The National World War II Museum (formerly The National D-Day Museum) will commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy and their important connection that historic day with events both in New Orleans and abroad.
As part of its educational mission, the Museum is offering an opportunity for the public to travel to Normandy for June 6, 2009 and at the Museum in New Orleans there will be a full weekend of public programs and an opportunity to meet World War II vets from all over the country.
The National World War II Museum owes its location in New Orleans to the hometown innovation that made the D-Day invasion possible. Known by many as Higgins boats, the flat-bottom LCVP (Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel) was just what the Allies needed to get men and supplies ashore on the shallow beaches. Higgins Industries in New Orleans not only designed the boats but they produced nearly 20,000 LCVPs and other vessels for the Allies during the war. Dwight Eisenhower himself told historian and Museum founder Stephen Ambrose that Andrew Jackson Higgins was “the man who won the war”.
The Museum’s Five Star Travel program will take visitors from London to Normandy to Paris, visiting significant World War II sites, some not open to the general public, along the way. The group will be accompanied by historians and World War II veterans.
The Museum group will be at Omaha beach on June 6, 2009 and attend the annual ceremony at the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer amid the seemingly endless rows of white crosses, the ultimate reminder of the scope and sacrifice of the invasion. Some spaces still remain for what may be the last significant gathering of veterans at Normandy. -- www.nationalww2museum.org
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