Introduction My daughter Rachel was on a quest (since achieved) to visit 40 countries by the age of 40, so we visited Gdansk, Poland during the long weekend in May. I would like to take credit for choosing Gdansk because it was the location of the opening salvo of WW2, but since I thought we were going to Krakow until two weeks before the trip, I had no influence on the choice. Looking at old town Gdansk, you can see the Dutch and Flanders influence and are perfectly prepared

Introduction During my recent visit to Normandy, I traced the path of my Uncle Les Allen, a Corporal in the Mortar Platoon of the Royal Regiment of Canada. They landed on Juno Beach a month after D-Day and fought their way south in several operations leading up to Operation Tractable 8-10 Aug 1944. Personal History Leslie Orllian Allen was born on 07 December 1922 in Kingsville, ON, to Orillian Allen and Mary Alice Rawson, the sixth of eleven children. The last two children w

Introduction During my previous trips to Normandy, I had visited all of the D-Day beaches except Sword Beach, and I wanted to correct that oversight. Sword is the easternmost beach and probably the least explored. The US beaches of Omaha and Utah have plenty of visitors because of the US Marketing Machine, Gold Beach has the Mulberry Harbour and Juno Beach is the Canadian Landing zone. A ferry from the UK lands at Ouistreham, but most British Visitors usually head straight pa

Introduction I had visited Normandy several times, so this time, I concentrated on major German Defensive installations along the Normandy coast that I had not previously seen. I also threw in the British Normandy memorial. They have a seasonal display called Standing with Giants and this was my first chance to visit while the display was present. British Normandy Memorial The Memorial Surprisingly, until recently there was no British Memorial in Normandy. On the 75th Anniver

My good friend Sandy Cyr’s grandfather Jan (John) Scholte served in the Dutch Princess Irene Brigade in WW2. The Irenes briefly served under the Second Canadian Corps so I took a look at their actions. Sandy was able to get John’s service records from the Dutch Army and Google Translate helped trace his story. During a recent long weekend, Rachel and I visited a number of museums in the Netherlands and took the opportunity to visit a few memorials to the Princess Irene Brigad

In addition to our battlefield and tiny country tours, we took the opportunity to explore the ancient cities of Rimini, Ravenna and Bologna during our visit to Italy. All of the cities have impressive structures that are thousands of years old. Rimini Rimini has been inhabited from ancient times but was created as a Roman city in 268 BC when 6,000 Romans were sent to Rimini to establish a base at the mouth of the Marecchia River to expand into the Po Valley. The beaches of

An interactive map of the Hussars’ journey is available here. Introduction After a grand trip to the tiny country of San Marino, my daughter Rachel and I were back on the trail of Uncle Norm Kightley of the 8th Hussars in the River Battles that raged from mid September 1944 until the Canadians were recalled to Europe in February 1945. After fighting their way through the mountains for the entire Italian Campaign, once Rimini was taken it was supposed to be great tank country

Introduction This Easter, Rachel and I visited Italy, spending the week in the beach town of Rimini. Throughout our travels we have reached an exchange rate of competing interests, this trip we negotiated two days of battlefield touring in exchange for one tiny country. Rachel is on a quest to visit all the tiny countries of Europe, so most of our tours involve at least one tiny country. This trip included a visit to San Marino, a teeny mountain top town that is completely em

November 5th, 2024, was an uncharacteristically warm and sunny day in the US Military Cemetery in Margraten, Netherlands. I visited the cemetery to pay my respects in hopes that the 10,000 souls in the cemetery who had given their lives for freedom could somehow be called upon to preserve democracy once again. The cemetery has over 8,300 burials and a further 1,722 names inscribed on the tablets to the missing and I sat on a bench in the middle of the immaculate grounds urgin

Liberation March The Canadian Liberation March from Hoofdplaat to Knokke-Heist commemorates the 1944 liberation of Belgium and parts of the Netherlands by Canadian forces during World War II. It retraces the 33-kilometer route taken by the 9th Canadian Infantry Brigade during Operation Switchback. The First Canadian Army played a pivotal role in liberating the Belgian coastal town of Knokke-Heist. Their advance began in Hoofdplaat, Netherlands, and pushed through villages lik

During my visit to the Channel Ports, I stopped at a number of Atlantic Wall fortifications and visited Dunkirk, the site of the great...

One of this spring’s tours was to follow the Canadians as they fought their way north from Normandy to clear the channel ports to reduce...

As part of my tour tracing the paths of Uncles Norm Kightley 8th Hussars and George Johnston, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of Canada...

8th Hussars and the Argylls Rachel’s buddies Janaya and Beth were visiting for the weekend, so I took the opportunity to follow my Uncle...

Norm Kightley was my uncle on my mother’s side of the family. He and his wife Marj were frequent visitors to our family, and I knew him...

During our tour of Malta, we went to the Lascaris War Rooms, where the British controlled the air defence of Malta. The same location was...

Malta was the most heavily bombed country in the Second World War. The history of Malta is fascinating and the struggles the island and...

Background I was looking for something else and came across a number of RCAF aircrew who are buried in the Maastricht General Cemetery,...

Early Years Percy Ivan Mervyn was born on February 20, 1925, to Albert Mervyn and Dorothy Mittie Dickson in Sault Ste Marie. He was their...

This year was the 80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Belgium and the Netherlands and the 50th Anniversary of the Canadian Liberation March. The Canadian Liberation March commemorates the liberation of the Belgian town Knokke-Heist by Canadian forces in November 1944, part of the larger Battle of the Scheldt. Each year, participants follow a 33-kilometer route from Hoofdplaat, Netherlands, to Knokke-Heist in Belgium. This journey traces the steps of the First Canadian Army,