Over The Battlefield: Operation Goodwood by Ian Daglish (Pen & Sword 2015, ISBN 978 1 84415 153 0, 272pp, illustrated, paperback, £14.99) The ‘Over The Battlefield’ series of books by Pen & Sword and authored by Ian Daglish take a different angle when examining some of the key battles of the Normandy Campaign by using…
Category: NW Europe
Exploring The Hürtgenwald
The Hürtgenwald was a forested area just inside the German border and east of the city of Aachen. It was protected to the south and west by the Siegfried Line but was reached by American troops in September 1944. The fighting in the Battle of the Hürtgenwald lasted well into December 1944, and the final breakout…
Siegfried Line, Aachen
The Siegfried Line, or Westwall as the Germans called it, was a 390 mile long defensive wall built in the 1930s to screen Nazi Germany in from an attack from the West and was partially built in reaction to the construction of the French Maginot Line. During the Phoney War in 1939.40 it inspired the famous song…
Eyewitness Museum, Beek
Eyewitness WO2 is a new privately owned museum, which has only been open since 2013. I came across it while researching a new battlefield tour for Leger Holidays and this week had the chance to pay it a visit. It proved to be quite an experience! The museum is located in a large former private…
Ede Sherman
We ended our journey following the battles of 1945 in Holland, looking at the ground around Arnhem. Most people who come to Arnhem do so to follow the Airborne element of Operation Market Garden and examine the fighting here from a 1944 perspective, perhaps not even realising that there was a battle at Arnhem in…
Bergen-Belsen
On International Women’s Day it is fitting to be sitting writing this at Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where arguably one of the most famous female voices of the Twentieth Century died in 1945: Anne Frank. Her diaries have helped to define our knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust, and for me personally they remain as…
Mulberry Whale, Vosges
On our recce for the Last Days of WW2 battlefield tour we came across a Mulberry Whale roadway section still being used in the village of Horbourg-Wihr in the Vosges on the border with Germany. The Vosges saw heavy fighting in 1945 and was liberated by Free French and US Forces. Indeed in nearby…
Lorraine American Cemetery
The Lorraine American Cemetery is the largest American cemetery from the Second World War in Europe with 10,489 burials and 444 service personal commemorated on the memorial to the missing: meaning that it is even bigger than the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach in Normandy. It covers more than 113 acres and the dead here…
Musée de la Reddition, Reims
Today was my first day with fellow battlefield guides from Leger Holidays in a long trip following events in Western Europe in 1945. We started at Reims where one of the three surrenders in May 1945 took place. The Musée de la Reddition, or Surrender Museum, in Reims commemorates the American led signing of the…
WW2 Book Review: Stout Hearts
Stout Hearts: The British and Canadians in Normandy 1944 By Ben Kite (Helion & Company 2014, ISBN 978 1 909982 55 0, 467pp, illustrations, colour maps, £29.95) The story of British and Commonwealth troops in the Normandy campaign is often overshadowed by the American contribution; often due to the way the conflict was written about…
Woensdrecht Canadian Sherman
In October 1944 the Canadian forces in North Belgium crossed the Dutch border during Operation Switchback and landed on the Dutch coast. The objective was Antwerp and in an effort to secure the approaches the village of Woensdrecht was attacked by infantry from the 2nd Canadian Division, supported by tanks from the Fort Garry Horse….
Leopold Canal, Belgium
The Leopold Canal runs just short of the Belgian/Dutch border and was reached by Canadian troops after the liberation of nearby Adagem in October 1944. The assault was made by units of the 7th Canadian Brigade on the morning of 6th October. At about 5:30 on the cold morning of 6 October, 27 Wasps…
Polish Sherman, Tielt
The free Polish forces landed in Normandy in the late summer of 1944 and took part in the breakout from Normandy. By early September they had taken part in the ‘Great Swan’ across France and entered Belgium. They liberated the city of Ypres, on the old WW1 battlefields, on 6th September 1944 and two days…
Panther Tank, Saumur
The Musée des Blindes, or Tank Museum, at Saumur is one of the major collections of tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles in the world. It has an impressive collection of WW2 tanks and in January 2015 I had the chance to finally spend some time looking round this collection. For someone brought up on Airfix…
Hechtel Sherman Firefly
Belgium has its far share of surviving Shermans and another example of a Sherman Firefly is found in the border town of Hechtel. This region was liberated by British troops in September 1944 and it became a marshalling area for the Guards Armoured Division during Operation Market-Garden later that month. This Sherman Firefly is painted…
Private James Stokes VC
James Stokes was a Scottish born recipient of the Victoria Cross, although both his parents were Irish and he considered himself as much Irish as Scottish. Despite his background Stokes served in North West Europe with the 1st Battalion King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and was awarded a Victoria Cross for bravery at Kerbenheim on 1st…
World War 2 Revisited 