Imperial War Museum (IWM), London
Our first visit in 2008 was to the renowned Imperial
War Museum in London where we toured the various galleries of
intriguing military exhibits and viewed the impressive collections of
wartime related hardware and material. We also visited the 'For
Your Eyes Only' exhibition taking place at the IWM at the time.
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Quite an imposing sight on arrival at the Imperial War Museum with
those two huge guns pointing out! The IWM is in Lambeth just
south of the Thames, nearest tube is Lambeth North. The museum
entrance...
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...led into the main Large Exhibits Gallery with lots of awesome
aircraft suspended overhead plus there were tanks, rockets and other
weapons and historic military vehicle collections.
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Up in the elevated galley at the Imperial War Museum, we found these
big guns seemingly taking aim at those combat aircraft in the Large
Exhibits Gallery!
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Here's the front bit of a Lancaster bomber which we took a peek in the
cockpit - and noticed the pretty basic levels of comfort for the brave
aircrew.
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The Large Exhibits Gallery had a V2 rocket and a very old London
bus. The queue down there was for tickets for the temporary Ian
Fleming exhibition.
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Now looking to the other side of the Imperial War Museum's Large
Exhibits Gallery and a navy rocket, some more air weapons, tanks and
aircraft. Onto...
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...the museum's cafe, which was adequate but not too exciting.
There's an extensive park area outside for picnicking on a suitable
day, sadly the London weather wasn't very inviting on our visit to the
IWM.
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The Imperial War Museum ran talks throughout the day. We also
visited the interesting 'For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James
Bond' exhibition, devoted to the life and work of James Bond's creator.
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Next venturing into the museum's fascinating Secret War Gallery at the
IWM we found an original German Enigma cipher machine used for sending
secret coded messages during WWll.
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We discovered that during wars regular soldiers were tasked with
recording the battles on film. Here's the sort of kit they used,
somewhat crude by today's standards of course! And no, Mike
doesn't want one, he's very happy with his modern digital
camcorder. It was quite amazing to realise that that bulky beast
of a camera had to be lugged around during combat!
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More gallery areas at the Imperial War Museum in London; this shot
shows an example of the various displays. It all appeared well
planned and the right mood created by appropriate lighting. IWM
weblinks for our visit are in our UK
tourist resources.
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In the First World War Gallery there was a gripping walk-through
re-creation of a front line trench on the Somme with effective
lighting, sound and smell effects. This section was similar to
the one at the Tank
Museum we'd previously visited.
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In the IWM's Second World War Gallery we learnt how wartime pilots
navigated to their target using what seemed like some pretty hit and
miss techniques.
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Also in the Second World War Gallery Belinda admired the men in
uniform with their huge weapons! The Blitz Experience was
particularly captivating here.
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We also toured the extensive Holocaust Exhibition which was rather
shocking, sad and moving. Here's some more of the exhibits in the
Large Exhibits Gallery on our way out. Our conclusion? - the
Imperial War Museum is well worth visiting!
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Typical tourists taking pictures of everything! We certainly
enjoyed London's impressive Imperial War Museum, if visiting allow a
full day as we ran out of time to see everything (but we did go to
the Ian Fleming exhibition too). IWM entrance is free.
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