Most people know that the famous airborne glider attack on Pegasus Bridge just after midnight on 6th June 1944 marked the start of D-Day, but I suspect many are a little confused about where exactly this dramatic action took place. At the east end of the landing...
The British Normandy Memorial lists the names of 22,442 servicemen & women serving under British command, who died in Normandy. It was conceived during the 71st D-Day Anniversary reunion in 2015, in a chance conversation between a British veteran, George Batts, and the BBC broadcaster Nicholas Witchell....
Arromanches-les-Bains is the site of the famous Mulberry B Artificial Harbour and home to the D-Day Landing Museum, known locally as the ‘Musée du Débarquement, Arromanches’, which focuses on the astounding piece of engineering that still dominates the seascape today. My last visit to the museum was...
The Radar Museum 1944 is on the site of the Germans’ largest radar station in the Calvados region of Normandy. The original top-secret site covered a huge 10 hectares on the plateau outside the town of Douvres*. However the museum and its bunkers cover only a small...
A World War II Vickers Wellington bomber has been restored to its former glory after 12½ years of conservation at the Royal Air Force Museum Midlands (Cosford)*. The Wellington, one of only two remaining in the UK (the other is at Brooklands Museum), was finally moved last...
These days, the huge fortified bunker built by the Germans in 1941 to protect its U-boats, is no longer referred to as the “U-boat base” or “the U-boat pens”. Instead they simply call it the ‘submarine base’, maybe to disassociate it from its origins, but we all...
The Museum of the Liberation of Paris, in Paris, tells the story of the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, its resistance, and its eventual liberation in Aug 1944. It’s not a museum loaded with artefacts, most of the displays are reproduced historic photographs, documents...
Bicester Heritage’s Flywheel, a 2-day festival of classic vehicles and historic aircraft, will have a special visitor this year. The sole-surviving airworthy Bristol Blenheim L6739 will be leading the aviation display on their grass airfield. Bicester Heritage is a collection of 50 different businesses specialising in historic...
A new war movie, The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, is expected to be in cinemas next year. Directed and co-written by Guy Ritchie, and starring Henry Cavill, Eiza González & Henry Golding, most movie reports describe it as an action spy film. That’ll be because it’s about...
The Last Hill is a new book by Robert Drury and Tom Clavin about a little-known fierce battle fought in December 1944 to capture a strategic hill in the Hürtgen Forest on Germany’s border. The 400 metre (1,315ft) steep-sided ‘Hill 400‘ lies 5 kilometres inside the German...
IWM Duxford opened a new temporary exhibition last week (27 Dec) highlighting the role Hawker Hurricanes played during WW2. Hurricane: Unsung Hero features seven aircraft – quite a significant gathering considering there are now only 14 airworthy Hawker Hurricanes in the world. They include four Hurricane Mk...
The Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Museum is a treasure trove of aviation history, all crammed into a small site, and definitely worth a long visit, or two, to do it justice. The museum started life in 1972 as the Norfolk & Suffolk Aviation Society, a small group...
A piece of wreckage, thought to be from HMS Campbeltown was discovered in 2020 on the seabed and is now awaiting a new home. Other Saint-Nazaire Posts Operation Chariot Battlefield Trail in Saint-Nazaire Saint-Nazaire Mystery Wreckage Submarine Espadon – Museum Ship EOL Centre éolien – Learning Centre...
On 28 March 1942, the Royal Navy and British Commandos attacked the docks at Saint-Nazaire in what became known as ‘The Greatest Raid of All’. The targets of the amphibious assault, Operation Chariot, and the key locations of the onshore skirmishes are still there, and Saint-Nazaire Tourisme...
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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