TSgt. Earl Norem

Earl Norem saw military action in World War II with the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. He trained in Colorado and Texas, and fought the Germans in the Northern Apennine Mountains of Italy. By age 20, Norem was a squad leader and staff sergeant who in the Italian Campaign fought alongside famed skier Torger Tokle, whom he had seen ski jumping at Bear Mountain, New York when Norem was 12. Upon Torkle's battlefield death on March 3, 1945, Norem was one of the men assigned to retrieve his body from the mountain. Norem received a battlefield promotion to Tech Sergeant during the assault on Mount Belvedere and he himself later was wounded going into the Po Valley, ending his military stint.

Upon returning to the US, Norem embarked on an illustration career. If you've ever visited the Military Museum of Southern New England in Danbury, the wall mural which Norem painted was displayed there and depicts American soldiers from the 10th Mountain Infantry Division returning from a reconnaissance patrol against a backdrop of the snowy peaks of the Apennines in northwest Italy.


10th Mountain Exhibit

TSgt. Earl Norem

Earl Norem saw military action in World War II with the 85th Regiment of the 10th Mountain Division. He trained in Colorado and Texas, and fought the Germans in the Northern Apennine Mountains of Italy.

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SSgt. Bill Duncan

Bill Duncan learned to ski at the age of 7 during visits to his aunts' home at Bear Mountain, and quit high school in the middle of his senior year in January 1943 to enlist in what later became the 10th Mountain Division.

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Mural's New Home

When the U.S. Military Museum, formerly the Military Museum of Southern New England, closed its doors in 2017, many of the museum’s 10,000 artifacts were gifted to the Museum of American Armor in Bethpage, NY.

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Museum of American Armor

In a move designed to further strengthen Nassau County’s destination tourism industry, while simultaneously providing a new source of revenue for the county’s park system, the 25,000-square-foot Museum of American Armor was born, just inside the grounds of the Old Bethpage Village Restoration.

The ability of the museum to create a military armored column among vintage farm houses and country roads, accurately replicating the sights and sounds of American forces during World War II, stands as one of the most compelling educational tools our region has at its disposal, in telling the seminal story of American courage, valor, and sacrifice—a virtual time machine, if you will.

Once visitors walk through the museum’s camouflaged front doors—which have been heavily sandbagged, similar to the way important bunkers were protected some 70 years ago—they are greeted by a stunning display of some 30 vehicles. Half a dozen times a year, in coordination with Old Bethpage Village Restoration programming, these vehicles are presented in the field, or on the village’s country roads, as living historians offer skilled demonstrations of WWII tactics.

Operational vehicles on public display include an iconic Sherman tank, a Stuart light tank used extensively by the Marines during their Pacific campaigns, a potent 155 mm howitzer, reconnaissance vehicles that acted as armored scouts for American forces, anti-aircraft guns, and similar weapons that broke the back of the Axis powers during World War II.

Other vehicles range from a classic LaSalle staff car in the markings of a Fleet Admiral, to jeeps, weapons carriers, and half-tracks. Multimedia displays augment this exhibition, as visitors young and old have the unique opportunity to view tanks under repair and restoration.