All information derived from the New Orleans Advocate article.
It’s hard for Michael Armbruster '19 to say just which part of being the American student reporter for the National WWII Museum's electronic field trip marking the 75th anniversary of D-Day had the biggest impact on him.
There was the tour of Southwick House near Portsmouth, England, for Armbruster, a senior at Brother Martin High School, and student-reporters from Great Britain, Canada and France. They saw where Gen. Dwight Eisenhower and the other Allied commanders planned Operation Overlord, the invasion of Normandy, with the maps they used still on display. That made him realize the enormity of the operation.
There was the time Armbruster’s father, Paul, pointed out to Michael, then 17, that the men in the landing craft, many of which were Higgins boats manufactured in New Orleans, weren’t much older than he was. That made him question whether he would have had the courage those men did.
And there was the early morning visit to an otherwise closed American cemetery on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach, where more than 9,000 servicemen, most of them killed on D-Day and the operations that immediately followed, are buried. That brought solemn reflection.
“We were the only ones there, so it was very quiet,” Armbruster said. “It hit me that these men had given their lives to save the world.
“It gives you an unbelievable feeling of sadness and pride.”
The hourlong electronic field trip will be viewed by at least 80,000 students in some 2,500 classrooms in the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Anyone can view the free presentation, which will stream live at 6 a.m., 9 a.m. and noon Thursday, May 2, by registering at the museum website, www.nationalww2museum.org. The lesson also will be archived on the website.
“I’d think that folks would enjoy it more live because we’re going to include poll questions and a Q&A afterward,” said Chrissy Gregg, the museum’s distance learning manager who coordinated the production. “But it’s going to be there permanently.”
Armbruster was chosen for his role after submitting the winning video audition from among 15 members of the Victory Corps, the museum’s student volunteer organization to which he's belonged since age 12, the group’s minimum age.
His principal duties have been showing artifacts and explaining their role in the conflict.
That has helped make him somewhat of an expert on the war, which has held his interest since, as a sixth grade home-schooler, he asked his mother if they could skip through most of the country’s history to get to WWII.
Photo Credit: Advocate Staff Photo by Shawn Fink
A trip to the museum with his parents to watch an airing of "Hogan’s Heroes" as part of a special exhibit on prisoners of war gained him an invitation to join the corps.
“I was thrilled Michael was the one,” Gregg said. “He’s been here almost every Saturday for the last six years, and it’s only fitting that his hard work be recognized.
“Michael’s terrific at dealing with visitors’ questions, and I think that gave him the confidence to appear on camera. He was a natural.”
Armbruster will be a freshman at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette this fall. His fellow student reporters — Andgie Demoncy, of France; Lucy Erridge, of the U.K.; and Wiley McGowan, of Canada — were chosen by related museums in their home countries. The students are on-screen for about three-quarters of the lesson, said Gregg, who had the arduous task of editing their reporting over a seven-day period last September.
This is the museum’s fourth electronic field trip (next year’s will be on the Manhattan Project), but the first in which all of the student reporters were brought together. Donations from the Cain Foundation, the Lupo Family Charitable Fund, and the Dale E. and Janice Davis Family Foundation covered the considerable costs of sending the students, their chaperones and the production staff to Europe.
The student reporters were given talking points, but not a script, for their parts in the lesson, which included segments taped both in England and France.
Along with sites in England and on the French beaches, they filmed segments in interior villages in France such as Courseulles-Sur-Mer and Caen.
Along with reporting on events, they interviewed on-site historians.
They also bonded, first though video conferencing before their week together began and then during their time together.
“I’ve always enjoyed meeting people at the museum who come from other countries and cultures,” Armbruster said. “It came across that Canada pretty much has the same view of the war that we do, but in England it’s about the hardships they experienced before D-Day, and in France, they know we saved them and they still appreciate that.”
That, Armbruster added, made the French people he met in Normandy fond of Americans.
“The food in France was great, too, especially the cheese,” he said. “It was a lot better than what we had in England.”
Don’t get the impression this was a sightseeing vacation, though.
The student reporters spent seven of their eight days together working on the show, getting only one day to explore Caen together.
Plus, thanks to his teachers back at Brother Martin, Armbruster was given homework assignments to fulfill.
“Once I told them why I was going to Europe, they were pretty easy to work with,” Armbruster said.
Armbruster’s days as a student at Brother Martin are winding down, but on Thursday he’ll be joining the juniors taking American history in viewing the field trip and taking questions afterward.
“I doubt if there’ll be any autograph requests,” he said. “But if they do want one, I will comply.”
