The Mighty Eighth
You just never know what you’re gonna run into, while traveling the back roads. What a surprise to find the Eighth Air Force Museum in Pooler, GA, right next to Randy’s cousin Shelley!
After our visit with Shelley, we went to the museum the next day. Randy has been thinking for some time that the 8th was his unit while he was at RAF Alconbury, England. Randy has been looking for an Air Force hat for awhile now, in the museum souvenir shop he finally found one that he really liked and almost bought it. He decided to think on it over lunch and also make sure the 8th was his unit. It turns out he was attached to the 3rd AF which had taken over the old Mighty 8th base at Alconbury, bummer it was a cool hat, but he certainly doesn’t want to steal valor.
The layout of the museum is such that you start in Prelude to War giving you a full picture of why the 8th Air Force was necessary, to protect not only England but the rest of the world, ourselves included. After the Combat Gallery there are many other collections including, artifacts of WWII, exhibits of Prisoner of War, Escape & Evasion, Airmen Memorial, Tuskegee Airmen, Fly Girls of WWII and much more.
Combat Gallery
Even though the 8th is not Randy’s unit it’s still a very interesting and enjoyable museum to go 
through. We decided to re-watch “the Memphis Belle” the 1990 version and it is a pretty good movie, but it sure doesn’t capture the size of the big “B-17 Flying Fortress”. We were surprised at how small the plane is, compared to modern aircraft. In the movies the way the crewmen run around aboard the bombers makes the plane seem much bigger. A great part about the “Memphis Belle” movie, is that it does give you a sense of how defenseless everyone on board was, and the exhibits made it so much more real. There are three ‘theaters’ to sit in and watch short films, they also have the 18 minute recruitment movie, “Winning your Wings” with Jimmy Stewart playing out in the area where the B-17 and several other smaller planes are displayed.
The Chapel of the Fallen Eagles
Was built to resemble an English chapel. I thought the stained glass windows were very beautiful. Check out this link to a panorama of the inside of the Chapel.
April 1st ~ The Second Day of our 2015 Road Trip
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Wow! Cool find! Matthew would have loved that (and Brian too!)
now that is a lot of military photos to take in. i guess you guys like those kind of museums. i hope you enjoyed your day.
There wasn’t any “hands on” for Matthew :o) but him and Brian could gawked! Yeah Larry somehow I stumbled on a few books from that era all last year, have you read “Unbroken” that’s a the great WWII bomber book, I also read one about George McGovern he flew out of Italy, I think with the 15th.