About

The National Museum of the Pacific War honors the millions of Americans who met and defeated the greatest threat to freedom and democracy of the 20th century. It is the most comprehensive and engaging museum dedicated to the Pacific War ever created. Spread across more than six acres, the complex has more than 50,000 square feet of indoor exhibit space including modern, interactive exhibits, state-of-the-art media and an extraordinary array of unique artifacts in addition to the outdoor exhibits that also line the campus. The Pacific Combat Zone is a unique two-acre indoor/outdoor exhibit and one of the museum’s most popular venues. In October of 2015, the museum began construction on its $8 million renovation to the complex and reopened the popular Pacific Combat Battlefield in March of 2017 for its living history weekends. The museum is located in Fredericksburg, Texas, because it is the hometown of Chester Nimitz. Nimitz left the Texas Hill Country for the U.S. Naval Academy in 1901, and later rose to become the Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific during World War II. The complex is comprised of seven main components explained below. Highlights: 1. HA-19, one of five Japanese two-man submarines that took part in the December 7, 1941 attack at Pearl Harbor (along with six aircraft carriers and more than 350 attack aircraft). 2. B-25 plane from the Doolittle Raid. 3. Fat Man casing: the casing of an atomic bomb, identical to the weapon dropped on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Had Japan not accepted the Allies’ terms a few days later, this casing would not have been used. 4. PT 309, the only wooden PT boat that saw combat during WWII on display in a museum.