Posts in Category: Europe
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Omaha Beach – Making the Most Out of a Visit to this Hallowed Ground
After visiting the U.S. Ranger monument at Pointe du Hoc, Liberation Tour 2015 headed to Omaha Beach, the scene of the largest Allied landing on D-Day and the fiercest fighting. While estimates vary, it seems certain that at least 2,000 young Americans died on the five mile stretch of beach that will forever remain the […]
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Pointe du Hoc – The United States Rangers Finest Hour
Yesterday Liberation Tour 2015 visited the Canadian landing sites at Juno Beach and afterward we made an emotional visit to the Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery. Today we will do the same with regard to the American landings at Omaha Beach, but first, just as the Canadians and Brits had to deal with the batteries at Longues-sur-Mer, we […]
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Beny-sur-Mer Cemetery – Paying the Price for Juno Beach
This morning Liberation Tour 2015 explored the multiple Canadian landing points on Juno Beach. Now it’s time to visit Beny-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery to determine what the butcher’s bill for that historic Canadian victory will be. In a previous post on Ranville War Cemetery I explained how these cemeteries are laid out, who manages them and identified some […]
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Juno Beach – Understanding the Role Canadians Played at D-Day
It’s day four of the Liberation Tour 2015 and as Ed Sullivan would say, we are headed for “the really big shew”, Juno Beach and the Canadian landings on D-Day. When I use the words ‘Understanding Juno Beach’, I mean it, as my previous knowledge of exactly what was involved in the Allied landings on D-Day […]
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Longues-sur-Mer – Disabling the Batteries of the Atlantic Wall
The Atlantic Wall Liberation Tour 2015 resumed after our visit to Ranville War Cemetery and as we headed for the Normandy Coast tour historian Phil Craig gave us the lowdown on the Atlantic Wall, a 1,670 mile system of coastal defences that stretched from Denmark to Spain, including Longues-sur-Mer where we are headed now. It was built […]
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Ranville War Cemetery – Learn How to Find a Specific Grave
This morning we visited Pegasus Bridge and learned about the advance parachute, glider and commando operations that spearheaded the June 6, 1944 D-Day landings in Europe. While the operations were largely successful, they were not without significant casualties and many of these are interred at nearby Ranville War Cemetery. This is the first of many […]
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Pegasus Bridge – The Beginning of D-Day and the Allied Invasion
In the previous post I described why I had chosen Liberation Tours for a tour of Canadian WWI and WWII sites in France, Belgium and Holland. We broke camp early on day two of the Liberation Tour 2015 and departed Paris on an overcast morning heading for Normandy and the coast where we would spend three […]
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Pere Lachaise Cemetery – A Walking Tour with David Burke
A few days ago I filed a post on a self-guided walk in Montmartre Cemetery and that visit spurred me to want to visit Pere Lachaise Cemetery, its much better known big sister. While Montmartre is reasonably compact with only one way in and out, Pere Lachaise is massive with considerable elevation change and multiple entry points. […]
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Liberation Tour 2015 Kicks Off with Our First Briefing and a Seine Boat Ride
In 1963 I became a very fortunate young lad as I was asked by my grandfather William Campbell Dunlop to join him on a tour of the European battlefields that he had fought in as a veteran of WWI. We visited not only WWI sites, but also the Normandy D-Day beaches and Canadian liberation sites […]