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Tuesday 9am - 4pm Wednesday 9am - 4pm Thursday 9am - 4pm Friday 9am - 4pm Saturday 9am - 4pm

Mississippi Armed Forces Museum

Name: Mississippi Armed Forces Museum
Address: Building 850, Forrest Avenue W, Hattiesburg, MS, 39407, US
Telephone: +16015582757
Price range: Not Applicable
Rating: 5

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Mississippi Armed Forces Museum

Mississippi's Official Military History Museum
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The Mississippi Armed Forces Museum is proud to serve as the military history museum for the state of Mississippi. MAFM aims to educate the public about Mississippi’s role in military history, while honoring the service of both Mississippi veterans and those who have trained in Mississippi during times of war. Visit MAFM today, located approximately 10 miles south of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, at Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center.

09/02/2026

in 1945, Japanese delegates signed the Instrument of Surrender aboard the American battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) in Tokyo Bay, officially bringing World War II to a close.

Moments after the surrender ceremony had concluded, in a further show of dominance, hundreds of American B-29s and carrier-borne aircraft soared low over Tokyo Bay in a massive final show of Allied air power and victory.

Images: General Yoshijiro Umezu signs the surrender document on behalf of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters; Sailors celebrate on the USS Missouri (BB-63) as aircraft pass overhead; Several flights of aircraft fly over ships anchored in Tokyo Bay (Courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration)

08/31/2026

While MAFM’s indoor galleries remain closed for renovations, our Outdoor Vehicle Park is open and ready to explore!

Get a close-up look at historic aircraft, tanks, field artillery, and armored personnel carriers, then take a stroll down Monument Row to learn about the units that have trained at Camp Shelby over the last century.

Reminder: While it’s called a park, please keep feet on the ground. For visitor safety and artifact preservation, climbing on objects within the area is strictly prohibited.

08/27/2026

Eighty-two years ago this week, on August 25, 1944, the German garrison of Paris, France, commanded by General Dietrich von Choltitz, surrendered to Allied troops. Following a battle begun on August 19, 1944, Free-French and American forces liberated the capitol city of France with the assistance of civilian Parisians and members of the French Resistance.

Appointed military governor of Paris on August 7, 1944, German General von Choltitz surrendered the city with minimal resistance despite being ordered by Hi**er to leave the city and its cultural landmarks in ruins. After his capture, General Von Choltitz was eventually transferred to Camp Clinton in Hinds County, Mississippi, to join other high ranking German Prisoners of War held there. He was released and repatriated in April 1947.

Victory parades were held in Paris in the wake of the city’s surrender, with General Charles de Gaulle and Free French forces marching through the city on August 26, followed soldiers of the US 28th Infantry Division on the 29th. The 28th Division would face bitter fighting in the Hurtgen Forrest and Battle of the Bulge in the comings months with the survivors being inactivated from service at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, on December 13, 1945.

Images: Soldiers of the 28th Infantry Division march through Paris in August 1944 [Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration]; General Von Choltitz as POW [MAFM Collection, 1999.003.0044]

08/19/2026

Happy !
Aerial warfare goes as far back as kite bombs being used in China, during the Song Dynesty. While Italy was the first to use planes for war during the Italo-Turkish War. The first American military plane, the Wright Military Flyer, was purchased by the Army in 1909.

Keesler Airforce base first opened in 1941, and was named after Samuel Reeves Keesler, Jr., who was from Greenwood, Mississippi. At 22 years old, Keesler served as an aerial observer with the 24th Aero Squadron during World War I. In October 1918, Lieutenant Keesler and his pilot crashed during an aerial reconnaissance mission after coming under heavy fire from four German aircraft. Keesler died from his injuries the next day.

This portrait by Mississippi artist Marc Poole depicts Second Lieutenant Keesler in his United States Army Air Service uniform.

From the collection: “Second Lieutenant Samuel R. Keesler, Jr.,” 2014, Marc Poole, Charcoal on paper (2016.013.005)

08/17/2026

On August 15, 1944, during World War II, the Allies launched the invasion of Southern France codenamed Operation Dragoon. Initially planned to coincide with the D-Day landings in Normandy in June 1944, the invasion of Southern France, codenamed Operation Anvil, was canceled at that time due to insufficient resources.

By July 1944, the landing was reconsidered, as clogged ports in Normandy could not adequately resupply Allied troops. Since plans for the southern invasion involved a large number of Free French troops, the French Liberation Army also requested that the operation be renewed. With approval from Allied command, the invasion of the French region of Provence was renamed Operation Dragoon and scheduled for August 1944. Operation Dragoon sought to secure the vital ports on the French Mediterranean coast and open another front. Much like the Normandy invasion, it would involve airborne and amphibious landings.

U.S. troops allotted to the mission included the 3rd, 36th, and 45th Infantry Divisions of the 7th Army, alongside paratroopers and glider troops of the First Airborne Task Force. Due to the absence of anti-tank artillery in the Airborne Task Force’s 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team, the Anti-Tank Company of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was chosen to fill the gap, becoming the only glider-qualified soldiers of the famous Nisei regiment, which trained at Camp Shelby, Mississippi.

Combat operations in Southern France continued from August 15 to September 15, 1944, with the Allies seeing significant gains against retreating German forces in the region.

Images: Photograph of Anti-Tank Company, 442nd Regimental Combat Team, originally published in “The Album: 442nd Regimental Combat Team 1943,” Albert Love Enterprises, 1943, pp. 46-47 [MAFM Collection, 2013.008.001]; Photograph of 36th Division soldiers training for Operation Dragoon, August 7, 1944; Photograph of a CG-4 Waco glider used to ferry the 442nd Anti-Tank Company to Le Muy, France, in Operation Dragoon (Courtesy of National Archives and Records Administration)

08/11/2026

✨✨New Digital Collection ✨✨
A new piece of The Tomasovsky Photo Album collection is now available for research on the Mississippi Digital Library . This collection contains photo albums created by Joseph Andrew Tomasovsky and Ruth [Sumrall] Tomasovsky while Joseph was stationed at Camp Shelby and Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. Joseph was attached to the 112th Quartermaster Regiment, 37th Infantry Division (Ohio), during World War II. Joseph and Ruth married in Gulfport, Mississippi. Joseph was born in Slovakia and immigrated to Ohio with his family in 1932. Joseph passed away in Gulfport, Mississippi, in 1977. Ruby passed away in Long Beach, Mississippi, in 2001.

08/07/2026

Today is Purple Heart Day. Originally awarded by General George Washington during the American Revolution, the Purple Heart is America’s oldest military decoration. It is awarded to members of the U.S. Armed Forces who have either been wounded or killed by enemy fire in times of war.

Among its recipients is Henry Lee Keen of Braxton, Mississippi. Keen joined the United States Marine Corps in 1943 at the age of 18. Following boot camp, he was assigned as a rifleman to D Company, 2nd Battalion, 28th Marines, 5th Marine Division.

On February 19, 1945, Keen and D Company landed on Green Beach 1 on Iwo Jima under heavy Japanese fire. For the next 20 days, Keen and his comrades fought across the island’s black sands and desolate terrain, advancing yard by yard, clearing fortified spider holes, trenches, and caves.

By mid- March, Keen and his fellow Marines had pushed the Japanese to the northernmost portion of Iwo Jima, sustaining heavy losses along the way. On March 11, 1945, Keen’s 28th Regiment suffered 143 casualties in the sector known as “Bloody Gorge” while eliminating one of the last pockets of Japanese resistance. Henry Lee Keen was among the casualties. He was 20 years old.

Initially interred alongside his comrades in the 5th Marine Division cemetery on Iwo Jima, Keen’s remains were repatriated in 1948 and reinterred at Vicksburg National Cemetery. His mother, Aileen Hines, later received the Purple Heart medal inscribed with her son’s name.

From the collection: Purple Heart Medal of PFC Henry Lee Keen [2021.024.050]; Photograph of PFC Keen [2021.024-020]; V-Mail from Keen to his mother, Aileen Hines, dated February 1945 [2021.024.002]; Photograph of PFC Keen’s grave marker at 5th Marine Division cemetery, Iwo Jima, ca. 1945 [2021.024.043]

08/04/2026

From August 1-14, 1938, thousands of soldiers participated in the 3rd Army Maneuvers in the De Soto National Forest, located between Hattiesburg and Gulfport, Mississippi.

Commonly called the Mississippi Maneuvers, the maneuvers were part of the U.S. Army's Protective Mobilization Plan to raise American preparedness for war. The training exercises, which involved soldiers from Mississippi and the Southeastern United States, simulated warfare and were designed to measure the U.S. Army's defense against a coastal invasion, in this case, from the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

From the collection: 3rd Army War Maneuvers medal featuring The Lord’s Prayer on the reverse

07/31/2026

, July 31, 1942, ⁠War Department General Order No. 38 established the U.S. Army Transportation Corps. By the end of World War II, the Transportation Corps had contributed significantly to Allied victory by moving millions of men and supplies both in the continental United States and overseas.

The Transportation Corps of World War II and beyond originated with the Army Transport Service during the American Civil War when a small fleet of steam-driven boats was commissioned by the U.S. Department of War for use on the eastern seaboard in the Carolinas. This seagoing capability expanded during the 19th and early 20th centuries during the Spanish-American War and World War I.

The need for a separate logistical branch alongside the existing Quartermaster Corps was recognized soon after America’s entry into World War II. Transportation Corps capabilities incorporated road and rail operations in addition to seaborne logistics. In the summer of 1944, as Allied forces expanded their foothold in Europe, major transportation efforts such as the “Red Ball Express” enabled continued advance toward victory over N**i Germany.

On July 31, 1986, the Transportation Corps was inducted into the U.S. Army Regimental System. Its proud tradition has continued throughout the Cold War in Korea and Vietnam and in later operations in Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the Balkans, the Global War on Terrorism, and current operations.

From the collection: U.S. Army enlisted Transportation Corps insignia [2000.098.001]; Mississippi National Guard transportation soldiers training circa 1950s-1960s [1999.016.170]; Mississippi National Guard transportation soldiers load medium tank on railcar in 1948 [1999.016.177]

07/30/2026

On The Road Again…
MAFM may be closed for maintenance but today we are at the P.R.V.O. Early Head Start Preservice Training at the Jackie Dole Sherrill Community Center in downtown Hattiesburg!

Address

Building 850, Forrest Avenue W
Hattiesburg, MS
39407

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9am - 4pm
Wednesday	9am - 4pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 4pm
Saturday	9am - 4pm

Telephone

+16015582757

Website

https://msarmedforcesmuseum.org/, https://armedforcesmuseum.org/

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