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Battles That Changed the World
This second edition of the magazine Battles That Changed the World is about decisive battles that have altered the course of history. This time the focus is on Hastings 1066, Waterloo in 1815 and Stalingrad 1942 – 1943.
Each battle is introduced by an outline of the war from which it has been taken with a short narrative of the course of the battle itself. The main commanders are reviewed as also the typical experience of the combatants. The Battlefield Tour reviews each battle from a ‘Then and Now’ perspective viewing the field in a three-dimensional perspective, as in the previous issue. Battlefield Detective articles examine controversies and the Hollywood reviews once again assess how successfully popular feature films that have portrayed these epic events.
Against all Odds
The magazine offers a ‘then and now’ historical perspective of three battles fought against superior odds. It includes Custer’s Last Stand at the Little Bighorn in 1876, the heroic defence of Rorke’s Drift during the Anglo-Zulu war of 1879, and the epic siege of the British paratrooper enclave at Oosterbeek outside Arnhem in 1944. ‘Stands’ are identified at each location where readers can position themselves and read contemporary descriptions of what happened to soldiers at that precise spot during the battle. ‘Battlefield Detective’ articles expose the latest scientific and archaeological findings to debunk myths or offer forensic investigative comment and how accurately Hollywood presented these epic events is examined.
Tours
Arnhem and Operation Market-Garden – A Bridge too Far
ARNHEM AND OPERATION MARKET-GARDEN
A Bridge too Far
Day One: London to Joe’s Bridge and Eindhoven.
This tour covers the Market-Garden Operation in September 1944, which was an attempt to lay an airborne carpet of parachute and glider landings across the last major remaining waterways barring access to the Germany’s industrialized Ruhr. The paratroopers were to be relieved by ground forces, the aim being to dramatically shorten the war. Like the D-Day tour, this one concentrates on the human experience of what it was like to land by parachute or glider far behind enemy lines, and the perspective of the SS and Wehrmacht combat Kampfgruppen, who sought to destroy them.
The group leaves London and travels to Brussels by Eurostar, where we pick up a coach and continue on to the Meuse-Escaut Canal, to follow the “garden’ route of the XXX Armored Corps ground advance to link up with the paratroopers. We cover the German anti-tank ambushes on the Valkensvaard road, where the tanks broke through the German front line, before entering Eindhoven. This was the first city to be liberated by the advancing British armor and where we check into our hotel for one night.
Day Two: ‘Hell’s Highway’ through the American Airborne Sector.
On this day we follow the course of the US 101st and 82nd Airborne Division landings near Son and the bridge at Grave. We stop to walk through and talk the capture of the Grave Bridge in both this 1944 operation and in 1940.
Continuing on we explore the fighting that occurred for the massive road bridge spanning the Waal River at Nijmegen. This action is covered from the vantage point of its ancient citadel, which overlooks the rail and road bridges. Captain Euling’s SS battalion, belonging the 10th SS Frundsberg panzer division, defended the approaches to the road bridge, the citadel and far bank at Lent. We investigate both the German defense and Allied attacks of this desperately fought action. The dramatic assault river crossing by the US 504th Airborne Regiment in exposed canvas boats is visible from here as also the final ‘bouncing’ of the Waal bridge by Sergeant Robinson’s Grenadier Guards troop of four Sherman tanks. The dramatic last minute failed German demolition; vividly reshot on site in the film A Bridge Too Far enabled its capture.
We then continue to Arnhem, checking into a hotel within walking distance of the famous John Frost Bridge. Arnhem town center is also a delightfully atmospheric location for walking out and evening drinks.
Day Three: The British Parachute Brigade Assault on Arnhem.
The day starts with an exploration of the 1st British Airborne Division parachute and glider landing zones west of Arnhem, followed by re-tracing the route of attacks to relieve Frost’s 2 Para, under German siege at the Arnhem Bridge.
At the road bridge we cover its surprise capture by the 2nd Parachute Battalion and the subsequent overwhelming counter attacks and siege mounted by Harzer’s 9th SS Hohenstaufen Kampfgruppe. This is a fascinating day, covering a street fighting advance by British paratroopers into a ‘U’-shaped ‘killing box’ of surrounding SS infantry and armor, that blocks all attempts to reach the Arnhem bridge and in so doing, totally devastated the Arnhem town center.
Day Four: The Oosterbeek ‘Cauldron’ Perimeter Defense.
The day begins with a walk around the Hartenstein Hotel in Oosterbeek, showing the perimeter outline and describing the course of the fighting around the besieged 1st Airborne Division headquarters.
We also investigate the course of fighting along the Lower Rhine River, the Westerbouwing Heights and the German advance on the leafy suburb of Oosterbeek. The Hartenstein has an excellent airborne museum, offering intelligent interpretations of the battle. Afterwards we move south to the riverbank again to cover the final forlorn attempt to reinforce the perimeter with a parachute insertion by the Independent Polish Parachute Brigade, across the river, which was badly mauled in the process and subsequent street fighting. Extensive research from both sides enables a meaningful investigation of the course of the fighting. After lunch we drive back to Brussels to board the Eurostar for an early evening return to London.
See Bob’s battlefield tours via Alan Rooney’s Cultural Experience
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- The anti-tank ambush on the Valkensvaard road in September 1944
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- Valkensvaard road today
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- The vantage point from the citadel at Nijmegen and Sherman tanks crossing below, in September 1944.
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- Sherman tanks crossing below, in September 1944.
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- The 1st British Airborne Division landing zones near Heelsum west of Arnhem today.
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- The junction of the high road and low road opposite the St. Elizabeth Hospital today.
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- Elements of the South Staffordshire glider Battalion reached this point outside the Arnhem Municipal Museum
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- SS soldiers scale the same railings in September 1944
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- The Hartenstein Hotel, 1st Airborne Division Headquarters today
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- General Urquhart the Division commander, during a pause of fighting in September 1944
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- The poignant Airborne Cemetery at Oosterbeek today.
Read Robert’s Books
The Hill
’The Hill narrates the battle for Hill 107 in May 1941, which will decide the outcome for the entire campaign to capture the strategic island of Crete by the Germans from the air alone. The story is told through the eyes of the primary decision makers and takers in defence and attack. The New Zealanders are on the summit, the Germans scaling the heights.
An original approach that reads like a play, based on meticulous research of diaries, letters and post combat accounts.’
Dunkirchen 1940
The ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ is lauded in British history and folklore as a victory of human endeavor, celebrated each year with a profusion of TV documentary veteran accounts and memorial services. German soldiers constantly referred to the wunder or miracle of reaching Dunkirk in wartime letters back home. There the resemblance ends. For the British it was a miracle of survival and deliverance, for the Germans it was one of achievement. They had reached the sea in May 1940 in less weeks than it took years for their fathers not to succeed in 1914-18.
Other Robert Kershaw Tours
The D-Day Landings and Paris
The D-Day Landings and Paris
Breaching the Atlantic Wall 1944
Day One: London to Caen.
We travel from London to Paris by Eurostar and then to Caen via French rail and check into our hotel for four nights. This tour deals with the human story of D-Day on 6 June 1944 and the Paris insurrection and liberation the following August. It explores what it was like to parachute in the night skies over Normandy, land by glider behind enemy lines, climb the cliffs at Pointe du Hoc and wade ashore on the British and American beaches under fire. Likewise, what was the experience for the German defenders manning bunkers at Omaha or at the huge coastal defense battery at Longues sur Mer? In Paris we cover the experience of French insurgents fighting the German occupiers and street fighting during the liberation around some of her most famous landmarks.
Day Two: The British airborne landings and Sword Beach.
The first visit is the precision glider coup de main assault by Major John Howard on the bridges spanning the Orne River and Canal; a walk through talk through investigation, and a tour around the excellent museum on site. We then drive to the north-east to cover the 9th Parachute Battalion’s assault on the German battery at Merville, before re-crossing the Orne to explore the British landings at Sword beach. On Sword we explore the route taken by the 1st Suffolk Battalion from wading ashore from landing craft under fire at Hermanville, to its fight for the Hillman strongpoint position on the heights beyond the beach, which housed the German 736 Infantry Regiment Headquarters. Our discussions concentrate on the differing characteristics and similarities of parachute and amphibious insertions.
Day Three: The Canadians at Juno and the British at Gold Beach.
At Juno we follow Sergeant Major Charlie Martin’s Queens Own Rifles of Canada costly assault at Bernières sur Mer at Juno Beach, following the fight from the beach into the village. After driving further west to Gold beach we cover the landing by Sergeant Major Stan Hollis VC, landing with the Green Howards under fire at King Beach near Vers sur Mer. Re-tracing the footsteps of his company, we move up onto the high ground where they assault the German battery and bunker positions at Mont Fleury, short of Crepon Village.
There is generally time to spend a relaxed lunch in the pretty seaside town of Arromanches nearby, view the excellent museum and the remains of the massive Mulberry harbor caissons visible offshore. Afterwards we drive further west to explore the German battery at Longues sur Mer, one of the few surviving examples of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall. It remains in pristine condition, and from the top of one of the gun positions we are able describe the offshore duels that occurred on D-Day. This site has the command bunker that was used in Darryl F Zanuck’s 1962 epic movie The Longest Day. Time permitting, there is an opportunity to visit Bayeux and see the famous Tapestry or Cathedral.
Day Four: The American Sector.
Starting with the fighting around La Fière along the Merderet River, we move back to Ste Mere Église to cover the night parachute landings by the US 82nd and 101st Divisions. As we move towards Utah beach we stop off to investigate the heroic action by Lieutenant Winter’s platoon at Brécourt Manor, vividly portrayed in the American TV Series Band of Brothers.
The highlight of the day is ‘Bloody Omaha’ where we investigate a near catastrophe from the perspective of both sides. The former strongpoint at WN 62 is where the celebrated war photographer Robert Capa landed to take his iconic D-Day pictures and where we take up the story of the German machine gunner, who probably fired at him in the water.
Time permitting, we take the same path up the bluffs where Lieutenant John Spalding first penetrated the German defenses, bringing us onto the plateau with a forest of brilliant white crosses, the American National Cemetery. This is a fitting emotional climax for our investigation of D-Day.
Day Five: The Liberation of Paris and back to London.
We travel by train to the center of Paris where we disembark to view the arrival points of General Léclerc’s Free French Division tanks and the US 4th Infantry division, that liberated the city in August 1944. We walk through dramatic actions that occurred around the Les Tuileries gardens (near the Louvre), the German headquarters at the Hotel Meurice and describe how the German Panther tank was knocked out at the Place de la Concord. This leaves a little time to investigate the German siege of the Préfecture de Police, defended by the French Resistance, next to the Notre Dame Cathedral. There will be time for a brief tourist walkabout before later in the day we board the Eurostar for our return to London.
See Bob’s battlefield tours via Alan Rooney’s Cultural Experience
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- Merville Battery complex
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- Concrete German 50 mm anti-tank gun emplacement on Juno Beach.
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- A section of the Mulberry Harbour at Arromanches.
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- The church tower in the square at Ste Mere Église, used in the film The Longest Day.
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- The cliffs scaled by the 2nd US Ranger Battalion at Pointe du Hoc
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- Omaha landscape.
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- The view from German strongpoint WN 74 at Vierville looking eastwards across Omaha Beach.
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- German strongpoint WN 62
Read Robert’s Books
The Hill
’The Hill narrates the battle for Hill 107 in May 1941, which will decide the outcome for the entire campaign to capture the strategic island of Crete by the Germans from the air alone. The story is told through the eyes of the primary decision makers and takers in defence and attack. The New Zealanders are on the summit, the Germans scaling the heights.
An original approach that reads like a play, based on meticulous research of diaries, letters and post combat accounts.’
Dunkirchen 1940
The ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ is lauded in British history and folklore as a victory of human endeavor, celebrated each year with a profusion of TV documentary veteran accounts and memorial services. German soldiers constantly referred to the wunder or miracle of reaching Dunkirk in wartime letters back home. There the resemblance ends. For the British it was a miracle of survival and deliverance, for the Germans it was one of achievement. They had reached the sea in May 1940 in less weeks than it took years for their fathers not to succeed in 1914-18.
Other Robert Kershaw Tours
Operation Barbarossa
Belarus: Brest Litovsk to Vitebsk and the Berezinea River
Day One: Fly London to Helsinki and Kajaani.
This tour forms part of The Cultural Experience The Invasions of Belarus tour, (see link), covering Napoleons invasion in 1812 and Hitler in 1941.
Day Two: Kosava and Kubrin.
On this day the tour visits Kosava and Kubrin, looking at some small actions during Napoleon’s eastward march.
Day Three: The Storming of Brest Litovsk.
On the first day of Operation Barabarossa on the 22nd June 1941 the German 45th Infantry Division assaulted the citadel of Brest-Litovsk, where the Germans had signed their treaty with Russia in 1917, ending the First World War. The 19th Century fortress complex standing on the River Bug has been left just as it was after the Second World War, in particular the bullet riddled Kholmsky Gate. We enter the complex from the east across a new bridge and explore the route of one of the attacking German battalions from its river crossing into the heart of the complex. At the northern edge we pause and investigate its storming by German General Guderian’s panzer gruppe during the 1939 Polish Blitzkrieg campaign, a similarly hard fought costly battle. The site is dominated by massive Soviet era heroic statues and monuments. There is an excellent 1941 defense museum in the complex and time permitting, an opportunity to visit the Soviet era steam locomotive museum nearby, where some of the exhibits are still run for movie productions today.
Day Four: Stolovichi Village at the edge of the Minsk Pocket.
Just off the major main road or rollbahn linking Brest through Minsk to Moscow, the advance route for the German Blitzkrieg vanguards, was the village of Stolovichi. The settlement was at the edge of a huge German pocket that netted two Soviet armies of over thirty divisions. Two Panzer Gruppen and 23 infantry divisions ringed the pocket, to hold the cut off Soviets in place. It was the first massive encirclement operation of the Russian front. We examine the German Grossdeutschland Division’s hard fought action here, to secure this southern section of the Minsk pocket. They had to contain ceaseless desperate Russian counter-attacks, until they petered out. It is a good site to describe the nature and tactics of the Barbarossa blitzkrieg advance, in particular a visual talk through how German panzer and motorized troops would encircle and capture a typical village.
We also visit the Napoleonic battlefield at Gorodeczna, where Austrian General Schwartzenberg’s victory shored up the southern flank of the French invasion in August 1812. Just beyond Stolovichi is the site of the substantial cavalry action fought at Mir the previous month, and a chance to visit the beautifully restored castle, used as a dressing station in 1941.
Day Five: The City of Minsk.
Our exploration this day includes the site of the former Minsk Jewish Ghetto, as we explore the repression visited on the city during the German occupation. We visit the ‘Island of Tears’ monument for fallen Soviet dead in Afghanistan as well as the Monument for Fallen Jews, Victory Square and the Great Patriotic War Museum. There is time to see the Lee Harvey Oswald apartment building, where he lived, before his assassination attempt on US President John Kennedy in 1963.
Day Six: Khatyn Village.
Khatyn Village is the site of the brutal sacking and burning of a village by the SS Dirlewanger Brigade during repressive anti partisan sweeps conducted in German occupied Belorussia in 1943.We visit the poignant memorial site dedicated to millions of citizens who perished during German ethnic cleansing and destruction of villages in Belorussia. We discuss and follow the course of the punitive operation, as well as the brutal repressive SS tactics employed, that wiped out hundreds of other villages in the region. On the way to Polotsk we pass a preserved section of the 1941 Stalin Line, bunkers built to bar the approaches to Smolensk and Moscow beyond. At Polotsk there is an opportunity to discuss the two battles that occurred there in 1812 and visit the Red Bridge, the regional museum and battle monument, before continuing on to Vitebsk.
Day Seven: The Berezina River.
After a brief exploration of central Vitebsk, the Belarussian city of culture, we drive south to examine the assault river crossing by Panzergruppe 3 across the Berezina River, which laid the foundation for the second huge Barbarossa encirclement battle at Smolensk. At Studianka we cover Napoleon’s narrow escape during the winter of 1812 across Baron Eble’s pontoon bridges spanning the Berezina River and frozen marshes. This relatively unchanged site still atmospherically reflects the horror and tragedy of the 1812 winter retreat. Even with the absence of snow, it is easy to interpret the geography at Napoleon’s crossing places, both marked, and imagine it how it was.
Day Eight: Return to London.
During the journey to Minsk airport there is an opportunity to climb the Mound of Glory vantage point, overlooking the historic approaches to Minsk taken by the Red Army when it liberated the city in the summer of 1944. It oversees the killing ground that saw the total destruction of the German Army Group Center, a decisive turning point in the Great Patriotic War, from which Hitler’s Wehrmacht never recovered.
See Bob’s battlefield tours via Alan Rooney’s Cultural Experience
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- The atmospheric steam locomotive museum at Brest.
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- Minsk City today.
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- Monument for Fallen Jews.
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- German soldiers investigate a destroyed Soviet bunker on the Stalin line in 1941.
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- The same bunker remnants today.
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- Vitebsk, city of culture, spanning the Berezina today.
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- The 1941 10th Panzer Division Berezina crossing point today.
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- Napoleon's crossing point near Studianka.
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- Napoleon's crossing point near Studianka today.
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- The mound of Glory just outside Minsk City.
Read Robert’s Books
The Hill
’The Hill narrates the battle for Hill 107 in May 1941, which will decide the outcome for the entire campaign to capture the strategic island of Crete by the Germans from the air alone. The story is told through the eyes of the primary decision makers and takers in defence and attack. The New Zealanders are on the summit, the Germans scaling the heights.
An original approach that reads like a play, based on meticulous research of diaries, letters and post combat accounts.’
Dunkirchen 1940
The ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ is lauded in British history and folklore as a victory of human endeavor, celebrated each year with a profusion of TV documentary veteran accounts and memorial services. German soldiers constantly referred to the wunder or miracle of reaching Dunkirk in wartime letters back home. There the resemblance ends. For the British it was a miracle of survival and deliverance, for the Germans it was one of achievement. They had reached the sea in May 1940 in less weeks than it took years for their fathers not to succeed in 1914-18.