Battleground History Tours

08/19/2024

Arguably not the best movie version, but unquestionably the best Corporal Himmelstoss

08/17/2024

It's my 13th birthday !

08/15/2024

80 YEARS AGO: OPERATION DRAGOON

AUGUST 15, 1944

On August 15, 1944 American and French forces began landing on the southern coast of France near Marseilles. Originally envisaged as an operation that would take place simultaneous to the June 6 Normandy invasion, a scarcity of landing craft and support vessels forced a postponement to August.

With few glitches and meeting modest resistance, Allied troops quickly established themselves ashore, and Marseilles and Toulon were liberated as the weak German defense collapsed. Soon, French and American divisions were pushing northward, freeing large parts of southeastern France and eventually connecting with their comrades who had recently broken out of their Normandy beachhead.

The Dragoon invasion forces became the nucleus of the 7th US Army and 1st French Army, both of which saw intense fighting along the Franco-German border into early 1945.

08/13/2024

The more things change . . .

Across the former Soviet Union and East Bloc, WW2 vintage T-34 tanks were widely used as war memorials. "Somewhere in Ukraine" this T-34 - a bit battered itself - looks down from its plinth upon the twisted metal of a descendant.

08/13/2024

The Verdun battlefield.

One of the many fascinating places we'll be visiting next May on our Western Front tour. For additional information and to reserve your place on the trip, please visit www.BattlegroundHistoryTours.com

08/13/2024

63 YEARS AGO: THE BERLIN WALL

“Nobody has the intention of building a wall” – Walter Ulbricht, East German Head of State, June 15, 1961

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Berlin was divided into four occupation zones, administered by the Americans, British, French, and Soviets. The sectors run by the Western Allies evolved very differently from the eastern, Soviet zone during the post-war years. East Berlin had traditionally been somewhat weaker economically, and Soviet reparations demands meant that much of the remaining industrial plant was dismantled and removed to the USSR. Political freedoms were also significantly more restricted within the Soviet zone and its successor, the DDR (a.k.a. ‘East Germany’) which began life in 1949.

Meanwhile in the city’s western districts, post-war recovery was also painful but significantly mitigated by American financial aid. As the disparity in living standards grew, more East Berliners began to move west – either to West Berlin or to West Germany. Although the border between East and West Germany had been closed from 1952, within Berlin people could still cross freely from one sector to another. Thus, for those wishing to leave the East, Berlin was the conduit.

The East German leadership and their Soviet masters increasingly viewed the outflow of DDR citizens with concern. Many of those leaving were the “best and brightest,” including educated young people and professionals. In 1953 alone, 300,000 DDR residents fled to the West; by the beginning of 1961, it is estimated that over 3.5 million people had emigrated – a number that represented about a quarter of the DDR population. East German authorities could not tolerate such an exodus much longer, and in 1961, the determination was made to act decisively.

At 0100 on August 13, DDR police units began blocking transit points along the border with West Berlin. Within hours, 12,000 troops were erecting barbed-wire barriers across the city. In many instances these barriers cut through streets and apartment complexes, and people who had lived as neighbors and friends for years suddenly found themselves on opposite sides of the wire; in more than a few cases, families were separated, for what turned out to be a generation.

Over the next weeks, a more formidable barrier of concrete blocks took shape. People still tried to escape by various means, though this grew increasingly difficult (and for some, fatal). In the United States, President John F. Kennedy was taken by surprise by the er****on of the Wall. While Kennedy expressed outrage, he was unwilling to risk war with the Soviet Union so long as free access to West Berlin by the Western powers remained unhindered. Bowing to the fait accompli, Kennedy remarked, “It is not a pretty solution, but it is damned better than war.”

The Berlin Wall stood from 1961 to 1989. During this time, it was continually updated and strengthened, and each innovative escape attempt led to changes that made the next attempt more difficult. Loathe to admit their wall was keeping their own citizens in, DDR authorities described it in defensive terms, as a means to keep the “Nazis” of West Germany out of their country. In official East German parlance, the Berlin Wall was known as the “Anti-Fascist Protective Rampart.”

During the 28 years of its existence, thousands of DDR citizens attempted to escape across the Berlin Wall. The Gedenkstaette Berliner Mauer, Germany’s official memorial agency, has documented at least 136 deaths attributable to the Wall. This figure is in dispute, with some researchers claiming closer to 250 deaths. The Wall’s last escapee victims were 20-year-old Chris Gueffroy, shot to death on February 6, 1989, and 32-year-old Winifred Freudenberg, who died in the crash of his improvised hot air balloon while trying to fly over the barrier on March 8, 1989. The Wall “fell” that November.

08/12/2024

Doughboys enjoying a smoke, 1918

08/12/2024

379 YEARS AGO: THE FIRST MINUTEMEN

AUGUST 12, 1645

In 1636 the General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony ordered the organization of the Colony's various militia companies into three regiments, an event viewed as the origin of what would become the National Guard.

The colonists adopted the English militia system which obligated all males between the ages of 16 and 60 to possess arms and participate in the defense of the community. The militia drilled once a week and manned guard detachments to sound the alarm in case of attack. The growing threat of the Pequot Indians to the Massachusetts Bay Colony required that the militia be in a high state of readiness.

Nine years later, in an effort to improve readiness, Massachusetts ordered that thirty percent of the militia "be ready on half an hour's warning for any service" - the first American minutemen.

The illustration, part of a series of paintings done for the National Guard, is by renowned military artist Don Troiani, and is titled "The First Muster.'

08/11/2024

"Then & Now"

Men of the 28th Division take a break at the Salvation Army canteen in Neuvilly-en-Argonne at the height of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the US Army's biggest (and bloodiest) campaign of the war.

The bottom view is the "now" equivalent, taken almost 100 years later in 2018.

We will be visiting the battlefields of the Meuse-Argonne on our May 2025 tour of the Western Front. For more information and to reserve your space, please visit: www.BattlegroundHistoryTours.com

08/11/2024

It probably didn't end well for these fellas

08/11/2024

Be my . . .

08/10/2024

08/09/2024

"Then & Now"

Men of the 111th Infantry, 28th Division in Neuvilly-en-Argonne* during the height of the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the US Army's biggest (and bloodiest) campaign of the war. The bottom view is the "now" equivalent, taken almost 100 years later in 2018.

We will be visiting the battlefields of the Meuse-Argonne on our May 2025 tour of the Western Front. For more information and to reserve your space, please visit: www.BattlegroundHistoryTours.com

08/08/2024

106 YEARS AGO: "THE BLACK DAY OF THE GERMAN ARMY"

AUGUST 8, 1918

As the First World War entered its fourth year, the momentum of the struggle on the Western Front was rapidly changing for the combatant nations. Nineteen eighteen had begun well for Germany; its army had knocked Russia out of the war, freeing dozens of battle-tested divisions for service in the west. Beginning in March, a series of German offensives had sorely tested the British and French, who were exhausted after the bloody attrition battles of the previous year. While those offensives did considerable damage and scared the Allied high command badly, in the end they failed to achieve the knockout blow the Germans had hoped for. With fresh American forces arriving in the theater in increasing numbers, the tide began to turn in the Allies' favor.

On August 8, the British Army in the Somme region launched a major offensive of its own around the city of Amiens. Carefully planned and with plentiful support from new technology such as tanks and aircraft, the Australian and Canadian units that formed much of the spearhead quickly achieved significant gains that were soon widened by the commitment of additional British, French and American forces. As parts of his army began to waver, German commander General Erich Ludendorff called August 8 "the black day of the German Army."

While progress slowed during the coming days, the Allies continued to advance, capturing thousands of enemy soldiers. Within two weeks nearly 50,000 Germans had surrendered, with thousands more killed and wounded.

Though the August offensive eventually ran its course and many weeks of desperate fighting would be required before the Germans were finally defeated, a decisive turning point had been reached. The Great War would end three months later.

Join me in May 2025 for a tour of the Western Front in France and Belgium, including visits to Ypres, Verdun, the Somme, Belleau Wood, the Marne, Meuse-Argonne, Vimy Ridge and many other compelling Great War sites. For more information and to reserve your place on the tour please visit: www.BattlegroundHistoryTours.com

08/08/2024

82 YEARS AGO: THE BATTLE OF SAVO ISLAND

AUGUST 8-9, 1942

On this date, the U. S. Navy sustained one of the worst defeats in its history in the waters off Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands.

On August 7, U. S. Marines landed on the Japanese-held island of Guadalcanal with the mission of seizing its airfield. The Japanese response was swift, a naval task force of seven cruisers and one destroyer departing New Britain under the command of Admiral Gunichi Mikawa on August 8. Mikawa hoped to disrupt the American landing by attacking its supporting fleet.

Under the command of Admiral Richmond Kelly Turner, the combined American and Australian naval forces numbered eight cruisers and fifteen destroyers, many of them anchored near Savo Island adjacent to Guadalcanal.

Possessing forces far better trained for night combat than his adversaries, Mikawa struck the Allies by surprise at 1:30 a.m. on August 9. The ensuing action was brief and for the Allies, very costly. In less than one hour the Allied force had been decimated: The American cruisers Astoria, Quincy, and Vincennes, as well as the Australian cruiser Canberra, were sunk or sinking, and two destroyers sustained heavy damage. Nearly 1,100 Allied sailors were dead. Japanese losses amounted to slight damage to three cruisers and the loss of 129 men.

As devastating as the Battle of Savo Island was for the Allies on a tactical level, the strategic ramifications were less significant. Fearing retaliation from nearby American aircraft carriers if his ships were caught in confined waters in daylight, Mikawa withdrew his forces before 2:30 a.m., leaving the vulnerable Allied transport fleet unscathed. Many of those vessels and their crews would render valuable service in this and later campaigns.

Savo was the first of a series of naval engagements fought in the Solomon Islands over the next several months. The campaign would finally end in Allied victory in early 1943.

08/05/2024

A very fine film.

08/05/2024

The American 3rd Armored Division, nicknamed "Spearhead," saw extensive action in Europe in 1944-45. This German tank destroyer was among its tally.

08/03/2024

267 YEARS AGO: THE SIEGE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY

AUGUST 3 – 8, 1757

Designed as a northern bulwark in British North America and a base for offensive operations against New France, Ft. William Henry was built in 1755 at the southern end of Lake George, New York.

Intending to eliminate the British outpost, the military commander in New France, Gen. Louis-Joseph Montcalm moved against the fort in the summer of 1757. His army – a mixed force of 8,000 French regulars, Canadian militia, and Native Americans – reached the fort on August 3 and began to lay siege.

Fort William Henry’s garrison was commanded by Col. George Munro and consisted of about 2,400 men, mainly British regulars supported by smaller numbers of American provincial troops, mostly from New England and New Jersey. Many of Munro’s men were ill from smallpox and other diseases.

Following conventional practice, the French dug their way toward the fort, bringing their artillery gradually closer to its vulnerable wooden ramparts. By August 7, with his walls breached, much of his artillery out of action, and losses mounting, Munro was forced to ask for terms of capitulation. The terms offered by Montcalm were generous: Munro’s soldiers could retain their colors, small arms and one symbolic cannon, albeit with no ammunition. His men were to march to the nearest British post at Fort Edward, pledging not to fight again for eighteen months. On August 8, following a surrender parade, the British column began to leave the fort.

Many of Montcalm’s Native American allies declined to honor the surrender terms. Attacks against defenseless captives began even before Munro’s troops departed the fort, and continued as the column started its journey. The ultimate death toll, from the siege and ensuing massacre, is unknown, and estimates vary greatly. Probably about 150-200 British and American soldiers and civilians were killed after the surrender; another 130 or so were killed or wounded during the siege. French losses taking the fort were negligible.

The events at Ft. William Henry play a central role in James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans. The novel has been adapted to the screen several times from 1912 to 1992. A rebuilt fort now occupies the site of the original and is a prominent local tourist attraction.

07/31/2024

107 YEARS AGO: THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES
a.k.a. PASSCHENDAELE

July 31, 1917 was the first day of the series of British and Allied offensives in Flanders collectively known as the Third Battle of Ypres.

Attacking out of the salient around the Belgian town of Ypres, the initial British objective was to attain control of the ridgelines east and south of town, preparatory to a greater offensive designed to retake Belgium’s English Channel ports.

After a ten-day bombardment that shattered the region’s intricate drainage system (the area is reclaimed marshland), the British attacked from Ypres. The first day saw an advance of two miles, but the promising start was soon halted by the heaviest rain in three decades, turning the battlefield into a landscape of deep mud and water-filled craters. The offensive resumed in mid-August with modest gains, but soon bogged down in a landscape of mud and filth.

The final objective – the ridge upon which the village of Passchendaele once stood – finally fell to Canadian troops on November 6, 1917. The front had moved only a few miles since late July, and at least a quarter of a million men on each side were casualties.

To experience the battlefields around Ypres, as well as places like Verdun, the Somme, Belleau Wood, Meuse-Argonne, and Compiegne, join me in May 2025 for my tour of World War One battlefields in France and Belgium. For additional information and to reserve your place on the trip, please visit: https://www.battlegroundhistorytours.com/world-war-one-the-western-front/

07/30/2024

Scenes from three of my favorite WW2 films - all very, very different.

07/30/2024

160 YEARS AGO: CHAMBERSBURG BURNS

(Compliments of my colleague Tracy Baer)

July 30, 1864. Daybreak.

Confederate Gen. John McCausland's cavalrymen entered the undefended town of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, blocking off the streets to prevent the inhabitants from fleeing. After having breakfast at the Franklin Hotel, McCausland demanded the town provide a tribute (ransom) of $500,000 in US paper money or $100,000 in gold, or his troops would burn the town within three hours. Some of the residents doubted the veracity of the threat, and anyhow the tribute could not be assembled in time.

Determined to obey his superior’s orders to burn it regardless, McCausland started to fire the town around 7:30 a.m., beginning with the courthouse. Confederate soldiers kicked down doors and kindled fires in buildings while residents fled with nothing except the clothes they were wearing. Reverend Benjamin Schneck recalled that the "smoke rose above the town like a sackcloth". Behind the buildings that lined the streets were barns and stables. Screams and cries from animals could be heard over the roaring flames as they burned to death. The town was fully ablaze by 11:00 a.m.; knowing that enemy cavalry was not far away, McCausland withdrew his troopers soon after. Many townspeople gathered on the hill at Cedar Grove Cemetery to watch their homes burn.

07/30/2024

79 YEARS AGO: THE SINKING OF THE U.S.S. INDIANAPOLIS

The USS Indianapolis (CA-35) was sunk by two Japanese torpedos on July 30, 1945. Only 316 men survived out of nearly 1,200. Around 300 were lost in the sinking, with the remaining dying while awaiting rescue.

Despite the famous stories of sharks killing most of the men (and there were sharks for sure), most of the deaths on the Indianapolis were due to exposure, salt poisoning, and dehydration. And in spite of the movie "Jaws" the cruiser did not deliver "the bomb" but instead carried the enriched uranium (about half of the world's supply of uranium-235 at the time) and other parts required for the assembly of the atomic bomb codenamed "Little Boy"

(Thanks to my colleague Dave Hamacher for this)

07/30/2024

605 YEARS AGO: THE FIRST DEFENESTRATION OF PRAGUE

July 30, 1419

Politically motivated murder is nearly as old as human civilization and has taken many forms in many cultures. Prague has experienced its own form, known as defenestration (throwing people out a window) at several key points in its history.

The event known as the First Defenestration of Prague occurred on July 30, 1419, when the Hussite priest Jan Želivský led his congregation though the city streets to New Town Hall to demand the release of Hussite prisoners. A stone was thrown at Želivský from one of the town hall windows, striking him. In response, the infuriated crowd stormed the building and defenestrated a judge, the mayor, and several city council members. The event highlighted the growing tensions between the Catholic Church and the reform-minded pre-Protestant Hussites. It turned out to be opening salvo of the Hussite Wars that raged until 1434.

Prague would see two more famous defenestrations, in 1618 and 1948.

07/28/2024

*** Last chance: One room left for this tour! ***

LONDON AT WAR: A GUIDED TOUR

SEPTEMBER 29 - OCTOBER 7, 2024

One of the world’s great historic places, London’s centrality to the Second World War is well known; perhaps only Berlin rivals it for the sheer number of 1939 – 1945 sites.

Our tour will spend nine days in and around London, with additional visits to Portsmouth to take in that city’s rich maritime heritage, and to East Anglia, where we explore the region’s importance to the air war over Europe, including 8th US Air Force sites such as Thorpe Abbotts, base of the 100th Bomb Group portrayed in the 'Masters of the Air' series.

While much of the tour’s focus will be on the area’s Second World War history, we will also visit many of London’s other iconic sites.
For additional information & to reserve your place, please visit www.BattlegroundHistoryTours.com