Evansville Wartime Museum
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Evansville Wartime Museum
The Evansville Wartime Museum is a military museum located at the Evansville Regional Airport in Evansville, Indiana. History Background During World War II, Evansville was the site of a Republic Aviation factory that built Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. Plans to obtain an aircraft for display in the city began as early as 1986, when a former supervisor at the plant, Frank Whetsel, purchased the wreckage of a P-47D, serial number 42-8320, that had crashed in Lake Kerr in Florida and founded the P-47 Heritage Commission. The airplane arrived in Evansville the following February and was delivered to the University of Southern Indiana. The Commission attempted to raise money by holding a bingo game in 1991, but was accused of violating state gambling laws. A group called the P-47 Foundation, led by Andy Easley, purchased the project from the commission. Following Frank's death in 1992, his son Jim took over the project. The intent was to display it in the airport terminal that wa ...
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Evansville, Indiana
Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in Southern Indiana, and the 249th-most populous city in the United States. It is the central city of the Evansville metropolitan area, a hub of commercial, medical, and cultural activity of southwestern Indiana and the Illinois–Indiana–Kentucky tri-state area, that is home to over 911,000 people. The 38th parallel crosses the north side of the city and is marked on Interstate 69. Situated on an oxbow in the Ohio River, the city is often referred to as the "Crescent Valley" or "River City". Early French explorers named it ''La Belle Rivière'' ("The Beautiful River"). The area has been inhabited by various indigenous cultures for millennia, dating back at least 10,000 years. Angel Mounds was a permanent settlement of the Mississipp ...
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Vietnam War
The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was United States in the Vietnam War, supported by the United States and other anti-communism, anti-communist Free World Military Forces, allies. The war is widely considered to be a Cold War-era proxy war. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries becoming communist states by 1975. After the French 1954 Geneva Conference, military withdrawal from Indochina in 1954 – following their defeat in the First Indochina War – the Viet Minh to ...
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Downtown Evansville
Downtown Evansville is the central business district of Evansville, Indiana. The boundaries of downtown Evansville have changed as the city has grown, but they are generally considered to be between Canal Street at the south and east, the Lloyd Expressway to the north, Pigeon Creek to the northwest, and the Ohio River to the southeast south and southwest. Downtown Evansville is entirely within Pigeon Township. The district constitutes Evansville's government, cultural and business center. The Evansville Civic Center houses the administrative offices for the city and Vanderburgh County. Berry Plastics, CenterPoint Energy, and Old National Bank, the largest financial services bank holding company headquartered in Indiana, have corporate headquarters in downtown Evansville with Mead Johnson's headquarters just west of Downtown. History Evansville's original downtown plat was made on about 200 acres, with streets running parallel to the river from northwest to southeast. Other s ...
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Landing Ship Tank
Landing Ship, Tank (LST), or tank landing ship, is the naval designation for ships first developed during World War II (1939–1945) to support amphibious operations by carrying tanks, vehicles, cargo, and landing troops directly onto shore with no docks or piers. This enabled amphibious assaults on almost any beach. The LST had a highly specialized design that enabled ocean crossings as well as shore groundings. The bow had a large door that could open, deploy a ramp and unload vehicles. The LST had a flat keel that allowed the ship to be beached and stay upright. The twin propellers and rudders had protection from grounding. The LSTs served across the globe during World War II including in the Pacific War and in the European theatre. The first tank-landing ships were built to British requirements by converting existing ships; the UK and the US then collaborated upon a joint design. The British ships were used in late 1942 during the Allied invasion of Algeria, by 1943 LS ...
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USS LST-325
USS ''LST-325'' is a decommissioned tank landing ship of the United States Navy, now docked in Evansville, Indiana, US. Like many of her class, she was not named and is properly referred to by her hull designation (LSTs in service after July 1955 were named after U.S. counties and parishes). The ship was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 2009. (92 pages, with diagrams and approximately 40 photos) The property was added to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on 24 June 2009 and the listing was announced as the featured listing in the National Park Service's weekly list of 2 July 2009. Service history US Navy, 1942-1961 ''LST-325'' was launched on 27 October 1942 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and commissioned on 1 February 1943 under Lt. Ira Ehrensall, USNR. The ship operated in the North Africa area and participated in the invasions at Gela, Sicily and Salerno, Italy. On 6 June 1944, ''LST-325'' was part of the largest armada in history by pa ...
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Vincennes, Indiana
Vincennes is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Indiana, Knox County, Indiana, United States. It is located on the lower Wabash River in the Southwestern Indiana, southwestern part of the state, nearly halfway between Evansville, Indiana, Evansville and Terre Haute, Indiana, Terre Haute. Founded in 1732 by French fur traders, notably François-Marie Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes, for whom the Fort was named, Vincennes is the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Indiana and one of the oldest settlements west of the Appalachian Mountains, Appalachians. According to the 2010 census, its population was 18,423, a decrease of 1.5% from 18,701 in 2000. Vincennes is the principal city of the Vincennes, IN Micropolitan Statistical Area, which comprises all of Knox County and had an estimated 2017 population of 38,440. History The vicinity of Vincennes was inhabited for thousands of years by different cultures of Indigenous peoples of the Americas#Migration into th ...
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Indiana Military Museum
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th state on December 11, 1816. It is bordered by Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the south and southeast, and the Wabash River and Illinois to the west. Various indigenous peoples inhabited what would become Indiana for thousands of years, some of whom the U.S. government expelled between 1800 and 1836. Indiana received its name because the state was largely possessed by native tribes even after it was granted statehood. Since then, settlement patterns in Indiana have reflected regional cultural segmentation present in the Eastern United States; the state's northernmost tier was settled primarily by people from New England and New York, Central Indiana by migrants from the ...
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M4A4 Sherman
} The M4 Sherman, officially Medium Tank, M4, was the most widely used medium tank by the United States and Western Allies in World War II. The M4 Sherman proved to be reliable, relatively cheap to produce, and available in great numbers. It was also the basis of several other armored fighting vehicles including self-propelled artillery, tank destroyers, and armored recovery vehicles. Tens of thousands were distributed through the Lend-Lease program to the British Commonwealth and Soviet Union. The tank was named by the British after the American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman. The M4 Sherman evolved from the M3 Medium Tank, which for speed of development had its main armament in a side sponson mount. The M4 retained much of the previous mechanical design, but moved the main 75 mm gun into a fully traversing central turret. One feature, a one-axis gyrostabilizer, was not precise enough to allow firing when moving but did help keep the gun aimed in roughly th ...
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DUKW
The DUKW (colloquially known as Duck) is a six-wheel-drive amphibious modification of the -ton CCKW trucks used by the U.S. military during World War II and the Korean War. Designed by a partnership under military auspices of Sparkman & Stephens and General Motors Corporation (GMC), the DUKW was used for the transportation of goods and troops over land and water. Excelling at approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious warfare attacks, it was intended only to last long enough to meet the demands of combat. Surviving DUKWs have since found popularity as tourist craft in marine environments. Etymology The name DUKW comes from General Motors Corporation model nomenclature: * D, 1942 production series * U, Utility * K, front wheel drive * W, tandem rear axles, both driven Decades later, the designation was explained erroneously by writers such as Donald Clarke, who wrote in 1978 that it was an initialism for "Duplex Universal Karrier, Wheeled". The U.S. Navy-Marine Corps a ...
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Republic P-47D Thunderbolt
The P-47 Thunderbolt was a World War II fighter aircraft built by Republic Aviation from 1941 to 1945. Early designs XP-47 (AP-10) In response to a USAAC requirement for a new fighter aircraft, Republic Aviation engineer Alexander Kartveli proposed the AP-10 lightweight high-altitude interceptor on August 1, 1939. As originally proposed, the AP-10 was to have been powered by a 1,150 hp Allison V-1710-39 12-cylinder inline engine and have an armament consisting of two nose-mounted .50 in (12.7 mm) M2 Browning machine guns. Maximum speed was estimated to be 415 mph, while gross weight was to be 4,900 lb. The USAAC was impressed by the AP-10 proposal, but expressed concerns that it would be underarmed. Kartveli revised the AP-10 by slightly increasing its size and mounting two .30 in (7.62 mm) M1919 Browning machine guns in each wing, raising the gross weight to 6,570 lb. Satisfied, the USAAC ordered a single prototype under the designation XP-47, in ...
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Boeing-Stearman Model 75
The Stearman (Boeing) Model 75 is a biplane formerly used as a military trainer aircraft, of which at least 10,626 were built in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s. Stearman Aircraft became a subsidiary of Boeing in 1934. Widely known as the Stearman, Boeing Stearman, or Kaydet, it served as a primary trainer for the United States Army Air Forces, the United States Navy (as the NS and N2S), and with the Royal Canadian Air Force as the Kaydet throughout World War II. After the conflict was over, thousands of surplus aircraft were sold on the civilian market. In the immediate postwar years, they became popular as crop dusters and sports planes, and for aerobatic and wing walking use in air shows. Design and development The Kaydet was a conventional biplane of rugged construction, with a large, fixed tailwheel undercarriage, and accommodation for the student and instructor in open cockpits in tandem. The radial engine was usually not cowled, although some St ...
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Republic P-47D-40-RA Thunderbolt ‘IA-N - 433240’ “Tarheel Hal” (NX4747P) (50661930141)
A republic () is a " state in which power rests with the people or their representatives; specifically a state without a monarchy" and also a "government, or system of government, of such a state." Previously, especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, the term was used to imply a state with a democratic or representative constitution (constitutional republic), but more recently it has also been used of autocratic or dictatorial states not ruled by a monarch. It is now chiefly used to denote any non-monarchical state headed by an elected or appointed president. , 159 of the world's 206 sovereign states use the word "republic" as part of their official names. Not all of these are republics in the sense of having elected governments, nor is the word "republic" used in the names of all states with elected governments. The word ''republic'' comes from the Latin term ''res publica'', which literally means "public thing", "public matter", or "public affair" and was used to refer ...
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