WW1 Archives - Mechtraveller

The Wellington Quarry tunnels under Arras

Alastair — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 09:37:12 +0000

The Wellington Quarry, or Carrière Wellington, is a World War I memorial, museum and battlefield site, in, or rather under, the streets of Arras in Pas-de-Calais, France. It played a significant role in hiding thousands of British & Commonwealth troops for weeks before unleashing them in a major assault on German lines in April 1917. […]

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Voisin 10 – Armed to the Teeth!

Alastair — Sun, 31 Aug 2025 11:13:02 +0000

This is the fuselage, or ‘gondola’, of the rather extraordinary French WW1 Voisin X bomber and gunship. The Voisin X was a two-seat pusher biplane produced either as a night bomber or a gunship armed with a 37 mm (1½”) Hotchkiss cannon and a defensive 7.7mm machine gun. As it turned out, the canon was […]

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Dutch National Military Museum is to display an original WW1 Fokker D.VII

Alastair — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 13:26:56 +0000

This is an interesting tale. A Fokker D.VII fighter aircraft is being returned to the Netherlands where it will go on display at the National Military Museum, Soesterberg. The biplane was designed during the First World War, and went into service with the Dutch Fleet Air Arm in the inter-war years. However it seems that […]

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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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Caudron G.III Aircraft

Alastair — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 16:54:51 +0000

There’s more to this weird box-frame aeroplane than you would imagine. Over 1500 were produced by the Caudron brothers, René and Gaston, in their factory at Le Crotoy on the eastern side of the Somme estuary, from 1913 onward. And it proved to be, despite appearances, tough, reliable and popular with the pilots who flew […]

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Bullecourt 1917 Museum, Pas-de-Calais

Alastair — Sat, 21 Sep 2024 15:12:59 +0000

The ‘Bullecourt 1917, Jean & Denise Letaille Museum’, to give it its full name, is the home of an evocative collection of WW1 artefacts collected and preserved by Bullecourt farmer and former mayor, Jean Letaille and his wife Denise. Jean had been finding battlefield relics in his fields for years. In fact, everyone did. In […]

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New Commonwealth War Graves Commission Stories Portal

Alastair — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 12:43:11 +0000

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) has launched For Evermore: Stories of the Fallen, a new portal that will enable people to add stories, content and images of those who served and died in the First and Second World Wars. The new story sharing platform, developed by the CWGC to preserve the memory of the […]

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Review: Salis Flying Museum, France

Alastair — Tue, 10 Nov 2020 16:19:51 +0000

The Salis Flying Museum (Musée Volant Salis) has an amazing collection of around 50* historic aircraft at its hilltop airfield, 35 kms south of Paris. It’s the drip trays you notice. Drip trays are a rare sight in most aviation museums because, before they go on static display, aircraft are drained of any fluids that […]

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Review: Musée de l’Armée, Invalides, Paris

Alastair — Sat, 27 Jun 2020 18:07:42 +0000

The Musée de l’Armée (Army Museum) is located in the Hôtel National des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), a collection of 17th century buildings in the centre of Paris that started life as a military hospital. Part of the complex is still used as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, […]

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The Vimy Ridge Memorial in France

Alastair — Sat, 07 Dec 2019 14:01:03 +0000

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial in dramatic white stone dominates the surrounding landscape from the top of Vimy Ridge. It marks the battlefield on which four divisions of Canadians* managed to dislodge three German divisions from their entrenched and fortified positions on the ridge over three days of bloody fighting in April 1917. In 1914, […]

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