Our friends Bob & Bonnie Swartzendruber are full time RV'ers and winter in Fredericksburg. They were spending a few weeks in Bensen AZ but we decided to stop and see the museum anyway.
What a fabulous museum! The Museum of the War in the Pacific is built on what had been the Nimitz Museum (He is their favorite son, born and raised in Fredericksburg), it has some great exhibits.
The original Nimitz Museum is built on the remains of the old hotel built by his grandfather and operated by his family. The hotel underwent modernization and renovation, but when they decided to honor Nimitz with this museum, they restored the building to the original "Steamboat" facade that Nimitz knew as a boy
Nimitz left Fredericksburg for the Naval Academy at age 16!
Nimitz was a submariner and the new section of the museum has a set of sculptures that are arranged to appear as though a WW II sub is surfacing! Pretty neat! Nimitz was instrumental in seeing RADM Rickover put in charge of the Nuclear Submarine program in the 50's. Rickover was eccentric and unpopular in many arenas, but Nimitz knew he had the drive plus knowledge needed to see the job done correctly.
This is the tunic or "blouse" that Nimitz wore as a 5 star admiral.
Wonder if he had to work out so he could lift all of that "brass!"
Nimitz believed strongly in establishing peaceful relations with Japan.
This peace garden was a gift of the people of Japan and is a wonderful, quiet place to be.
In the modern side of the museum, the mix of photographs, static displays, light and sound shows, and movies is very well done. This Japanese "Midget" submarine is in a display that commemorates USS Ward firing the first shot of WW II by the US Navy. Ward discovered a sub like this off the mouth of Pearl harbor waiting to torpedo any ships that escaped the air raid. Ward fired Naval rifle and depth charges at the sub early in the morning of Dec 7, 1941, before the air raid started. Even though they radioed the action to fleet headquarters, the fleet remained "asleep."
This is the boat Nimitz' used when he was Pacific Fleet Commander. Admirals use a "barge."
If this same style boat is used as the transport for a Navy Commanding Officer, it would be the Captain's "Gig."
If the same style boat is used to haul officers or enlisted, it is then just a boat.
If someone can explain that to me, I'd be grateful!
The museum makes a very strong case (as did the WW II museum in New Orleans) that the invasion of Japan was expected to last for several years, cost nearly 1 million allied casualties and possibly 50% or more of the Japanese population. The US forces on many of the islands reported that the Japanese often chose suicide over surrender. Even may civilians committed suicide when faced with being "captured" by the Marines or Army troops.
This is a replica of "Fat Boy" the nuclear weapon that destroyed Nagasaki, Japan and forced the Emperor to order the surrender of all forces. Prior to the use of this weapon, he had ordered his troops to die rather than surrender, had ordered women to be trained to charge US forces with sharpened sticks, and children were fitted with explosives to become human bombs.
Down the street a few blocks was a display to try to give the feel of combat in the Pacific.
This Ptrol Torpedo (PT) boat was one of the very few that saw action in the war yet survived. At war's end, all PT boats outside US waters were burned (they were made of plywood). This boat had been damaged and was in the yards stateside being repaired, so was exempted. Most of the boats that survived were stripped of armament and put into commercial use. This one was bought by the museum and restored to its wartime configuration.
This display tried to give a feel for what the Marines faced as they landed at Tarawa.
Our guide said the Japanese would use old, inoperative artillery pieces such as the on in the foreground to get the Marines to attack that point (to try to take out the artillery piece). Then the Japanese would open fire with bunkered machine guns, tanks and light artillery to cut down the Marines. The fighting was made much more difficult by the fact that the assault boats got hung up on reefs hundreds of yards offshore and the Marines had to wade through chest deep water while being fired on by the Japanese defenders.
The town of Fredericksburg looked pretty neat too as we drove through to leave but we could not stop to explore.
Next trip!
As we left and drove west, we were treated to a fabulous sunset.
But once the sun goes down in the desert, it's dark - no twilight here, the air is too clean and pure to cause that twilight haze!
Tomorrow, Fort Davis, Texas.
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