Museum Adds Exhibit Commemorating 75th Anniversary of WWII Victory

The museum has installed a new exhibit that commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and honors local veterans and Colorado companies which played a major role in ensuring the Allied victory.

A view of a portion of the exhibit commemorating Colorado’s role in the victory of World War II. The Norden bombsight is visible in the lower right corner of the photo.

On display are stories and artifacts related to local D-Day participants such as Robert Rudzinski, a Navy corpsman (medic) who took part in the landings at Utah Beach, Normandy; Coast Guardsman Wil Staub who served aboard a landing craft bringing American soldiers into hotly contested Omaha Beach; and Bob Hilbert, who was a part of the 1st Infantry Division amphibious assault landings at Omaha Beach.

Also honored are airman Bob Caron of Denver, who was the tailgunner on the “Enola Gay”—the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and sailor Clyde Brunner, who witnessed Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri; Brunner later became Broomfield’s second mayor.

Encompassed by a 20-foot-long timeline of the most significant events of the war, the display also highlights the contributions of Colorado companies, such as the Gates Rubber Company (maker of military tires); Schaeffer Tent and Awning Company (which made tents for the military); Coors Porcelain (producers of ceramic insulators required for the atomic-bomb manufacturing process); Coleman Motor Company of Littleton (which produced heavy trucks and cranes); and the Remington Arms Plant in Lakewood (manufacturers of over 6 million bullets per day) — all of which did much to bring about victory.

Also on display are the once-top-secret Norden bombsight that was touted to provde American bomber crews with “precision” aerial bombing capabilities; a brief history of the Holocaust; and the Colorado National Guard’s role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945.

It is anticipated that the exhibit will be up until the beginning of 2021.