The New Orleans Lakefront played many roles in the war effort of the 1940s.
USCG Guardsman standing guard at Higgins Industries, New Orleans
Winning the War on the Lakefront
This was originally a talk given at the National World War II Museum, part of their “Lunchbox Lecture” series. Doing it again as a podcast episode because talk recordings don’t always catch good angles of the photos and maps.
PT-Boat commissioning ceremony at Higgins Industries on the Industrial Canal
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Here are some early takes on the FOC Tour Guide Class.
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And we’re off in the FOC Tour Guide Class
The 2025 Friends of the Cabildo (FOC) Tour Guide Class kicked off this past Monday.. The FOC offer French Quarter Walking Tours daily. They rely on volunteer guides for the tours. Since it’s a high-quality tour by a reputable organization, the standards for these volunteers are high. FOC requires their guides complete a four-week training course. This course covers New Orleans history, from the French Colonial period to modern times. The veteran FOC guides train folks to be top-notch street presenters.
I’m finally in a position, work-wise, to commit four weeks to this and become a licensed tour guide. Friends of mine involved with the FOC encouraged me to do this years ago. In fact, I’ve spoken to the group at their monthly meetings a number of times over the years. They’re that serious about continuing education, the tour guide committee brings in folks to present various historical subjects. So, my big hang-up here was that I’ve been self-employed, doing computer consulting and training, for the past forty-ish years. Taking this course meant giving up four weeks billable time. Things have changed on that front, however, in recent years. When I learned that I wasn’t really needed for teaching in the month of March, I knew it was time to do this thing.
The course
The class began on Monday in the classroom at the Cabildo. The room is actually in The Arsenal, the building directly behind the Cabildo. The two buildings have been joined together for decades. Led by the indomitable Robi Robichaux, ten-year FOC veteran and local manager for Gray Line, along Mr. Charles Goldberg, course committee chair, we got moving. Once we settled in, Mr. Robert Cangelosi, architect and FOC President, presented a full overview of the city’s history. Three-and-a-half hours is a lot of data. All of the facilitators and mentors advised us to just take it all in, don’t try to take notes and record details. With that caution in my head, the talk was enjoyable. After half an hour for lunch, Robi began the process of turning book learning into street talking.
This part is a big deal for me. I’ve written books and spoken to all sizes of groups, but this idea of walking people around Da Quarters is something else entirely. That process began last month. Class attendees were required to “tag-along” on four regularly scheduled FOC tours. We recorded our observations and generally got a feel for how these tours go.
Up and down
The guides break tours into two basic types: “up-river” and “down-river.” Three of my tag-alongs went the down-river route, through the more-residential Lower Quarter. This walk extends out to the 1100 block of Chartres and Royal Streets. The guides explained the architectural styles of buildings in the Quarter, as well as the background of how New Orleans came to be here, at this place along the Mississippi River.
One of the things Robi and the other facilitators and mentors stress to us is that we’re supposed to design our own tour. There are basic things we need to cover and discuss, but from there, it’s on us to flesh it out. So, I’ve been mental notes on what to keep, what to change, and how I would present much of this content. I’m getting some great advice and guidance through this process.
After now going on four down-river and one up-river tour, I can safely say, I’m going to develop an up-river tour first. The idea here is to start in Jackson Square, then meander in the direction of Canal Street, rather than the Ursuline Convent. My route is evolving. I’m sure it will be something totally different in two weeks, after more advice from the veterans.
Legend has it…
The biggest takeaway I had from Day 1 was Robi’s discussion of myth vs. fact. There are a lot of myths and inaccuracies in New Orleans history, from why the Jackson statue has the general doffing his hat to ghosts and vampires. I’ve always been on the side of just tossing the myths and telling the real story. Naturally, though, lots of guests on these tours know the vampire and ghost legends. Telling people they’re not going to hear what they want to hear isn’t necessarily a good approach when the guests are paying customers.
The approach to make this work is framing the presentation of the myths. Robi suggests saying “legend has it…” This brought me around to how you can talk about vampires and ghosts without becoming a schlock tour. It’s a work in progress.
Indigenous Peoples and French Colonial history were on tap for Day 2’s class work. Frank Perez offered us a ton of data on the numerous indigenous tribes in Louisiana, and how they came to the French colony here. Dr. Charles Chamberlain then presented an overview of the French period, 1699 to 1768ish. Not the same fire hose intensity of Cangelosi’s talk on Monday, but still a lot of stuff. Filtering all this will be the challenge.
Day 2 Walking
They broke us into two groups for the afternoon. Close to half of the class had not taken an “up-river” tour. So, those folks went off with my mentor, Steve, to hit that side of the Quarter. The rest of us went with Carol on her down-river route. Carol’s approach was different from what I walked on my tag-alongs, which made it refreshing. My mistake here was i took my backpack along. Bad idea! I had my coffee cup, big water bottle, and the Chromebook in there. I was draggin-ass after 45 or so minutes. Next time, I leave all that back in the Arsenal. If we don’t finish by closing time, I’ll just collect it all the next day. Not like I’m never up there and all that.
Homework
Our main assignment for Day 2 was to prepare our tour introduction. The expectation is to open the tour with two minutes about ourselves, the FOC, and some basic safety/environment cautions. Half of the class did these yesterday; the other half goes tomorrow. I’ve got mine timed out to 1:47. I’ll run it down a few times in the car today and tomorrow.
The Historic BK House is a local museum with an incredible story.
Historic BK House by Boyd Cruise
This painting of the Historic BK House was Boyd Cruise’s last painting. He completed it in in 1962.The house is located at 1113 Rue Chartres (across from the Old Ursuline Convent).
Cruise painted numerous houses and buildings in the French Quarter, visualizing how they looked in the 19th Century. While most of Cruise’s works imagined the buildings in the 1850s, this one is post-war. Local auctioneer Joseph LeCarpentier commissioned François Correjolles for the design and James Lambert to build it. LeCarpentier sold the house in 1833. Dominique Lanata, a grocer, acquired the house in 1865. He didn’t live there, renting it out until selling it in 1904. Frances Parkinson Keyes (the “K” in “B-K”) acquired the house in 1945. She restored it and wrote a number of stories and novels while living there.
So, the B-K House has a rich history that naturally captured the imagination of Boyd Cruise. To start off the re-structuring of the NOLA History Guy Podcast, our first four-week series will be paintings by Boyd Cruise. Cruise received a number of commissions through government-sponsored programs. He painted houses and buildings in the Quarter as part of the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) program. What’s fantastic about Cruise is that he took technical drawings and modern photographs of Vieux Carré homes, then time-shifted them back to the 19th Century. He added people and activity, setting the viewer in an earlier New Orleans.
Timing
The specific timing of the view is interesting, in that the scene pre-dates Brevet Major PGT Beauregard’s time as a resident of the house. Beauregard honeymooned here with his second wife in 1860. He lived in the house after the war, until 1868. Beauregard then moved in with his son, René, at 934 Rue Royal. Since New Orleans’ direct involvement in the war ended in 1862, the port was operational and local businesses grew and thrived. Here’s the THNOC caption for the painting:
View of the Beauregard – Keyes house, 1113 Chartres Street in the Vieux Carre. The house has columns, portico and curved side staicases, and ornamental ironwork. Children play at the side of the house, and a fruit vendor and two women are in front of the house.
Let’s start with the children. Two kids play behind the gate to the Historic BK House’s side garden. A third tries to fly a kite on the sidewalk. Two women chat on the sidewalk, just down from the kite boy. What are they discussing? Are they connected to the house, or just passing by? The fruit vendor heads down Rue Chartres, selling his wares. He’s typical of vendors, walking through the streets, offering some convenience to folks who don’t have time to go to the market. Cruise regularly added children and animals to his scenes, providing the viewer with scale. A gentleman is on the first floor, calling on someone in the house. Is it the woman who answered the door? So many writing possibilities in a Boyd Cruise painting!
Podcasts
NOLA History Guy Podcast has a new format for 2025. We’re presenting series of pods with common themes. The first series, for January, 2025, features Boyd Cruise podcasts. You can hear the first in the series, about the Le Pretre Masion (also known as the “Sultan House”), on Dauphine Street and Orleans Avenue.
Old postcard becomes a modern wall at the Cabildo.
Old postcards tell stories. The image on the front plays a part in the sender’s story. Any message written contributes to that story. Americans wrote so many postcards, publishers created cards featuring all sorts of places and things.
This postcard shows the back courtyard of the Cabildo, as it was in the late 1930s/early 1940s. We’ve written about this postcard before. One addition to that article: Louisiana News Company of New Orleans published it.
Postcard to Mural
Postcard mural on the second floor
I started on Thursday as a Cabildo Docent for the Friends of the Cabildo. I plan to take the FOC’s Tour Guide training next February, and become a licensed tour guide for the city. In the meantime, since there have been significant changes to my computer training gig, I have the time for more history-related projects. So, I spent some time with the coordinator of the docent program, learning things about the exhibits. I solo-ed this week. This is the perfect time of year for learning the ropes, as August isn’t a peak time for visitors. I worked the Docent Desk from 10am to noon. It’s your basic information desk, on the landing of main staircase, on the second floor. While nobody asked questions of me, I learned more about the various items in the collections.
As I walked around the second floor, I stood in front of this postcard. On a wall. On the WHOLE wall! You gotta love this.
A photographer captures the Cabildo Courtyard.
A postcard publisher bought the image.
The publisher sent it to an artist who colorized it.
The color image gets sold as a postcard.
80 years later, that postcard becomes a mural.
On most of my visits to the Cabildo in the last two or so years, I entered the museum, walked through the first floor exhibits, then to the elevator. The FOC tour guides meet on the second floor of the Arsenal building. So, I didn’t stop and make the time for the main second floor exhibits. After a walk-through, a lot of it came back to me, particular this mural.
There’s a Purple Heart in the BOSH Alumni archives.
BOSH Purple Heart medal
I started a project to better organize the Brother Martin High School Alumni archives. Right at the start, I found a box containing a Purple Heart. The box is like the one my dad kept his brother’s medals in. While some folks engrave a name on the rear of a decoration, this one was unidentified. Whomever donated the medal to the school included a set of dog tags. So, it’s on the list of rabbit holes for me to fall into at some point.
The dog tags belong Richard Warr. All I have is the name at this point. D-Day makes a good day to present this, even if Mr. Warr was younger.
“Being wounded or killed…”
The Purple Heart began as the Badge of Military Merit. Washington authorized it on 7-August-1782. He awarded three of the medals. While the Badge of Military Merit wasn’t abolished, it was never awarded again. The military revived the decoration in 1927. MacArthur received the first medal in 1932. The Purple Heart is awarded for. “Being wounded or killed in any action against an enemy of the United States or as a result of an act of any such enemy or opposing armed forces.” The earliest eligibility date for the award was originally set at 5-April-1917. Congress later authorized its award to earlier conflicts dating back to the Civil War.
Given that St. Aloysius opened its doors in 1869, there are a lot of Crusaders and Kingsmen who are eligible for the Purple Heart.
BOSH Honor Roll
I’ve yet to find a list of BOSH alumni who received the Purple Heart, so it’s time we get that started. If you or a relative attended one of the three Brothers of the Sacred Heart schools here in New Orleans and received the decoration, let us know, in a comment, or email me at edward@ebranley.com. Tell us the recipient’s name, which school he graduated from, when he graduated, and any other notes you’d like to add.
A 1943 Willys MB jeep at the National World War II Museum has a 75mm recoilless rifle.
1943 Willys MB with 75mm recoilless rifle. Edward Branley photo.
The Freedom Pavillion
On our recent trip to the National World War II Museum, we walked through The United States Freedom Pavillion. My firstborn, LT Branley, USN (Ret), wanted to see the various airplanes hanging above us. As we walked in, something else caught my eye, a jeep. Jeeps are pretty common, but this particular one caught my eye. It has a rocket launcher mounted in the back seat. The configuration reminded me of the old television show, “The Rat Patrol.” In the show, set during the North Africa campaign, the jeeps the “patrol” used had machine guns mounted in the back seats. I always thought this was a Hollywood thing. That’s why my eyes turned when I saw this rocket mounted on a jeep.
1943 Willys MB Jeep
1943 Willys MB with 75mm recoilless rifle. Edward Branley photo.
While “The Rat Patrol” was fiction (it was based on a British SAS unit in North Africa), the Willys MB is authentic. Here’s the Museum’s description of the jeep:
Finally, a 1943 Willys MB is on exhibit in The United States Freedom Pavilion, The Boeing Center. This jeep, like other vehicles in the pavilion, runs; and it is moved on a regular basis to accommodate Museum events. This jeep is marked to represent the 155th Airborne Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion with the 17th Airborne Division during Operation Varsity. This unit received two 75mm recoilless rifles for use in that operation. This type of weapon was just being deployed at the end of the war and proved very useful in anti-tank operations. In addition to the recoilless rifle, the jeep features a wire cutter commonly found in the European theater and a limited collection of other accessories. The jeep has appropriate unit markings. The W number is painted in white, as is typically observed after a vehicle has spent time with a unit.
So, the MB jeep sports a 75mm recoilless rifle. In addition to the memories of the television show, the tube-like gun on the back reminded me of the Cold War board wargames we played in the 1980s. A common weapons system of that time was the BGM-71 TOW (Tube-launched, Optically-tracked, Wire-guided) missile. It was interesting to see the evolution of vehicular weapons systems.
North Africa
1942 Ford GPW in the North Africa Exhibit. Thomas Czekanski photo, Courtesy of The National WWII Museum.
In the North Africa exhibit of the Road to Berlin Gallery, another jeep caught my eye. The display contains a 1942 Ford GPW painted and weathered to look like it had been at Kasserine Pass. Back when I taught American History at Redeemer High School in Gentilly, I used to show the movie, “The Big Red One.” That movie features the battle at the pass. What impressed me about this jeep was the weathering. This jeep’s weathering includes mud spatters as if it traveled a lot of desert miles. No machine gun mounted in the back, just a hard-working vehicle. The National WWII Museum are masters in creating the “immersive experience.”
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