The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) opened its new ‘behind the scenes’ visitor centre last week in northern France. Most people are aware of the CWGC, particularly when they visit a CWGC cemetery or memorial, but they are perhaps not aware of what the CWGC does or...
Airbus is celebrating its 50th anniversary today at its headquarters in Toulouse, France. The European aircraft manufacturer was formed when the original Airbus partnership agreement was signed at the Paris air show on 29 May 1969, and the company is celebrating with a flypast of Airbus aircraft...
The biggest surprise about the German military cemetery at La Cambe is its size – it is small (16.5 acres), given that 21,222 German soldiers are buried here. That’s much smaller than the American Cemetery at Colville (172.5 acres), which has 9,380 graves. The reason is that,...
Pointe du Hoc is the famous cliff promontory at the western edge of Omaha beach, that was heroically scaled and overrun by US Rangers on the morning of D-Day, June 6th 1944. Now it is a battlefield and memorial site. The History D-Day planners were particularly worried...
The Overlord Museum is one of the primary museums on the Normandy coast and popular with visitors because it sits next door to the American Cemetery, which is pretty much a ‘must-see’ for most visitors to the area. It is not a large museum but it packs...
Saturday 2nd March will mark 50 years since the maiden voyage of Concorde from Toulouse, south-west France. Concorde was manufactured jointly by French firm, Aerospatiale in Toulouse and the British Aircraft Corporation in Filton (near Bristol), but it was in Toulouse that Concorde 001 took to the...
West of Pointe du Hoc on the Calvados coast, Maisy Battery is a WW2 German coastal defence gun battery which housed 350 men in the run up to D-Day and had howitzers trained on both Omaha Beach to the east and Utah to the west. Begun in...
The Blockhaus at Eperlecques is a huge concrete bunker built by the Germans in WW2 as part of its ‘Vengeance’ weapons programme (V1 flying bomb, V2 rocket, and V3 supergun). Now it is a privately owned museum, and a protected building of national historic significance. On 22nd...
La Coupole is one of the giant concrete constructions* built by the Germans in France during World War 2. It was designed to be a combined assembly and launch facility for Hitler’s V2 rockets. Its colossal, 72m diameter reinforced concrete domed roof was 5.5m thick and designed...
The French town of Saint Omer in the Pas-de-Calais, is marking its role in the 100th Anniversary of the formation of the RAF, with a guided tour of the local sites linked to the famous WW2 fighter ace and double-amputee, Group Captain Douglas Bader. The name Douglas...
This is a niche blog about technically-minded travel. It reflects my own interests in the mechanical, technical, historical, engineering, transport and military world.
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