WEBB Military Museum

Webb Military Museum isn’t your typical museum, but rather, a privately owned collection of combat memorabilia and personal belongings curated over decades. The museum is a Savannah institution that marches to its own cadence, uniquely archiving military history by showcasing the experiences of people who experienced it firsthand.

Spanning thousands of personal artifacts tightly packed into a 2,500-square-meter converted shopfront, the museum houses a diverse array of personal effects, such as diaries, letters, and uniforms. Principal artifacts include a letter written by Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Adolf Hitler’s napkins taken from his Bavarian retreat, and prisoner clothing from the Nazi concentration camp Dachau. Smaller, personal items are neatly displayed behind glass, but the museum also showcases larger items too, including a Russian-made MiG jet from East Germany and a uniform worn by Saddam Hussein.

The museum’s curator, Gary Webb, has found a life’s passion in telling the stories of these items and their owners. On most days, you’ll find him enthusiastically guiding guests around the museum while consulting a heavy catalogue of records on their authenticity.

The son of a U.S. Air Force career officer and World War II and Vietnam War veteran, Webb lived on Army bases for most of his childhood. At age 10, while his father was stationed in Germany, Webb began collecting small military relics discovered across forests and at flea markets. A few displayed artifacts also hold a personal significance for Webb—for example, his mother’s gas mask used as a child during the “The Blitz” bombing in London, and his own Vietnam War draft card (missing the age cutoff, Webb did not serve).

Webb opened the museum in 2015 after moving to Savannah, and was shocked that the city did not have a site for military history despite its Civil War past. The museum’s extensive cache spans paraphernalia from eight U.S. conflicts, including the Civil War, starting from the 1775 Revolutionary War up to Desert Storm. Many items have been acquired by auctions or purchased directly from war veterans.