This is the new monument dedicated to the men of ‘The Mighty Eighth’ in Normandy. The set of four life-size bronze statues of medal-awarded USAAF Airmen was unveiled at the La Fière Memorial Park near Sainte-Mère-Eglise on 5th June. The four airmen (L-R) are Staff Sgt. Maynard...
There’s an interesting 16-min documentary that has just been released by the Hainan International Media Center (HIMC), highlighting a little-known chapter of WW2 history: a daring rescue of Allied Prisoners of War (POWs) on China’s Hainan Island in 1945. Unlocking Pigeon Mission, released in time to commemorate...
Fort des Dunes is a 19th century fort built among the sand dunes at Leffrinckoucke in Northern France just behind the famous beach of Dunkirk. In fact it lies about eight kilometres from the border with Belgium and six kilometres from the centre of Dunkirk, so roughly...
The Wisconsin Maritime Museum’s USS Cobia is now available for overnight Bed & Breakfast bookings through airbnb. The US Navy submarine, which played a key role in the Pacific during World War II and has been has been a museum ship in Wisconsin since 1970, can take...
Plans are underway at the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands* for the wing section of an iconic Second World War Dornier Do 17 to go on public display in early 2025. Salvaged after more than 70 years submerged beneath the waters of the Goodwin Sands, this unique...
The Calais Memorial Museum (Le Musée Mémoire 39-45 de Calais) is housed in a large (94m long) German WW2 concrete bunker in the middle of the Saint-Pierre park in downtown Calais. The bunker was a command post, built in 1941 for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy). Hidden among...
The huge World War II underground site in a clay quarry at Mimoyecques was the secret location intended for several batteries of German ultra long range superguns, Hitler’s V3 weapon, aimed at London. The V-Weapon Programme The Third Reich’s propaganda ministry first mentioned a sinister programme of...
The word is, Australian filmmaker Anthony Maras is working on a new WW2 movie titled Pressure, which focuses on the go/no-go decision that Gen Eisenhower had to make on the eve of D-Day and the role that meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg played in that famous decision....
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...
For those who have been wondering what will happen to the 1,475 ‘Standing with Giants’ silhouettes of World War 2 military personnel currently standing on the slope in front of the British Normandy Memorial, Normandy*; the answer is, they will move to the National Trust’s Stowe Gardens...
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...
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...
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....
A new photographic exhibition, Echoes of the Blitz: Underground shelters in Ukraine and London, is opening at the London Transport Museum tomorrow (Fri 1st March 2024). The exhibition compares and contrasts 70 wartime images taken almost 80 years apart in the Tube stations of London and the...
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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