Fagen Fighters WWII Museum - Bomber Hanger

 The Holocaust display is the first thing you see when you enter the Bomber Hanger.

Again, it was the murals or dioramas that were so realistic. I felt like I had stepped into a city in Germany in 1944.

A Holocaust Boxcar from Germany being used as the focus of this display. The mannequins are so realistic and the clothes make this a dramatic entrance.

Believing in Aryan superiority, German forces and their allies systematically murdered six million Jews. They also targeted Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, Slavic peoples, Jehovah Witnesses, and homosexuals.

The timeline shows January 30, 1933 as the first of the laws passed against the Jews in Germany.

Of interest to us was this photo of Dachau showing the Prisoner's Barracks since we had toured Dachau in October 2017. Dachau was built in 1933 to house political prisoners. It was the first Nazi Concentration Camp and served as a model for 30 other such camps. Over 200,000 were held at Dachau between 1933 and its liberation in 1945. Dachau prisoners were used as forced laborers and in cruel medical experiments.

B-25 Mitchell 'Paper Doll'

notice the guns and the windowed cockpit

WC54 Ambulance

acquired and restored Mitsubishi Zero

Mitsubishi A6M3 Zero c/n 3858, N553TT. Rebuilt in the 1990s for the Santa Monica Museum of Flying and powered by a P&W R-1830, the aircraft was featured in the movie Pearl Harbor and had last been owned by Japanese businessman Masahide Ishizuka. N553TT was flown briefly in Japan in 2016 and again for an extended stay in 2017. One of only five flyable Zeros.

I was also impressed by the research and information that was available for each piece of equipment. I did not really care about the different planes, but I appreciated the quality and consistency of the display information.

the Japanese pilots' uniform

This hanger also had many other WWII artifacts as well as BT-13 Trainer, German ME-109, Gruman FM-2 "Wild Cat", SNF-4, WC-55 Tank Buster and a theater featuring Voices of Valor, the stories of 4 area WWII veterans.

I have been to the Air & Space Smithsonian Museum, which is overwhelming. The Fagen Fighters WWII Museum is nearby, and excellent source of WWII history, very well maintained, and historically accurate. Devote a couple of hours for the tour; more if you are a WWII enthusiast. There are many benches for resting when not standing and reading information. There is another building, the 357th Fighter Group Briefing Quonset Hut and Control Tower, which I did not feature at all. Open Tuesdays-Saturdays 10 to 4 at a cost of $10 and within a couple of hours driving distance. It is well worth the time and drive.

And for the geocachers reading this...there is an Adventure Lab and several other geocaches in Granite Falls.