For two years she helped educate her fellow Americans about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.And now Rhiannon O'Halloran-Waddell is looking forward to her new role in telling Norfolk children about Britain's greatest naval hero - Horatio Nelson.

For two years she helped educate her fellow Americans about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

And now Rhiannon O'Halloran-Waddell is looking forward to her new role in telling Norfolk children about Britain's greatest naval hero - Horatio Nelson.

Ms O'Halloran-Waddell has been appointed as the learning and access officer at Great Yarmouth's Nelson Museum on South Quay.

The 30-year-old from New York used to be the director of education at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour which commemorates the bombing of Hawaii by Japan on 7 December 1941.

Ms O'Halloran-Waddell is well acquainted with the feats of Nelson at Trafalgar as she studied him for her undergraduate degree in military history and theory.

She is now relishing the opportunity of telling school children from the county about the exploits of Nelson and relating to them world events today.

Ms O'Halloran-Waddell, whose husband serves at RAF Lakenheath, in Suffolk, said: “I firmly believe that history is a continuation of events. What happened with Nelson more than 200 year ago still affects us today.”

She added that all American school children study the Battle of Trafalgar and said that Nelson's tactics at the time were revolutionary for naval warfare.

MS O'Halloran-Waddell also said she was a strong believer that museums were a place to build longstanding community relations by studying history.