To mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day on June 6, the National World War II Museum hosted dozens of veterans of that war, their families and other dignitaries for what many expected to be the last milestone commemoration in which soldiers who served on that history-changing mission would be among those in attendance.
A focus on D-Day continues throughout the year at the museum, which actually got its start as a D-Day museum back on June 6, 2000, inspired by the city's significant contribution to the events of that day. The Higgins amphibious landing craft that brought thousands ashore on the beaches was created in New Orleans, not far from where the museum now stands, by Andrew Higgins and tested on Lake Pontchartrain on the city's north side.
One of those Higgins boats greets visitors as they walk through the doors of the museum, about a 20-minute walk from the French Quarter.
Any tour of the museum starts with its Normandy exhibit. The expansive display takes visitors from the invasion's planning stages right through to D-Day and beyond. Visitors can spend hours listening to the stories of those who survived the invasion, gathered by the museum's six videographers, and watch footage shot by servicemen as well as war correspondents.
Artifacts from the invasion range from uniforms, personal items and weapons to pieces as large as a CG-4A glider that was used to haul jeeps and other oversize equipment to Normandy.
An exhibit that is running through Oct. 20 also has its roots in the D-Day invasion but otherwise is a departure from the museum's usual offerings.
"In Memory of What I Cannot Say: The Art of Guy de Montlaur" focuses on the abstract paintings of a Sorbonne-trained artist and French soldier who was among those who landed on the shores of Normandy, one of 177 resistance fighters who had fled to England after France's surrender to the Nazis.
The exhibit offers a perspective of the war from outside the U.S., and its fine art focus is rare for a museum whose attention is trained on the battles and weaponry of World War II. Perhaps more significantly, the exhibit also addresses the effects of post-traumatic stress disorder -- shell shock, combat fatigue, combat exhaustion -- and how the military dealt with such subjects back then, a topic curator Larry Decuers said he believes has never been dealt with at the museum.
"I believe visitors are a little surprised to learn about the tremendous psychological toll combat took on the average rifleman during the war," Decuers said. "It's pretty staggering."
The exhibit consists mostly of de Montlaur's paintings from after the war. With titles like "Midsummer Nightmare" and "Before the Horror," the images -- many of them dark and distorted -- offer a glimpse into a tortured artist's state of mind in the postwar years.
Museum admission is $28.50 for adults, $24.50 for seniors and $18 for children ages 6 and up, military and college students.
Visit www.nationalww2museum.org.