What World War 2 places have you visited?

I have been at a norwegian fortress near Skjellanger in Norway, i have also been at herdla(You should read the story about that place, to house there is older than 1945). I have some planeparts from my uncle from this aircraft: Blenheim Øygarden I have also two planeparts from a german plane shot down by one of its own ships, i havent seen anything written about it. The plane was shot down near Toska(Where i grew up), the pilot bailed out and taken into Manger where he was later picked up by the germans.

 

I spent three and a half years in Germany from 1969 to 1971. I was first stationed in Bitburg then Spandelham (spelling?) There was a statue of a German WWII solider there.We live in Bensfield. It was not far from Spicher. (spelling?) I was not interested much in history then. I probably missed the opportuity of a life time. I did go to the cemetary in Luxemborg. My uncle was killed in the Battle of the Buldge and is burried there. He was awarded the silver star.
I have also been to Verdun and Paris France.
I wish now I had been more aware of my surroundings. All of could think of then was having fun and when would I get to go home.
Al Letcher
Newburgh, Indiana.

 

I'm rather spoilt for it living as I do in Kent in south east England, so it starts with having the site of the Battle of Britain permanently overhead. Travelled to the Channel Islands, across Northern France, Belgium, Holland and Germany (mainly the North).

The two most memorable visits were the Channel Islands which being a youngster just spun my head faster than a 78, packed with bunkers, walls and the underground hospital at St Lawrence.

And Berlin when there was still a wall and I got to walk through a deserted Tiergarten and saw the Brandenburg Gate appear through the fog. If it couldn't get any spookier once I finally got into East Berlin it did seem that very little had changed since 1945, almost as if I'd travelled in time back to those dark days of the battle for Berlin. Those poor Osties looked like they were still being hunted.

 

El Alamein, Okinawa, Tokyo, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Singapore, Thailand, Phillipines, Pearl Harbor, Hohenfells, Munich, Nuremberg, Berlin.

Yes I did hit the battlefields, one of the perks to sharing a hobby with the company Gunny.

Germany was more of a "Hey, who knows anything about this place" when I was in the National Guard. Unfortunately none of the pictures are digital and some are on rolls of film that discretion prohibits their being developed; if you catch my drift.

Brad

 

The Karelian front in several places, the best known is Tali-Ihantala.

Eagle´s nest, St Petersburg ( =Leningrad ), Tallinn, Narva, Northern Norway sector.

 

id love to go to japan (+ get a wife there) did you like iwo, suribachi ?? are there remmants of the battle or everythings been removed?

 

Too many old 8th AF and Bomber Command airfields to list, plus Normandy beaches, Falaise Gap, the Bulge, Arnhem, Berlin, Nuremburg Rally Grounds, Crete, one or two Luftwaffe airfields in Italy....

Basically, everywhere I go in Europe I manage to find something !

 

There's still stuff........when I was there in '89 there were still shell casings and machinegun links in the sand on the beaches. Most of the bigger things had been removed though. The caves were untouched, even though it was obvious others had been in there before. Remeber this was an operational airfield for several years so things had been pretty well picked over.

On Okinawa I fell into a big hole, while training, in the jungle near Naha. Turned out to be a mortar pit. The mortar and ammunition were still there.

Brad

 

France:
Azeville battery
Benouville
Carentan
Chambois
Falaise
Hill 112
Longues-sur-mer battery
Merville battery
Mont Ormel
Normandy beaches (Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah)
Pegasus Bridge
Ranville
Saint-Come-du-Mont
Saint-mer-Eglise
Vimoutiers
West Wall fortifications


Belgium:
Bastogne
Foy

Germany:
Berlin flak towers
Colditz castle
Eagles Nest
Hitler's bunker (Berlin)
Munich
Nuremberg (Zeppelin Field)
Reichstag
REIMAHG-ME262 factory
Wewelsburg

Netherlands:
Arnhem
Nijmegen
Oosterbeek

UK:
Too many places to mention!

 

Well as I found out just today! Paige Field in Ft Meyers Fl, and Naples Airport, both AAF training facilities. Other than that when I visited Germany many years ago, I went through a concentration camp.

 

The cemetary in Luxembourg, Bastogne, Trois Points and Clervaux. There was a huge cemetary in the UK I remember visiting dedicated to aircrew members of the USAAF. Don't remember the name but it had a huge map of the routes that the bombers used to bomb Germany along with some of the WWII airfields that were abandoned but some of the buildings were still standing. Finally, Dachau Concentration Camp and the Berchtesgaden area including the Eagle's nest

 

...that would have been Madingley, near Cambridge, PzJgr.....

 

My list would be too long, but mainly focussed on the European theather, from the Batlefields of May-June 1940 in Benelux + France to the Lysander dropping places near the Loire Valley during the occupation, the Maquis forests in central France, the D-Day Beaches, the Ardennes, Metz, Alsace, Arnhem, the Ruhr. I will be going to Cologne and Aachen next month. I was also in Austria, Northern Italy, Crete, Bulgaria etc..

 

Leningrad, Moscow, Kursk, Talin, Vienna, Rome and other places in Italy....

 

Ardennes, Luxembourg, Hürtgenwald, Schnee-Eifel, Market Garden, Walcheren, Reichswald, Halbe pocket, Berlin, Frankfurt an der Oder and many other smaller battlefields.

 

Yup, since I was stationed at RAF Alconbury in Cambridgeshire. Cheers Martin for the name

 

coool did you bring the mortat was it the classic knee 81??

 

Pearl Harbor where it all began for the US. Tokyo where it all ended for Japan. In Europe, London and several RAF fields as well as 8th AFBs. I wanted to see Churchill's command post, but it seems I never have time. Southampton where a lot of folks left from on D-Day.
Germany: Bertchesgarten, Munich, Hamburg. Italy Rome

Next time in Europe: the military cemeteries and the Battle of the Bulge area.

 

It appeared to be an 81MM and not considered a "Knee Mortar". It was too big to have been carried in an uphill retreat. We basically marked it on a map and told EOD. Never heard anything more about it.

 

eod???