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…
Tag: 1944
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…
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…
Cavendish Road, Cassino
The Cavendish Road was an old mule track up the mountain side between the village of Caira and the ground beneath the monastry at Monte Cassino. In preparation for the Third Battle of Cassino Indian and New Zealand Engineers worked under an officer of the 4th (Indian) Division named Lt-Col E.E. Stenhouse DSO who named…
King George VI Memorial, Cassino
Tucked away and somewhat forgotten, just off the famous Route 6 west of Cassino, is a memorial column to King George VI. It commemorates his visit to the Italian battlefields and specifically Cassino in July 1944. King George liked to visit the areas where his troops had been fighting and meet the men, and as…
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…
World War 2 Revisited 