By ROD KING

For Northwest News

The museum at the National Veterans Memorial Shrine and Museum officially closed March 28 to begin the monumental job of relocating more than 2,500 artifacts from that location into the new W. Paul Wolf War History Museum.

According to curator Robert Thomas, the new facility will be dedicated and open to the public May 27 at 11 a.m. A watch fire to celebrate the opening will begin at 6 p.m. the night before and be extinguished at 6 p.m. the following evening.

The ceremony will be held at the museum grounds near Arcola at 2122 O’Day Road, Fort Wayne.

“We’re going from a cramped 2,000 square feet of display space to 6,000,” Thomas said. “This will give us the opportunity to spread out the displays. The plan is to arrange our exhibit into eight specific areas representing the major wars that the United States has participated in. The Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War will be combined into one section because we simply don’t have much from those wars in our collection. World War I, Desert Storm and Afghanistan/Iran sections will be added later. Weapons will all be located in one area.”

New to the museum will be an exhibit on the Ghost Army featuring Fort Wayne’s own Bill Blass. He was part of the 1,100-man 23rd Headquarters Special Troops that did tactical deceptions using inflatable tanks, trucks, airplanes and artillery pieces. They also set up simulated harbors and bridges and staged a fake landing in France prior to D-Day. Information on the unit and its exploits was kept classified for more than 50 years after the war.

“Also new to the museum,” said Thomas, “will be a POW/Missing in Action exhibit and a replica of a bamboo holding cage built by a Vietnam veteran. There will be a new model of the U.S.S. Missouri battleship on which the Japanese surrender was signed.”

“The 40 & 8 box car that was donated to the State of Indiana by the French after World War I will be housed in its own building. It has been repainted. One side is in English and the other in French along with the shields from each of the French provinces. This rare box car was designed to carry 40 men and eight horses. This year marks the 75 anniversary of its coming to the United States,” he added.

“This year is very special for us,” Thomas continued, “because the Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum will be adding several other significant things on the grounds. The chapel, which is already under construction, is expected to be completed this year, a replica of the Korean War monument with larger-than-life soldiers on patrol will be erected and two Civil War monuments will be added.”

World War I veteran Eric Scott and his wife, Cleo, created the Memorial Shrine and Museum on their O’Day Road property. The museum opened in 1951 in a portion of their house and later expanded into the garage. He enlisted in the Army at age 19 and was assigned to the Third Infantry Division Sixth Combat Engineers in France.