American Heritage Museum

The American Heritage Museum is a military history museum located on the grounds of the Collings Foundation in the town of Stow, Massachusetts, west of Boston. The collection consists of over 100 artifacts, most of which were formerly part of the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation collection in Portola Valley, California. Over half of the items on display are from the World War II era, with World War I, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, Iraq War, and the war on terror also represented. Most of the items on display, including tanks and artifacts, are American, German, Russian, or British in origin.

History

Beginning in the early 1980s and continuing for the next 20 years, Jacques Littlefield, a Stanford University graduate and former Hewlett Packard engineer, amassed a $30 million collection of military vehicles and engaged in a program of restoring many of them and giving educational tours to the public. By the time of Littlefield's premature death in 2009, his collection had expanded to over 240 vehicles. In accordance with his objective of preserving the collection for the future,the Foundation donated its collection to the Collings Foundation, a non-profit educational institution founded in 1979 with a mission dedicated to the preservation and public display of transportation-related history. The Collings Foundation then auctioned off 120 of the vehicles, netting $9.5 million to fund the creation of a new museum to display the remaining 80 items in the collection at the Collings Foundation headquarters in the Boston area.

Meanwhile, in August 2015, the Planning Board of the Town of Stow initially rejected the Foundation's application to build the museum, questioning the propriety of locating such a large facility on land that was zoned for residential use. In its defense, the Foundation cited Massachusetts' Dover Amendment, which the Foundation believed would exempt the museum from zoning restrictions, on the grounds that its purpose would be primarily educational in nature. Ultimately, an agreement was reached between the two parties in July 2017, and construction of the museum was completed in 2018. The museum held a preview opening in October 2018 and had its grand opening in May 2019.

Exhibits

Visitors are encouraged to begin their tour with the viewing of a brief introductory film, followed by the immersive walk-through of the "WWI Trench Experience" room, containing a recreation of Western Front trenches at the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, the first and only offensive launched solely by the United States Army in World War I. Visitors next enter the "War Clouds" room, which is a short movie which covers the Interwar period and the rise of Nazi Germany. Visitors then exit to the main display room of the museum, in which artifacts are arranged roughly chronologically and grouped under major campaigns and theaters of war.

The museum also includes a section of the Berlin Wall, and a September 11 memorial featuring a twisted steel beam from one of the World Trade Center towers. The steel beam was dedicated in a ceremony at the museum on September 11, 2018.

The museum opened an exhibit in 2023 about the Hanoi Hilton using materials salvaged from the original building,

In January 2024 a restored WWII-era Deutsche Reichsbahn rail car was dedicated in a solemn ceremony at the Museum, to become part of a growing exhibit on the Holocaust. This cattle car is of the type used to transport millions of Jewish and other persecuted groups to concentration and extermination camps between 1933 and 1945. In 2025 the museum opened a Holocaust Virtual Reality Experience called " A Promise Kept" with the founder of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Auschwitz survivor Fritzie Fritzshall.

The museum has also recently acquired a replica Mitsubishi A6M Zero used in the movie "Tora Tora Tora".

Collection Some of the major artifacts currently on display are as follows:

Artifact Type Country of origin Campaign/theater Notes 1795 6-pounder gun cannon Lobby 17 cm mittlerer Minenwerfer mortar Lobby QF 1-pounder pom-pom autocannon Lobby 1917 Ford Model T ambulance vehicle WWI Trench Experience M1917 light tank WWI Trench Experience Panzer I. A tank War Clouds Vickers Mk. IV light tank War Clouds Mercedes G4 staff car War Clouds 25 mm Hotchkiss Anti-tank gun War Clouds 7.5 cm leichtes Infanteriegeschütz 18 Infantry support gun War Clouds 1942 Buick Roadmaster vehicle Arsenal of Democracy M4A1 Sherman (Grizzly I) tank Arsenal of Democracy Sherman turret trainer Arsenal of Democracy M3 Lee medium tank North Africa Matilda MK.II tank North Africa Sd.Kfz. 10 1-Ton personnel carrier/prime mover North Africa Leichter Panzerspähwagen Sd.Kfz. 222 armored scout car North Africa 7.5 cm Pak 40 anti-tank gun North Africa M3A1 scout car Italian Campaign M5A1 Stuart VI light tank Italian Campaign VW Kübelwagen Type 82 reconnaissance car Italian Campaign VW Schwimmwagen Type 166 amphibious personnel carrier Italian Campaign Col. John Riley Kane's Medal of Honor medal Italian Campaign T-34/76 tank Eastern Front Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausf. D half-track armored personnel carrier Eastern Front Sd.Kfz. 2 Kleines Kettenkrad half-track personnel carrier Eastern Front Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. G tank destroyer Eastern Front Borgward IV demolition vehicle Eastern Front T-34/85 tank Clash of Steel Panzer V "Panther" Ausf. A tank Clash of Steel LCVP “Higgins Boat” landing craft D-Day Churchill Crocodile flame thrower tank D-Day Cromwell I tank D-Day Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer tank destroyer Battle of the Bulge M4A3E2 Sherman “Jumbo” tank Battle of the Bulge M16 Half Track multiple gun motor carriage Battle of the Bulge M22 Locust airborne tank Crossing the Rhine M18 Hellcat tank destroyer Crossing the Rhine A34 Comet cruiser tank Crossing the Rhine Type VII U-boat conning tower submarine Battle for Berlin Rear section of tower IS-2 tank Battle for Berlin SU-100 tank destroyer Battle for Berlin Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-14 fighter aircraft Battle for Berlin Sd.Kfz. 8 12 ton personnel carrier/prime mover Defense of the Reich 8.8 cm Flak 36 anti-aircraft artillery gun Defense of the Reich Kommandogerät 40 anti-aircraft battery rangefinder computer Defense of the Reich 150cm Flakscheinwerfer anti-aircraft battery searchlight Defense of the Reich JB-2 Loon (in V-1 paint scheme) flying bomb Defense of the Reich M8 Greyhound armored car Liberation Grumman F6F-3N Hellcat aircraft Pacific War LVT(A)-4 landing vehicle Pacific War M4A3 Sherman tank Pacific War M29C Weasel personnel carrier Pacific War P-40B Tomahawk fighter aircraft Pacific War Daimler Dingo Mk1 armored personnel carrier Pacific War Type 4 Ho-Ro self-propelled gun Pacific War M7 Priest self-propelled howitzer Korean War M26A1 Pershing tank Korean War M24 Chaffee light tank Korean War M39 armored utility vehicle Korean War M2A1 half track scout vehicle Korean War M4A3E8 76W HVSS Sherman tank Korean War Ford GPW Jeep vehicle Korean War M41 Walker Bulldog light tank Vietnam War M48 Patton tank Vietnam War PT-76 amphibious tank Vietnam War T-72G tank Cold War M551 Sheridan amphibious tank Gulf War M60A1 tank Gulf War T-55 tank Gulf War ZSU-23-4M Shilka Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft Gun Gulf War MAZ-7310 missile launcher Gulf War Scud-B missile Gulf War 2S1 Gvozdika self-propelled howitzer Gulf War M1A1 Abrams tank War on Terrorism This is the M1A1 commanded by US Marine Sgt George M. Ulloa, which on August 2, 2006 was hit by two IED's in Al Anbar Province, fatally injuring Sgt Ulloa. QinetiQ TALON tracked robot War on Terrorism iRobot PackBot tracked robot War on Terrorism

See also Tank museums The Tank Museum – England Imperial War Museum – England Kubinka Tank Museum – Russia Musée des Blindés – France Military museum Lešany – Czech Republic Deutsches Panzermuseum – Germany Yad La-Shiryon – Latrun, Israel Parola Tank Museum – Finland Australian Armour and Artillery Museum – Australia Nationaal Militair Museum – Soesterberg, The Netherlands Royal Tank Museum – Amman, Jordan Base Borden Military Museum - Canada

American military museums The International Museum of World War II – Natick, Massachusetts (closed) National Museum of the Pacific War – Fredericksburg, Texas National World War I Museum and Memorial – Kansas City, Missouri The National WWII Museum – New Orleans, Louisiana National Museum of the Marine Corps - Triangle, Virginia Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles – Lexington, Nebraska

Other resources Lists of armoured fighting vehicles List of military vehicles of World War II Tank classification

References

American Heritage Museum

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