By Andrea Gross, photos by Irv Green

WWII airplane on display

The room is dark. In front of me, a 78-foot Japanese submarine is silhouetted against a backdrop of the pre-dawn sky. Suddenly the sound of airplanes pierces the silence. Sirens blare. My heart starts pounding, even though I know I’m safe inside the newly expanded National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg, Texas.

This museum, which reopened in December after receiving a $15.5 million, 43,000-square-foot expansion, was originally established to honor Fredericksburg’s local son, Fleet Adm. Chester W. Nimitz, commander of the Allied Forces in the Pacific during World War II. In accord with Nimitz’s wishes, it honors all of the men and women who served in the Pacific Theater.

Pacific War Museum

Angled walls lead visitors through a series of small cubbies, each devoted to a different segment of the war. Several galleries, like the one devoted to the attack on Pearl Harbor, feature large-screened multi-media presentations complete with sound effects. Others have smaller screens featuring old newsreels, tables with animated maps and computer kiosks with interactive exhibits.

Then there are the artifacts: some small, like weapons, uniforms and equipment; others large, like the Japanese submarine. Outside, a three-acre Pacific Combat Zone shows still more equipment, including a restored PT boat.

As I wandered through the exhibits, I stopped to read the story of an Iowa mother who lost five sons off the Solomon Islands. I listened to recordings of veterans speak of their experiences on the Bataan Death March and the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Esther Glassman Wilson, whose husband “fought on every godforsaken island” in the Pacific, told me that people need to know how very brutal this war was. “After my husband came home, he didn’t smile for eight years,” she said.

It takes time to absorb these stories, which is why admission tickets good for 48 hours. I returned to the museum early the next morning. I started with Gallery 33, where an unimposing yellow canister — 10.6 feet by 5 feet wide — that looks like a metal blimp that ought to be carrying a banner advertising a county fair. It’s actually a nuclear container like Fat Man, the bomb that devastated Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Had Japan not surrendered six days later, this canister would have been used to deliver another bomb.

For more information, visit PacificWarMuseum.org