The Battlefield Explorer

Today it stands outside Montjuïc Castle, still overlooking the harbour it was built to defend.

This enormous 305mm Spanish coastal gun once covered the entire entrance to Barcelona’s port.
Built in the 1890s, it could hurl a 275-kg shell nearly 10 kilometres out to sea. Only four were ever made, yet they remained in service for decades.

Much of Walcheren had been deliberately flooded, turning movement inland into a slow and dangerous grind. The landings succeeded, but casualties were heavy and civilians were caught in the middle.

Uncle Beach in Vlissingen marks where British commandos went ashore during Operation Infatuate to open the approaches to Antwerp harbour. Unlike Normandy, this was a late-war amphibious assault, carried out in poor weather against prepared German defences.

A direct hit destroyed their shelter. They are buried at the nearby Parish Church of Saint Andrew Cemetery.

Near this tree, nine men were killed in seconds in August 1940, and the tree still shows the scars.

The men were members of the Essex Regiment, sheltering nearby while guarding North Weald aerodrome during a German air raid on 24 August 1940.

The view from inside a restored First World War German trench at the Passchendaele Museum.

The museum focuses on the Third Battle of Ypres, fought from 31 July to 10 November 1917, one of the costliest battles of the war.

Of the roughly 10,000 men who landed north of the river, only between 2,100 and 2,300 made it back into Allied lines.

Outside the yearly White Ribbon Mile commemorations in September, this memorial is not open to the public.

This is the 1st Airborne Division evacuation memorial on the south bank of the Rhine at Oosterbeek.
From here, on the night of 25-26 September 1944, the last remaining British and Polish airborne troops were ferried across under cover of darkness.
This marked the end of the Arnhem operation.

It was not only access to Amsterdam that had to be denied, but also the two massive Schnellboot bunkers inside the harbour had to be defended. This was critical ground, and the scale and strength of the defences reflect how seriously the Germans took that reality.

This German Gun Bunker was built to defend fortress IJmuiden.
IJmuiden was not just another stretch of coastline. In January 1944 it was formally designated a fortress, a status reserved for places considered vital to the German war effort. That decision influenced everything in the area.

This tank belongs to the Musée des Blindés. Built in February 1944, its combat history is unknown.

This Panzer IV stood outside the Normandy Victory Museum in 2019.
By the summer of 44, the design had reached its limits. Once the backbone of German armoured forces, the Panzer IV was still a dangerous adversary, but no longer dominant as Allied tanks surpassed it in armour, firepower, and mobility

This may be the most overlooked Market Garden memorial.
A beautiful eagle draped in a parachute marks the 101st Airborne drop zone near Son.
It stands at the A50 service area between Sint-Oedenrode and Son en Breugel.

Those who refused would detour behind it, through a narrow alley that became known as “Shirker’s Alley.”

Today, the only memorial here is a small plaque

The attempt to seize power by force had failed completely.

During the Nazi period, a memorial stood here and was guarded around the clock. Passers-by were required to give the nazi-salute. remembering the four policemen who were killed.

This is the Feldherrnhalle in Munich. In November 1923, this is where the Beer Hall Putsch ended in gunfire and collapse.

Sixteen Nazis and four Bavarian policemen were killed here within minutes. Adolf Hitler fled the scene, was arrested days later, and sentenced to prison.

The failed plot ended not with liberation, but with immediate reprisals in which thousands were killed.

Today, the Bendlerblock, once the headquarters of the Army High Command, houses the German Resistance Memorial Center which is well worth a visit.

Here, at the Bendlerblock in Berlin, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and a number of his fellow conspirators were executed only hours after their attempt to assassinate Hitler failed on 20 July 1944.

Dragon’s teeth of the Siegfried Line on the outskirts of the Hürtgen Forest. Parked in a gap in the line is an original WWII Dodge WC54 ambulance.

I took this photo in 2007 during my first visit to the forest. We went in with several WWII vehicles, an experience that has stayed with me.

That delay gave U.S. engineers time to destroy the next bridge at nearby Habiemont. When the Germans reached it later that afternoon, the crossing was gone, forcing them to all but abandon reaching the Meuse river.

Here, the column was halted for more than two hours. A bomb fell between the bunker and a nearby Panther tank, killing two local civilians.

This is the bunker near Cheneux where Jochen Peiper took shelter during an Allied air raid in December 1944.

On the 4th day of the Battle of the Bulge, Peiper and his Kampfgruppe were trying to reach the Meuse River. After the bridges at Trois-Ponts were destroyed, he was forced onto a long detour.

The bunker was built in February 1916 and positioned to cover approaches through the wood from the front line. It likely saw heavy fighting again in 1918 during the German Spring Offensive.

A British WWI machine-gun bunker deep in Ploegsteert Wood, known to British troops as Plugstreet Wood.

After heavy fighting in late 1914 and early 1915, this sector of the Ypres Salient became relatively quiet. By 1916 it was used to rest and retrain units after tougher fighting elsewhere.

The church in Angoville-au-Plain.
During D-Day and the following days, this small church was used as an aid station by U.S. medics Kenneth Moore and Robert Wright, 101st Airborne.
Wounded from both sides were treated here. The bloodstains on the pews remain as a reminder of what took place inside.

The striking Dambusters Memorial in Woodhall Spa.

Near here, in May 1943, Lancasters of 617 Sqdn set out with bouncing bombs to breach the Möhne and Eder dams. The weapon worked, but at a heavy price.

Eight of 19 aircraft did not return with 53 Allied airmen killed. Many more died in the flooding.

This is the real building in Rachamps where the men of Easy Company spent the night before being pulled off the line near Bastogne.

In Band of Brothers, the location is shown as a monastery. In reality, it was a convent, and the building is still in use today as a school.

Dragons teeth anti-tank obstacle of the German Westwall (or Siegfried line, as the allies called it). This defensive line was built in various stages between 1936 and 1940, each stage either thickening or extending the line.

The start point of the battle of the bulge for the 277 Volks Grenadier Division. This is where it entered the Krinkelter Wald and Belgium at the same time. They were supposed to push through the 99th Division with ease but after 24 hours had achieved very little.