April weekend trip – Battlefield Tour: Operation Market Garden & Battle of the Rhine
This tour is now fully booked.
The Netherlands were occupied by Nazi Germany in May 1940. In September 1944, after over 4 years’ occupation and a long advance from Normandy, the Allies finally reached the country, and the process of liberation began. Significant fighting by the Allies was necessary to clear the country and commence the advance into Germany and defeat the Third Reich.
Operation Market Garden in September 1944 is well known, mainly due to Cornelius Ryan’s famous book and later Hollywood film by the same title, “A Bridge Too Far.” And of course, the annual commemorations. However, much larger operations were carried out in 1945 by the Allies to cross the Rhine and into Germany with the objective of isolating the Ruhr industrial area. The aim there was to destroy the factories supplying the German military machine and then advance further into Germany towards Berlin.
Very significant operations collectively known as “The Battle of the Rhine” have not received the same attention as Market Garden. This tour also highlights this series of operations known as Veritable, Plunder, Grenade and Varsity respectively. These took place along the Dutch-German border and into Germany from February to April 1945 and involved upwards of 1 million Allied soldiers and vast numbers of vehicles, artillery and aircraft. Historians agree that the US, British and Canadian army successes here in the West were a vital contribution to defeating NAZI Germany.
The team of John Cameron-Webb, Glenn Schoen and Tony Sheldon are running a guided weekend battlefield tour visiting key locations, monuments and museums relating to the above-mentioned battles in Oosterbeek, Arnhem, Nijmegen, Groesbeek and into Germany towards the Rhine. En route, the team will explain the operations from a broader military and civilian perspective including stories of individuals who took part.
Author and journalist Tony Sheldon has carried out dozens of interviews with surviving eyewitnesses to the battle to preserve their first-hand accounts of the events of 1944. They appear in his book of 2015 “De Verschrikking van de Nacht, Ooggetuigen van de slag om Arnhem” (The Terrors of the Night, Psalm 91, Eyewitness Accounts of the battle for Arnhem). Tony will take us on a tour of Oosterbeek telling the stories of men, women and children who helped as nurses, messengers and resistance fighters. This is a unique opportunity to look at the experience of the Dutch population in the area and remind us that the term “casualties” does not refer to the military only.
On Saturday the weekend tour will start at the Ginkelse Heide which served as a British paratrooper Drop Zone (‘DZ’) and will in part follow the route taken by 1st Airborne Division forces towards the bridge over the Rhine. The program will include stops at the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek and the nearby Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery. Tony will then lead us on a tour in the immediate area of the so-called “Perimeter,” followed by a visit to the John Frost Bridge in Arnhem.
We will stay in a hotel in the Oosterbeek/Wolfheze area that evening, with a group dinner (location to be announced) planned for 19:00. Participants should arrange their own overnight accommodation of their choice.
On Sunday morning we head for Nijmegen to cover the Veritable, Plunder, Grenade and Varsity operations, looking at General Sir Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group (Canadian First and British Second Armies) fighting their way from Groesbeek towards Cleve and across the Rhine. The tour finishes at the Reichswald Commonwealth War Grave Cemetery around 5 p.m.
To register for this very special weekend tour or if you if you have questions, please email John Cameron-Webb on or before 11th April. Please note that the tour will be limited to a maximum of 25 participants and a minimum of 10.
