Transcripts For CSPAN3 American Artifacts WWII Museum Road To Tokyo Exhibit 20240712

Welcome everyone to the national were work to museum. When the warehoused in downtown new orleans. Here at the museum we have several different permanent exhibits. Were here in the roads to tokyo exhibit which is going to take us through the war of the pacific and asia through 1941 to 1945. This exhibit is a recreation of the uss enterprise. World war ii and air craft carrier. As you advance into the exhibit, you must start out on the ship and really get oriented what happened in the pacific. One of these things that we like to do is introduce our visitors to the main players. We have a lineup of four here. Japanese emperor eaten in, the man who was responsible for the war in the pacific. President of the united states, franklin del earner roosevelt. America can ally churchill. John kaishek the leader of the nationalist china chinese. John in the chinese fought a war on the japanese mylan. Very bloody and very protracted war. As we advance through the bridge of the uss enterprise, world war ii aircraft can or, this is where the command elements would be. Were gonna go into our next gallery and get a better look at what their life would be like four crewmen on board the ship. You can see here what the quarters would like on board a ship in world war ii. Nothing to luxurious this, was stripped to the bone. When you get the most as a supplies of weapon. Creature comforts and are usually pretty far down to the run. We tried to capture that personal story. We think thats what makes a National World War Ii Museum such an effective experience. For example, we have a story that urban visitors can meet of dorian miller. Story was given tactical weapons training, but when the japanese bomb pearl harbor, he grabbed a machine gun started firing brought a couple of our aircraft down. Japanese aircraft. Here is the actual bombing of the mighty uss arizona by japanese planes. One of the in one of the interesting aspects of the war in the pacific, is how quickly the turning point came. The bombing of parole pearl harbor was december of 1941 just about six months later after the japanese had run wild through the pacific and carved out a gigantic and fire, the battle of midway was fine. The u. S. Dive bombers disk to destroy no fewer than four japanese aircraft carriers. That was a major portion of japans naval strength. Whatever chance they had of winning the pacific war probably disappeared in and 1942. That early into the war, from the humiliation of pain of pearl harbor, to the victory of midway just a few six months. The war would go over for over three years. June of 1942 ton august of 1945. Think most Japanese Naval officers in particular realized that the war was probably lost after midway. They had taken this colossal gamble to launch a war on united states, accompany a country that whose economy was ten times the size of their. On what was there to do now . They just simply had to hang tough and hope for some kind of miracle. Thats where japanese officers were doing. It was often said that they were loyalty to the emperor, we cant let the emperor down. They really saw no way out than hang tough, to realize its a big ocean, maybe something would happen, maybe the americans would tire of the struggle. Maybe we japanese could take such a toll of u. S. Casualties that american president would be forced to end the war on some more favorable terms to japan. But of course that was never to be. Heres a flight jacket. We have some smaller artifacts. Meryl was a pilot on the uss your town, fought in the battle of midway, bombed a japanese aircraft carrier. I have a soft spot for these fighter pilots. I see more people standing in front of our aviator fighter jackets, theyre quite stylish. But there from a bygone area. And 1940, flight was not yet that old. Yet it played such a major role in every single one of these encounters. Particularly so, in the war in the pacific because of the vast distances between ships, a vast distances between islands. The war the pacific could not have been fought the way we know is fog without aviation. So i often point to meryls light jacket is one of my choice artifacts in the museum. They realize that they had to keeps to something to keep up the pressure on the japanese empire and keep up the pressure on japanese defenses. What they chose was an assault on an on a japanese island. As we come in here in the next gallery, youll see the guam canal. In my mind this is one of most beautiful rooms in the single museum. It seems to capture the ambiance of a general island in world war ii. We have a film exhibit on bedsheets essentially to kind of a quaint with the marines would do once a landed there. They would do it in a very primitive way. We consider ourselves at the museum experiential and interactive and environmental exhibit tree. Thats what we specializing. We also of course as a museum have artifacts as many as any could want. I know the reason the reason many people come to world War Ii Museum, especially a military History Museum is to look at artifacts. We have a wide variety