Military Museum Archives - Mechtraveller

Dynamo Museum Dunkirk, revisited

Alastair — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 16:11:57 +0000

Operation Dynamo was the name given to the hurried extraction of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), plus allies (mostly French), from the beach at Dunkirk (Dunkerque) in May/June 1940. The Musée Dunkerque 1940 is located in Bastion 32, the headquarters for the French and Allied forces during the Battle of Dunkirk and Operation Dynamo. This […]

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The Rotabuggy

Alastair — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 15:53:40 +0000

Designed in 1943 by Austrian aeronautical engineer, Raoul Hafner, for the British Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment (AFEE), the Hafner Rotabuggy was a standard Willey’s Jeep converted into an autogyro*. What is an autogyro? Well, like a helicopter it has rotor blades, but unlike a helicopter they are not powered. The blades autorotate with forward motion, […]

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The Airborne Museum, Sainte-Mère-Église – Updated

Alastair — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 14:46:59 +0000

The Airborne Museum at Sainte-Mère-Église is considered a ‘must see’ for those touring Normandy, and it’s usually one of the first or last stops on a tour of the Normandy beaches because it’s out there on the western flank, which is exactly why the US airborne forces set out to capture it on the night […]

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Cambrai Tank 1917 Museum

Alastair — Sun, 19 Jan 2025 17:02:55 +0000

The Cambrai Tank 1917 Museum is built around the remains of Deborah, a British WW1 tank that took part in a major armoured attack on German lines in November 1917. Battle of Cambrai The town of Cambrai in the Nord department of France, north of Paris and 36 kilometres east of Arras, fell under German […]

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Review: Omaha Beach Memorial Museum

Alastair — Sat, 15 Jun 2024 08:47:15 +0000

The Omaha Beach Memorial Museum (Musée Mémorial d’Omaha Beach), focuses on the D-Day landings at Omaha and Pointe du Hoc. It’s not a particularly large museum (1400m²) but it is well laid out and has some interesting artefacts, documents and photos. It’s location, halfway up the Les Moulins draw* (the middle of the three draws […]

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Review: Bocage Breakout Museum, Normandy

Alastair — Sun, 02 Jun 2024 12:09:04 +0000

It’s proper name, in French, is La Musée de la Percée du Bocage, which they themselves translate into the ‘British Breakout from Normandy Museum’. In our guidebook, we call it the ‘Bocage Breakout Museum’, which I think is a simpler name. The museum, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year (2004), is located on the […]

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Review: D-Day Omaha Museum, Vierville

Alastair — Sat, 30 Mar 2024 13:54:00 +0000

The D-Day Omaha Museum is a small private museum packed with military items, uniforms and equipment that were gathered over a 50 year period by Michel Brissard, an enthusiastic military history collector who was born in 1945, the year WW2 ended. Now, the museum is run by his two sons. The museum sits at the […]

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Review: Normandy Victory Museum

Alastair — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 16:24:31 +0000

The Normandy Victory Museum, sub-titled the Musée de la Bataille des Haies (Battle of the Hedgerows Museum) is quite a large museum (2,000 m²) and is definitely worth a visit, especially around lunchtime, because it also has a large brasserie restaurant split into a bistro and pizzeria. In fact, the spacious site, wedged between the […]

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Bawdsey Radar Museum

Alastair — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 15:42:38 +0000

The Bawdsey Radar Museum is a small museum set up in the former transmission bunker on the 168-acre Bawdsey Manor estate, which became the home of British radar development in the 1930s, and later became RAF Bawdsey, a radar training school and Cold War missile base. The extravagantly exotic manor building with its melange of […]

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Review: D-Day Collins Museum

Alastair — Sat, 14 Oct 2023 16:59:11 +0000

The newly opened D-Day Collins Museum recreates General Joseph Lawton Collins’ VII Corps headquarters at Chateau de Franquetot, in the actual building itself where he met more than once with Generals Omar Bradley, George Patton and Supreme Allied Commander General Dwight D. Eisenhower. And to give the site real authenticity, there are photos and film […]

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