Posts in Tag: Liberation Tours
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HMS Victory – The Most Important Ship in Britain
Britain has a long sea faring and naval tradition that stretches all the way back to Alfred the Great. By the 18th and 19th century British sea power was responsible for the creation and protection of the largest empire ever created. Constantly challenged by the French, Dutch, Spanish and even the United States, the British […]
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Florence, Italy with Liberation Tours
This is the final reporting on the fall 2016 Liberation Tours trip to Italy which began in Sicily and progressed northward up the Italian boot with stops along the way in Anzio, Ortona, Montecassino and the Liri Valley. The breaking of the Gustav Line, in which the Canadians played a pivotal role, put the German army […]
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Cassino Memorial War Cemetery
This is the third and final post on the Liberation Tours 2016 Italian trip to the various battle sites and memorials in and around the town of Cassino. The first post described the Canadian role in the crossing of the Gari River and breaking of the Gustav Line. In the second post we visited the scenes of some […]
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Hitler Line – Canadians Open the Road to Rome
This is the 12th post on the fall 2016 tour of Canadian WWII sites in Italy put on by the great team at Liberation Tours and the second on what Canadians refer to as the Battle of Liri Valley. In the previous post I described how the Canadians played a pivotal role in breaking the Gustav Line by successfully […]
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Liri Valley – The Canadians Break the Gustav Line
This is the 11th post on the Liberation Tours fall 2016 trip retracing the path of the Canadian Army campaign in Italy during WWII. It is the first of two posts on the fighting that took place in the Liri Valley south of Rome from May 11-June 4, 1944. In the last post on Ortona I […]
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Ortona – Our Canadian Version of Stalingrad
This is the tenth post on this fall’s tour of Canadian WWII battle sites in Italy, sponsored by Liberation Tours. In the previous post I described the horrific fighting that took place to cross the Moro River and The Gully, just south of the seaside town of Ortona. With the southern and western roads into […]
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Moro River, The Gully and Casa Berardi
This is my eighth post on the 2016 Liberation Tours visit to Italy in the fall of that year. You can find the first seven on the Maritime Explorer website. It will be the first of two posts on the fighting that took place in and around the small Italian coastal town of Ortona on […]
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Anzio and The Devil’s Brigade – Fact or Fiction?
This is the seventh post reporting on a tour of Canadian battle sites in Italy with LiberationTours and their excellent team of historian Mark Zuehlke, interpretive guide and raconteur extraordinaire Phil Craig and just plain John Cannon, the best trip organizer you’ll ever travel with. We have just finished touring the sites in Sicily, the last post […]
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Agira Canadian War Cemetery
This is the fifth and final post on the Canadian army’s efforts in WWII on Sicily to rid that island of its German occupiers. I am in Italy with my wife Alison, sister Anne and thirty-three other Canadians who are making a pilgrimage to pay homage to the Canadians who fought to liberate Italy during WWII […]