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The Museum of World War II, Inc., with 10,000 square feet of display area, is described by London’s Imperial War Museum as “a...private collection containing the most comprehensive display of original World War II artifacts on exhibit anywhere in the world”. The museum is located a few miles west of Boston, at the junction of two major highways.
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Formed over a period
of more than 50 years, the collection documents and illustrates the period
from the Versailles Treaty, ending World War I, to the Nuremberg and Tokyo
war crimes trials, ending World War II. All of the more than 6,000
artifacts on display, as well as 100 mannequins with complete uniforms
and equipment, are original and from the Second World War.
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The presentation of the exhibits is a major reason
that the Museum is private and not open to the general public--although visits are regularly scheduled several days a week for those who will appreciate and understand the era and the collection. Most of the artifacts are not behind glass.
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Fragile items, important letters and documents, handguns, small spy weapons, and the
like, are in museum cases, but everything else is openly exhibited.
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The Museum is arranged
chronologically and geographically, and a visitor is guided by original
materials--not signboards--from section to section.' Political correctness'
is found in its proper place--with Joseph Goebbels in the Third Reich.
Acoustiguides are available, with three and a half hours of commentary on the individual exhibits. |
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There are highly important wartime letters, documents and manuscripts displayed
from all the major personalities, as well as a comparable number from "average"
people: from soldiers' diaries to concentration camp inmates. Hitler,
Roosevelt, Churchill, Eisenhower, Patton, Montgomery, Stalin, Rommel, Mussolini,
Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichmann, Raoul Wallenberg and Anne Frank's family--all
of the leading characters are represented in original letters.
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Of particular importance are Hitler's draft of the Munich agreement, containing
his notations as well as Neville Chamberlain's; the first message alerting
armed forces of the attack on Pearl Harbor; Patton's letter to the Sultan
of Morocco announcing the American landings and threatening destruction;
Montgomery's address to the troops before El Alamein; Patton's annotated
map
for the invasion of Sicily; the complete plans for the D-Day invasion in
Normandy; and MacArthur's draft of the Japanese surrender terms.
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Artifacts include Hitler's SA shirt; his first sketch for the Nazi flag; his reading glasses;
Patton's battle helmet; Montgomery's beret; and copies of Mein Kampf belonging to Hitler, FDR and Patton. Five different Enigma
code machines, including the ten-rotor,
of which only five are known, are displayed--the most extensive collection
outside of the National Security Agency. Literally hundreds
of spy weapons, clandestine radios and sabotage equipment are shown,
together with thousands of other artifacts that reflect everyday life on
the home fronts and the battle fronts.
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The smallest artifacts are the spy weapons and cameras; the largest are an American
Sherman tank from the North African campaign, a German Kubelwagen, a
German Goliath tank from Normandy, and one of the very few surviving original
landing craft (LCVP) from the Pacific.
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If
a visitor is overwhelmed with the enormity and the complexity of the war,
I have achieved my goal.
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Manuscripts
and artifacts from the collection have been exhibited at the National
Archives; West Point; Museum of Our National Heritage; Grolier Club,
New York City; University of Southern California; the Newseum, Washington;
the Supreme Court of the United States; the National D-Day Museum,
New Orleans; all of the Presidential Libraries; The Imperial War Museum, The Churchill Museum; and many other institutions.
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Our new Museum
Store offers original World War II artifacts for sale. These
include signed letters and documents from the major personalities, posters,
and other artifacts from World War II. Everything is original--there
are no reproductions.
My new book, World War II: Saving the Reality, is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders and other bookstores.
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