One of the most exciting projects at NASM is the scanning of color photos from WW2, which really make that time come alive in a powerful way.
Here's a thread of some of my favorites, and I'll link to a larger collection at the end.
(this is Tuskegee Airmen training in AT-6s)

Naval aviation cadets check the morning roster for their primary training flights in N2S “Yellow Perils,” 1942/43.

Wreckage burns from two Marine F4U Corsairs that collided at what appears to be Barakoma airfield on Vella Lavella Island in the Solomons, late 1943 or early 1944.

Lt. Clifford Allen of Chicago stands by a C-47 with the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, the only African American parachute unit. As incendiary Japanese balloon bombs were launched towards the U.S. the 555th made 15 jumps to extinguish fires as part of “Operation Fire Fly.”

The USS Midway (CVB-41) is launched on March 20, 1945, in Newport News, Virginia.

A riveter works on a wing panel of a Vultee A-31 Vengance dive bomber at Vultee’s Nashville, Tennessee, plant in February 1943.

On April 22, 1945, 1st Lt. Jeremiah O’Keefe shot down five Japanese kamikaze aircraft off Okinawa in his F4U Corsair and then brought down another two six days later.

In Spring 1945, a group of Navy flight nurses walk from their Douglas R5D (C-54) transport. They are (l-r): Lt. JG Lydia Masserine, Lt. Stella Makar, Lt. JG Dorothy Wood, Lt. JG Hope Toone, Lt. JG Mae Hanson, and Ens. Winnifred Jennings.

Marine flamethrowing Sherman tanks set fire to Japanese aircraft in Sasebo, Japan, on November 2, 1945.

Capt. Jack Westward of Lewiston, Idaho, instructs combat fliers on the fine points of B-17 formation flying at an Eighth Air Force base in England.

Mechanics at Tuskegee Army Air Field, Alabama, maintain an engine of a Vultee BT-13A Valiant. This aircraft was used for basic flight training for the Tuskegee Airmen.

ARM3C Robert L. Brown of Denver, Colorado, poses in the cockpit of an F6F Hellcat aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-10) with “Scrappy,” the ship’s mascot, November-December 1943.

USS Franklin (CV-13) approaches NYC to dock at Brooklyn Navy Yard, April 28, 1945. The deck shows damage from a March 19, 1945, Japanese dive bomber attack. Over 800 crewmembers lost their lives in the explosion and fires that resulted.

Maintenance officer Lt. Robert Williams briefs Lorena Daily, a WASP, before she departs in an RAF Beechcraft C-45 assigned to the RAF. She learned to fly from barnstormer “Tex” Rankin. She joined the WASP in 1943 and ferried many aircraft across the U.S., including B-17s

Pilots of North American A-36 Apaches (dive-bomber version of the P-51) return from a gunnery training mission.

During Op Fire Fly in 1945, the African American paratroopers of the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion made over 8,000 jumps as smokejumpers on wildfires in the Pacific Northwest. Here they're preparing to jump from a Douglas C-47 on a wildfire in Wallowa Forest, Oregon.

An intelligence officer briefs pilots for “Operation Strangle” in spring 1944. They were to attack key supply lines keeping German forces operating in Italy.

This is the tip of the iceberg on this project. For more photos, more details (including NARA reference numbers) check out this flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/airandspace/sets/72157715574200936/