as school-outreach programs where veterans and other specialists give classroom lectures about World War II and students are brought in to visit the museum to see special presentations. These presentations, says Cavanaugh, “focus on the weapons and horror of war, as well as explaining why our side won and the other side lost the individual battles because of superior weapons and tactics.” This museum is a remarkable place that salutes our rich heritage and honors those who fought and served during World War II. Its intensely textured experience brings the past alive and gives visitors a deeper understanding of the many sacrifices that made liberty and freedom possible for all.
Fredericksburg is located about 70 miles west of both San Antonio and Austin, Texas. The museum is open daily from 1000 to 1700 daily except Christmas Day. For more information, call (830) 997-4379 or visit their web site at www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/nimitz/.