Lucky us! We can visit the National World War II Museum in N'Orleans and experience death by drowning in their mock-up of a real submarine.
Fun! Reality! Can we go, mom? They'll also let us be tortured in a Japanese prison camp!
The museum also wants visitors to get a sense of the tension and fear that millions of American soldiers felt, including at the moment of an attack. They've created what Mueller calls a "multisensory simulation" experience of the sinking of the USS Tang.
In October 1944, during a battle with Japanese ships, the submarine surfaced and fired a torpedo. But that torpedo malfunctioned and the vessel sank after being hit by its own ammunition.
The museum has recreated that final mission — along with a slightly larger replica. Inside the submarine, groups of visitors will reenact the event. Each person will be given the name of an actual crew member from the USS Tang and assigned a battle station.
"When that torpedo swings around and hits," Mueller explains, "this whole thing is going to jolt and is going to start sinking and you're going to sense that water's coming in and you're going to feel that blow and that you're going down."
When it's over, visitors will learn what happened to each crew member.
According to Mueller, "[Lt. Cmdr. Richard] O'Kane and others — a few others — were thrown into the water on the surface and a number of others escaped from the bottom using their Momsen lungs from 180 feet. Some died in the ascent. Nine survived in total [and] were taken to Japanese prison camps and tortured for the next year or so."
By playing the role of an actual crew member or by confronting the ethical issues that arose, Mueller and Atkinson hope World War II will become more palpable to visitors.
"For young people in particular," Atkinson says, "World War II is increasingly as remote as the Revolution or the Peloponnesian War and this gives them an opportunity to understand it. It's very interactive. It's very vivid. Sometimes it's very disturbing." ...NPR