56 years later, U.S. National D-Day Museum opens

In one of the most famous shots from World War II, American GIs struggle through the surf to reach the coast of France on June 6, 1944; the museum built a replica of the landing craft

June 6, 2000
Web posted at: 10:40 a.m. EDT (1440 GMT)

In this story: Voices of veterans 'It's way overdue' RELATED STORIES, SITES

From staff and wire reports

NEW ORLEANS -- Thousands of World War II veterans are attending Tuesday's opening ceremony in New Orleans for the National D-Day Museum to honor the U.S. servicemen who participated in the invasion of Western Europe by the Allies on June 6, 1944.

The museum's founder, historian and best-selling author Stephen Ambrose, said the museum is intended to teach the younger generation "that democracy is precious, that there's nothing like it, and it has to be fought for, and when the challenge comes -- be ready."

When the Pacific wing opens in 2001, the final price tag for the museum is expected to reach $25 million, said museum chairman Nick Mueller. For now, the collection chiefly chronicles the Normandy invasion, with more than 5,000 artifacts -- from posters to penicillin, weaponry to an actual barrack.

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"Nearly every artifact has a story connected to it, whether it be a hole in a helmet or a belt that a medic carried around with him as he treated the wounded on the beach," Ambrose said.

The museum gives special attention to the New Orleans-built, shoe box-shaped landing craft used in every D-Day invasion in Europe and in the Pacific.

"President Eisenhower later called it 'the boat that helped win the war,'" Ambrose said.

Higgins Industries built more than 12,000 of the troop transports, capable of landing 36 soldiers each.

"Every American soldier who went ashore in D-Day in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France or Pacific islands went ashore in a boat built in New Orleans," Ambrose said.

Voices of veterans

Also among the exhibits at the museum are animations of strategy, a recreation of a glider crash in the French countryside and oral history booths, where the voices of veterans recount the carnage.

Organizers expect the largest gathering of WWII veterans since the war itself at the opening of the museum, which enshrines the triumph of a generation. Some of those veterans spoke to CNN about their memories of D-Day.

Wallace Yip, a mortarman on D-Day, believes America's young people have no idea of the sacrifices that were made.

"They don't know what war is," said Yip. "The horror of war is no picnic -- it's hell."

On that day more than half a century ago, Bill True was in an airplane waiting to jump over Normandy

Tony Cooper flew this English Spitfire during the D-Day invasion; the plane now hangs in the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans

True said, "We were handed this message from Ike (Eisenhower) and I still remember how it opened: 'Soldiers, sailors, airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, you are about to embark on the great crusade.'"

True watched anti-aircraft fire through the open door of his airplane. "We could see the tracer bullets and anti-aircraft just outside the door," he said. "I still remember the startling feeling that people down on the ground were trying to kill me."

Col. George Barber, a U.S. Army chaplain, was on a landing boat.

"I led my men off," Barber recalled. "I had 29 men behind me. Just after, I saw one of those (landing boats) blown up, and every man on that ship was killed."

Recalling those who never came home, Barber said, "1,531 of my men died on Omaha Beach on D-Day."

Cyril Leuwelling, who was on Utah Beach, said, "I never thought I was going to get killed. I never had that in my mind. But I always thought sooner or later I might get wounded, which I did, but I am here today."

Leuwelling said, "We grew up overnight. You may not look like a man, but you are a man."

'It's way overdue'

Fewer than 6 million of the more than 16 million people who served in the U.S. military during WWII are still alive. With an average age of 77, the men of D-Day are dying at a rate of 1,000 per day.

"It's way overdue," 75-year-old Bob Slaughter said of the museum. He took a bullet across his head and shrapnel in his back over the course of numerous battles from Normandy to Central Europe.

Slaughter, of Roanoke, Virginia, said, "I kept thinking somebody's going to do this, and they just didn't. The war was becoming forgotten, and school children didn't know anything about it, and it just wasn't fair to the guys still over there in those graves."

National Correspondent Bruce Morton, Correspondent Charles Zewe and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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The National D-Day Museum
  • Press Release
National D-Day Memorial Foundation
Normandy: D-Day

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