A Mighty Museum for the Mighty Eighth!

We expected to only be there for a couple of hours but quickly saw that we needed all day for this WWII museum! Even with a full day, my friend Sharon and I would not have had enough time to read all the impressive amount of information presented in the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force in Pooler, GA, right outside of Savannah. The museum’s mission is “to preserve for all Americans the stories of courage, character and patriotism displayed by the men and women of the Eighth Air Force from World War II to the present,” and it does just that.

The museum’s collection moves guests throughout the complete story of the Eighth Air Force, starting with Prelude to War. The section immerses you in the beginning of World War II and sets up the need for the Mighty Eighth. The most haunting part of this exhibit for me were the videos of parading Hitler youth and the large propaganda picture of Adolf Hitler with Joseph Goebbels’ children. The plaque beside the picture explains how the children’s mother killed them and then herself when Hitler committed suicide toward the end of the war. Joseph also committed suicide rather than face a defeated Germany without Hitler.

From there, you learn about the beginnings of the Eighth in Savannah to its deployment during the war in England. On January 28, 1942, the Eighth Air Force was activated at the National Guard Armory on Bull Street in Savannah, GA. There is a charming photo of two soldiers driving in an open-air jeep with two girls through the streets of Savannah. Soon after, on April 8, 1942, the Eighth was sent to England to wage war against Germany in the air in preparation for D-Day. While the English appreciated the young Americans, they described them as “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.”

The next section of the museum is at Disney level! Museum guests enter a pre-flight briefing in a Nisson Hut. There are maps and charts to make you feel like you are a part of the strategy. Then, you enter another covered area to learn about Flight Line operations and the ground crew that kept the planes performing their many missions. Lastly, you move to the Mission Theater where multiple screens and surround sound immerse you in a bombing mission. This full mission experience starts every half hour, and the videos in each room are programmed to follow each other in sequence.

After you exit the mission experience, you can take a selfie with a B-17 Bomber! The Combat Gallery has dioramas, a flight suit, photographs, flight equipment, a jeep, instructional posters, a B-17, the nose of a B-24, and much more! The large diorama of an air base is interesting to walk around and look at from all angles. Some of the lights are dim and need to be replaced, but you can still find each section based on the informational description. A flak suit, which helped save many lives, is on display in a nearby case. The B-17 sitting in the middle of the room is none other than the “City of Savannah.” The plane was the 5,000^th airplane processed at Hunter Field in Georgia in 1944. I got to touch its nose as I posed with it for a picture! Behind it is the nose of another unfinished plane. The “Fightin’ Sam” is a B-24 Liberator. Sam’s blackeye is because of Pear Harbor. The other diorama features the World War II mission of almost 200 B-24s to bomb the oil refinery at Ploesti, Romania. The refinery was an important bomb site as it supplied 60% of Germany’s crude oil. Also, don't miss the video featuring decorated Eighth Air Force pilot Jimmy Stewart!

The Eighth’s story continues in the Airman Down exhibit. Again, at Disney level, there is a replica of a safe house that you can walk through and learn about the help given to airmen who went down with their planes in Nazi-occupied countries. Many risked their lives to get the airmen back to England safely. If you enjoyed Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale, then you will love this section. There are more stories than you will have time to read!

From here, you continue through a maze of displays of personal items. I loved all the artistic bombers jackets! My two favorites were the one with “The Lord is My Fortress” and the one with Donald Duck, which belonged to Irving Baum, a bombardier who became a prisoner of war. It was when I was in this section that my friend Sharon and I realized we had less than an hour before the museum closed. We quickly ran outside to not miss the Chapel of the Fallen Eagles, which is in the Memorial Garden and was dedicated in 2002. The building was built to resemble an English chapel, and the beautiful, custom-made, stained-glass windows pay homage to the men of the Eighth. I could have sat in the chapel for hours just looking at the windows!

With 5:00 almost upon us, we went back inside and headed toward the exit. Here, we ran into two unexpected exhibits, the Tuskegee Airmen and the Fly Girls of WWII. We barely had time to see them but looked in passing. We also missed all the second-floor exhibits. Sharon and I will definitely have to go back! A friend of mine who works for Chatham County said that there are plans to expand the museum even more.

If you are in the Savannah, GA area, don’t miss the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force! It is even worth the special trip. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm. Be sure to arrive when they open to have more time to see everything possible. You might even plan to go to the museum for two days. Don’t worry about leaving for lunch. Inside the museum is a wonderful cafe themed as an English pub. Miss Sophie’s has a lunch buffet as well as a variety of sandwiches, salads, and more. We ordered the turkey and brie and chicken salad sandwiches. Both were excellent!

As with every good museum, end your time in the gift shop. It is a large store with much to peruse and purchase. I bought a Rosie the Riveter coffee mug to remember my day there and support such a mighty museum!

“Where is James now?” Abigail asked.

“He’s billeted with a family in England,” Estelle replied, and all the eyes that were on Ava were now observing her.

“Not for long, I’m afraid, if my nephew, who is also in England, is right,” Delores spoke up. “He writes his mother that something big is about to happen over there.”

Songbird, Chapter 46

Read or listen to Songbird today!