Known as the “Ace of Aces,” Major Richard Ira Bong is credited with the downing of an impressive confirmed total of 40 enemy aircraft.

Music as a powerful expression of a sense of self and community was essential and uplifting for many  incarcerees—as expressions that spread beyond the confines of the Japanese American confinement centers.

On July 16, 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb detonated in the New Mexican desert, releasing a level of destructive power unknown in the existence of humanity. Emitting as much energy as 21,000 tons of TNT and creating a fireball that measured roughly 2,000 feet in diameter, the first successful test of an atomic bomb, known as the Trinity Test, forever changed the history of the world.

Baseball boosted American morale during World War II and whipped soldiers, sailors, and pilots into fighting shape.

On July 9, The National WWII Museum’s patrol torpedo (PT) boat 305 will return to her permanent home on the Museum’s campus in the John E. Kushner Restoration Pavilion (KRP), providing an opportunity for hundreds of thousands of Museum visitors each year to observe the fully restored vessel up close and learn of her wartime crew members and tours of duty.