On Saturday, February 24, The National WWII Museum hosted its 14th annual WWII High School Quiz Bowl. The yearly event, sponsored by the New Orleans Advocate, featured teams from 20 high schools across Louisiana as well as Texas and even one team traveling in all the way from Leavenworth, Kansas. The competition, held in US Freedom Pavilion: The Boeing Center, included questions on a wide array of WWII topics (the European and Pacific theaters, Louisiana in World War II, World War II in the news, World War II geography, and more) as well as several challenging teamwork activities (assembly-line construction of metal widgets proved the most difficult).

All teams played hard, but at the conclusion of six rounds of questions  two former champions—“The F4F Wildcats” from Central High School of Baton Rouge (see top photo) and “The Chindits” from St. Thomas High School of Houston, Texas—placed in the top two spots and will now move on to compete in the live final round.  

The live final as well as highlights from the preliminary round will air on Cox YURVIEW on Thursday, March 8, at 6:00 p.m. in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Acadiana and will replay several times during subsequent weeks. Check your local listings for showtimes.

The National WWII Museum wishes both teams good luck and advises them to study, study, study, as the really tough questions lie ahead.

Think you’ve got the stuff to compete against these kids? Try your hand at a few of the questions (click through the below photo gallery for the answers): 

1. Put these European war events in chronological order:
a)     Operation Overlord
b)     Operation Barbarossa
c)      Second Armistice at Compiegne
d)     The Wannsee Conference

2.  Standard Oil Company of Louisiana produced enough aviation fuel for one of every 15 Allied aircraft. How much fuel did Standard Oil Produce?
a)      25 million gallons
b)      50 million gallons
c)      1 billion gallons
d)      5 billion gallons

3. Some scholars consider the start of World War II to be the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. What year did it begin? 
 a)     1941
b)      1928
c)      1930
d)      1937

4.  In November 2017, a German man called local authorities to report the discovery of a possible unexploded bomb from World War II he had discovered in his back garden. In reality, he found: 
a)      A coffee can
b)      A large sausage
c)      A car battery
d)      A large zucchini