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D-Day The US Beaches
US Beaches I hadn’t visited any US D-Day beaches during my previous visit to Normandy, so I decided to take a one-day tour of the...
pd-allen
Oct 24, 202414 min read


Final Flight for Robert McKenzie
Back Story During a recent visit to Normandy, I visited a number of locations associated with Flight Lieutenant Robert McKenzie, a...
pd-allen
Oct 11, 202416 min read


Battle of the Scheldt - North
The exploration of the Battle of the Scheldt continued, looking at the Action on the Northern Bank. Fortunately, I did not have to sleep...
pd-allen
Oct 10, 20249 min read


Battle of the Scheldt - Southern Bank
Thanks to a teacher girls’ weekend in Milan, Rachel’s car and I got to spend some time exploring the Battle of the Scheldt, a major...
pd-allen
Oct 8, 20249 min read


Operation Market Garden
As part of the 80th Anniversary of Operation Market Garden there was a demonstration of the parachute drop at Eerde, just north of...
pd-allen
Sep 26, 20247 min read


Liberation of the Netherlands
I was fortunate to arrive back in the Netherlands in time for celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Limburg...
pd-allen
Sep 25, 20246 min read


War Stories of the Rich and Famous
A question about this map from a post about the Canadians at Second Ypres led to the fascinating story of two grandfathers in the Great...
pd-allen
Sep 4, 202412 min read


Rachel Tours Cambrai
On our last day of touring, we worked our way back south of Arras before heading back home to Maastricht. Monchy-le-Preux Our first stop...
pd-allen
Jun 14, 202410 min read


Rachel Tours Arras
After a good day on the Somme, we headed up to Arras for Part Deux of the Rachel Battlefield Tour. Rob Wolsey, a Canadian Battlefield...
pd-allen
Jun 5, 202413 min read


Rachel Tours The Somme
After listening to my war stories and some dedicated blog reading, Rachel decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about, so on...
pd-allen
May 30, 202412 min read


Canadians at Passchendaele - Oct - Nov 1917
This tour is taken is following Norm Christie’s excellent series for King and Empire. The Battle of Passchendaele, episode 4, in his For...
pd-allen
May 27, 202412 min read


Canadians at Mont Sorrel - June 1916
The next stop on my tour of Ypres was the Battle of Mont Sorrel, 2-13 Jun 1916. As with other tours, this adventure is following Norm...
pd-allen
May 23, 20249 min read
Canadians at Second Battle of Ypres - April 1915
I recently spent a week in Ypres, following the Canadian action in the area. The tour was based on the excellent book series, For King...
pd-allen
May 21, 20247 min read


Mining Messines
During my recent trip to Arras, I became interested in the mining operations in the war. The Battle of Messines is the apex of the mining...
pd-allen
May 15, 202412 min read


Last 100 Days - Cambrai 27 Sep 1918
Battle of Canal du Nord and Cambrai Less than 4 weeks after the success in the Battle of Arras, the Canadian Corps was again up to...
pd-allen
May 2, 20248 min read


Last 100 Days - Arras 26 Aug 1918
Battle of Arras 26 Aug – 2 Sep Two weeks after completing the Battle of Amiens, the Canadian Corps received 12,000 replacement troops,...
pd-allen
Apr 29, 202412 min read


Last 100 Days - Amiens 08 Aug 1918
Introduction I recently visited Arras with the intention of tracing the three main battles of the Canadian’s Last 100 days of the War in...
pd-allen
Apr 25, 20249 min read


Underground Battle at Arras
Les Bove d’Arras Caves were dug out under the Place des Heroes Square from the nineth century onwards, to extract chalk or limestone...
pd-allen
Apr 23, 20248 min read


Fortress Thyboron
Adjacent to the Sea War Museum was the Thyboron Fortress, a portion of Germany’s World War Two Atlantic Wall. The Atlantic Wall contains...
pd-allen
Apr 13, 20244 min read


Vimy and the Drummond Family
In January 2024, my war story buddy Wine Bob Drummond and I visited several WWI battlefields. This is his story of the Drummond family's...
pd-allen
Mar 17, 20247 min read
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