The ‘We Have Ways to Make You Talk’ podcast has become hugely popular with WW2 history fans, experts and historians alike since it began in March 2019. Last weekend many of them gathered in some fields near Silverstone, Buckinghamshire, for the first 2-day ‘We Have Ways Fest’...
This looks good! It’s a behind-the-scenes video about a new crowd-funded movie called ‘Litvyak’ about WW2 Soviet fighter pilot, Lidiya Litvyak, flight commander of the 3rd Aviation Squadron and a Hero of the Soviet Union. Before she was shot down and killed, aged just 22, on 1st...
The Tiger Tank parked by the side of the road down into Vimoutiers in the Orne dept of Normandy is a well known historic monument left over from WW2. “Wait! You dragged us 20 kilometres off our route to see THIS?” said my partner. “Yes, obvs!” She...
The Wildcat is an amazing aircraft that filled a much needed gap in the U.S. and Allied navies’ arsenal at the start of WWII. Descriptions of it, by pilots and historians often use words like “pugnacious”, “heroic” and “rugged”, which it certainly was, but they all recognise...
The twin-engine Bristol Blenheim was the RAF’s primary light bomber at the start of WW2. This one, a Blenheim IV, is on display at the RAF museum in Hendon. (When we can get to see it!) The Bristol Blenheim – or ‘Bolingbroke’ if you were flying the...
Many people know that President Kennedy’s elder brother died tragically during World War II, in a colossal airborne explosion over East Anglia in the UK on 12 Aug 1944. Not many, including myself, knew that the event was witnessed by Col. Elliott Roosevelt, son of FDR who...
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...
The historic control tower at the aviation base on Ford Island in the middle of Pearl Harbor not only survived the Japanese attack on 7th Dec 1941, it is still standing and looking good as new. Some would say even better, thanks to a collaboration between the...
The WWII Tank Landing Craft, LCT 7074, a veteran of D-day, has finally made the journey from Portsmouth Naval Base to her new home on Southsea where she will be the newest addition to the D-Day Story museum. The newly renovated 59-metre long, 300-ton ship was moved...
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...
The Museum of the Atlantic Wall, aka ‘Batterie Todt’, is all about the big guns! Not only was the giant concrete casement built specifically to accommodate a massive gun, it now has one of the two remaining German K5 railway guns parked alongside as a major exhibit....
When the US 101st Airborne* were besieged in Bastogne during the ‘Battle of the Bulge’ in Dec 1944, they were re-supplied from the air, not just by parachute but by gliders too. Until Dr Peter Caddick-Adams mentioned it in his excellent online lecture** on ‘The Battle of...
Montormel*, or ‘Hill 262’ as it was known to the Allies, was the location where the ‘Falaise pocket’ was finally sealed by Polish and Canadian forces on 21 August 1944, trapping up to 50,000 German soldiers and marking the end of the Battle of Normandy. On this...
The Musee 39-45 * north of Boulogne in Pas-de-Calais, differs from many WW2 museums in that it is dedicated to the uniforms and accessories of the combatants, rather than their equipment. The only large pieces of military equipment are parked outside, namely ‘Jean Beart’, a Sherman M4...
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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