Our Day At The National WW1 Museum And Memorial

Most of us are not history buffs, but being in KCMO once in a while you need to check out the things that tourists come from all across the United States to visit.  It was very interesting that the number one attraction per Trip Advisor and some other online advisory websites listed the WW 1 museum as tops #1 in Kansas City and in the top 10 in the entire country.  Anyway so our office staff decided to visit and actually found it quite fascinating.

The museum is located at 2 Memorial Drive, Kansas City, MO 64104.  Here is how we got there.

 

When we got there, the place was much larger then what we anticipated. There are HUGE monuments that we had seen pictures of, but never witnessed personally.  Wow did our perspective change when we saw their magnificence in person.

Once inside the facility we realized that there is much more going on here then what most people realize.  For the core of our visit we went to a few areas.

The Main Gallery is amazing.  There is a collection here of items from many different countries.  These items help to guide museum visitors by giving them a journey of the many events that happened in this war.

 

We saw a HUGE tank!  Although it was old technology, it was still very impressive as we had no idea that Americans used FRENCH built tanks in the war.  The one on display was a “FT 17 Renault”.  That named certainly made us think of the car by the same name that is around today.  We did not check this out any further to see if there is a relationship, but it would seem very strange if somehow the modern day care manufacturer is somehow not connected to this historical item.  The most amazing thing about this tank is that there is a HUGE hole in its side. We saw that the hole was a result of being hit by a German howitzer shell!  Holy crap!!!! This is technology from 100 years ago that could do that.

Moving on we saw a recreation of exactly the power of what these shells could do when they were not hitting tanks …. LOL.  There was a life size crater that was a recreation of the effect this had on a French house. We actually walked through this area.  It was pretty cool!

There were also lots of interactive features also that allowed us to further investigate in much more detail, interesting items about what happened during this time period.  I can definitely say that I knew nothing about a Lewis machine gun before my visit but certainly know about it now!

There is also a theater on the premise that shows a great historical film about the war.  I think the place is called the Horizon Theater.  I was not aware of the events that led into America as a country joining the war, but this was made very clear in the awesome film.

Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed our day at the museum and monument.  You should check it out also!  We are not sure how we could have lived in KC for so long and not visited it!