To collect, preserve and interpret the history of the US Army Reserve and the Federal Citizen Soldier.

 

The Army Reserve was created in April of 1908, but the concept of a Federal force of Citizen Soldiers dates back to the earliest national militia units in 1763.  Unlike their counterparts in the National Guard, Army Reserve Soldiers have no state mission or allegiance.  Federal Citizen-Soldiers have played an important role in defending the United States for almost 250 years.  The National Museum of the Army Reserve (NMAR) exists to tell their story.

Visiting NMAR
The National Museum of the Army Reserve is located in the Forces Command (FORSCOM)/US Army Reserve Command (USARC) Headquarters building at Fort Bragg, NC.  Visitors are required to have a government issued photo ID for access to Fort Bragg and the headquarters.  For more information, please call (910) 570-8182 or (910) 570-9595

 

                                                 

                                                             REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR 

This year marks the 71st anniversary of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  The surprise attack killed 2,402 Americans and wounded 1,247.  The tally in ships and planes lost was extensive; 6 ships were sunk, 12 damaged, 188 aircraft destroyed with a further 159 damaged.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous declaration that December 7^th 1941 was a date which will live in infamy addressed the lack of warning from Japan.  No formal declaration of war existed and negotiations were ongoing.  The attack, although a decisive victory for Japan, set in motion a course of events that led to the destruction of much of Japan and a bloody dismantling of the Japanese military machine.

 

Relations between the United States and Japan had been less than friendly since the Japanese invasion of China in 1937 where over 200,000 people in Nanking were murdered at the hands of the Japanese military.  The war in China and fear of further Japanese expansion brought western public opinion against Japan.  France, the United Kingdom and the United States lent war material to the republic of China.  When France fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, Japan invaded French Indochina in an effort to stop the flow of supplies to China.  In turn, the United States ceased all exports of aircraft, machine tooling, parts and aviation fuel to Japan.  The Japanese viewed this sanction as a hostile action and preparations for war.   The planned attack would cripple the U.S. Pacific Fleet in one strike so they couldn’t intervene in their grab for territory and vital resources, namely oil and rubber from the Dutch East Indies.

 

Despite the extensive damage to the fleet and numerous casualties at Pearl Harbor, all was not lost.  The Japanese focused their attack against the battleships.  This showed the Japanese adoption of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan’s doctrine of 1890 in which armored battleships ruled the seas.  The aircraft carriers and submarines, the very weapons used to defeat the Imperial Japanese Navy, had been spared.  By the 1940s, the day of the Battleship was over.  

 

WITHIN OUR COLLECTION....

 

This 20mm, Japanese, Type 99 automatic cannon is part of the 77^th Division Collection from the National Museum of the Army Reserve.  The 77^th Infantry Division was deployed to the Pacific Theatre during WWII.  The 99 designation comes from the Japanese imperial calendar year 2599, or 1939.  20mm cannons like this one were part of the armament of fighter aircraft for the Imperial Japanese Navy and saw action in the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

 

               

 

Information on Past Exhibits...

 

Veteran's Day Exhibit