War Museums

Any web links for all these museums?

I have some but not all!

Ryan

 

Ryan,

No, the info comes from all sorts of books. On-line I like
http://www.museums.simonides.org/
but its not complete and sometimes dated.

Malcolm: when were you in Samaur?

I know, if I had stayed at home more I would be a millionaire...

Regards,

Marco

 

Marco,
I was there last summer, two weeks in the Loire and one on the Somme. :P
Well it's an agreement with my better half.
Aye
MalcolmII

 

Originally posted by Marco@Mar 2 2004, 08:28 PM
Abri du Hitler (Bruly-de-Pershe)

Marco, thanks for the info on the museum - sounds like its the same person.

Is the Hitler Bunker above the one on the Belgium/French border in the Ardennes? If so, it's good isn't it? I liked the display of photos of Hitler's tour of the battlefields and the excellent display about the Belgian resistance.

 

Interesting small museum, the Finnish Army Museum, not far from the Lutheran Cathedral in central Helsinki. Also visited Kuhmo where there is an outdoor museum on the site where the Finns stopped one of the Russian columns in 1939-40. A section of trenches and dugouts is preserved and locked boxes containing Finnish and Russian weapons; boards with maps and the story of the battle. Several pieces of artillery are there and a Russian tank stands on the point where the Russians were stopped. Through the forest are still in place a line of tank traps. The road runs through the forest, with nothing but trees either side for miles. We drove a couple of hours on this road and both sides of the road is a depression before the forest starts. When the winter war ended the Russians declared that they had lost 500 men in that battle. They took 500 bodies away and the Finns buried the other 5000 on both sides of the road. The Winter War is an amazing story, if anyone is interested I can post some details. I also researched the British Volunteer Company that served there (including some RAF ground crew and RA men who had to travel in civilian clothes to Finland). I have in my collection the medals of an Anglo-Indian who served with the Company and then joined the RAF, he was killed in 1944 flying a Typhoon over Holland.

As Churchill said in a speech in Jan. 1940:

"Only Finland - superb, nay, sublime - in the jaws of peril. Finland shows what free men can do. The service rendered by Finland to mankind is magnificent. ..... We cannot tell what the fate of Finland may be, but no more mournful spectacle could be presented to what is left to civilized mankind than that this splendid Northern race should be at last worn down and reduced to servitude worse than death by the dull brutish force of overwhelming numbers. If the light of freedom which still burns so brightly in the frozen North should be finally quenched, it might well herald a return to the Dark Ages, when every vestige of human progress during two thousand years would be engulfed."

Steve

 

Malcolm- as long as you were not here in June with two mates....

Paul - The visit to Hitler's command bunker was some time back, but it was interesting indeed. Schagen is 160 km from Arnhem, so not really 'near' although it naturally depends who you ask! Schagen is a few km. above Amsterdam. When I was there I met the man in question but the museum was opened by a younger person (son?), so I imagine it could still be there. It had some bad press some time ago because an Englishman complained about the human remains on display. Skeletal remains in shoes, helmets, etc. They were removed, iirc.

Regards,

Marco

 

Originally posted by Marco@Mar 3 2004, 03:33 AM
Malcolm- as long as you were not here in June with two mates....


Marco, Why?? I was there in July.

Aye
MalcolmII

 

Typical 'Brits on holiday' kind of guys

Regards,

Marco

 

Muckleburgh Collection in Norfolk is great fun. You can also get a tear-away ride round some of the old airfield grounds in a Gama Goat...I think it was something like 1.50p - absolute madness, holding on for dear life great!

http://www.muckleburgh.co.uk/

I believe this location (Weybourne) in Norfolk was also to be the original location for the beach sequences in Saving Private Ryan. I do not know exactly how true but this is what someone at the collection told me. It never happened alledgedly as the MOD did not want T.A. soldiers dressing in US uniforms as the extras...

So they went and filmed it in Eire.

Ryan

 

Marco

Seems like you may a bit of a Museum 'twitcher' ! My favourites have been:

Royal Air Force Museum at Hendon
HMS Belfast - on the Thames
The Fleet Air Arm Museum at Yeovilton
The Royal Air Force Memorial Flight at Conningsby, but
the all time favourite:

The Lincs Aviation Heritage Centre at East Kirby. It's the only place that you can get your head into the cockpit of a Lancaster, have a trip inside the plane (on the ground) if you can afford it (!) and wallow in the sound of those Merlins being 'run up' just a few feet away from you. What an experience!! (And I'm not ex-RAF, but I did live through those years when the sky was very often full of Lancasters)

 

Originally posted by Marco@Mar 4 2004, 07:02 AM
Typical 'Brits on holiday' kind of guys

Regards,

Marco
Nuff said!! :angry:

The first time I was there, some time ago, was when it was still beside the cavalry barracks and the custodiams were all cavalry soldiers in their kepis and damn smart they were too. They would have given short shrift to any wrong-doers.
Aye
MalcolmII

 

Chris,

What can I say? We have the same taste

My top-ww2-aircraft experience was a flight in a B-25 Mitchell of 30-40 min. Amazing.

Regards,

Marco

 

also researched the British Volunteer Company that served there (including some RAF ground crew and RA men who had to travel in civilian clothes to Finland).

Glosters

Would be very interested to read your research on that exercise - were they the men that were put on the Vickers-Armstrong payroll?

 

I'm working on a list of museums with Axis WW2 equipment, any additional information or corrections would be greatly appreciated.
You can find the list at http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=56

/Marcus

 

Hi Marcus,

Nice website. I have added you to my WW2 links.

Do you need any pictures aswell?

 

salientpoints,

Yes, I'm looking for photos from the museums to add as well.

/Marcus

 

Ok Marcus,

I will try and indentify photos I have and their owners and let you know.

Have you ever been to the War & Peace Show here in the UK?

Regards

Ryan

 

I think the worst I ever visited was the French Army Museum at les Invalides in Paris. Just cases of old unifirms, weapons, flags, etc. No real context or themes. A bit like the upstairs rooms at the IWM used to be in the 1960s.

I went there in the early 1990s and I think I heard that they have improved it since. Anyone know?

 

Blah !! Ugly capitalistic western rotten forces!! :P
You should see the weapons of Great Red Army and Polish Army!!
Visit museum at Kołobrzeg, Poland. Small but full of stuff, from 10th century, WWII and even after.
My hometown. 'Sniff'

 

Went to the Imperial War Museum recently, for the first time since 1978, when I was 8.
It's great! If anyone's in London, it's certainly worth a look, especially if you're skint.
I spent a couple of hours there, till I had to meet my girlfriend who was shopping in Oxford St., and I only saw a fraction of it.

SteveB