Liberation! From Normandy to the Rhine

Fly to or meet at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport. Meet coach and drive to Normandy for our exploration of the Operation Overlord sites. Continue to our hotel in the Bayeux area for three nights. Welcome drinks and introductory talk. (D).

Our tour starts with the outstanding American involvement in the dramatic events of 6 June 1944 at Omaha Beach. To put the day in context we start by visiting the excellent Overlord Museum at Colleville-sur-Mer which illuminates the events through a combination of exhibits, dioramas and immersive displays. We then move to the beach itself where we study the bloody battle to establish a beachhead there on the morning of the 6th. We will also visit the remarkable German battery at Pointe du Hoc, an area preserved largely as it was in 1944. We end the day at the poignant site of the American National Cemetery and memorial at St Laurent. (B, D).

Today we travel to the historic town of Ste-Mere-Eglise where US airborne troops landed in the early hours of 6 June in what were the first Allied actions of Operation Overlord. Here we visit the Airborne Museum where we get a superb insight into the strategic importance of the Cotentin Peninsula and the highly risky nature of airborne warfare. We then move on to the La Fiere causeway, scene of a desperate four-day struggle to establish control over a critical crossing of the River Merderet. Our tour continues to Utah Beach where the US VII Corps fought to establish a beachhead before advancing inland. On our journey back to Bayeux we stop at the German war cemetery at La Cambe where over 12,000 German soldiers are buried. (B, D).

We leave the Normandy coast to travel inland to the town of Falaise to explore the dramatic events of August 1944 when large numbers of German troops from Army Group B were trapped by Allied armies. The 90th American Infantry Division played a key role in this action. We visit the Moissy Ford, known as the ‘corridor of death’, where thousands of Germans tried to escape, and the Memorial Museum Montormel, on the very spot where the pocket was closed. Continuing east, we visit the Armistice site at Compiègne where Hitler staged the French surrender of June 1940 in the same railway clearing used for the German armistice of 1918. Hotel in the Compiègne area – 1 night. (B, D).

We continue eastwards into Belgium to visit the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, the burial place of more than 8,000 American servicemen killed in north-west Europe. From here we travel to Aachen where we embark on a guided walk of the city and learn about one of the toughest urban battles fought by the US Army in 1944. The capture of Aachen made it the first German city on German soil to fall to the Allies. Hotel in Aachen – 2 nights. (B, D).

Today we follow the line of the formidable German defensive Siegfried Line, including surviving anti-tank obstacles, before continuing to the Hürtgenwald Museum where we gain an appreciation of the challenges faced by the US First Army in one of the longest and most costly battles in its history. We then visit the nearby Vossenack German cemetery before driving on to Remagen and the Peace Museum on the site of the Ludendorff Bridge, captured intact by American forces on 7 March 1945. Return to Aachen. (B, D).

Leaving Aachen we cross into Belgium and begin exploring the northern sector of the Battle of the Bulge. We visit the Malmedy Massacre site at Baugnez before following the route of Kampfgruppe Peiper through Stavelot and Trois-Ponts to La Gleize, where the German advance finally stalled. We then continue to St Vith, whose stubborn American defence badly disrupted the German timetable, before travelling on to Bastogne for our three-night stay. (B, D).

A full day examining the battle around Bastogne. We begin at the remarkable Bastogne War Museum before touring the nearby battlefield sites north of the town, which may include Bois Jacques, the Recogne-Bastogne German Military Cemetery and Foy. Return to Bastogne. (B, D).

We travel into Luxembourg to visit Schumannseck, scene of intense fighting in the winter of 1944–45, and the ‘martyr city’ of Wiltz. Continuing to Ettelbruck we visit the General Patton Memorial Museum and the nearby Patton Monument and Sherman tank before ending at the National Museum of Military History at Diekirch. Return to Bastogne. (B, D).

We leave Bastogne and return to France, stopping at the Surrender Museum in Reims where the German High Command signed the act of unconditional surrender in Eisenhower’s headquarters on 7 May 1945. After lunch in Reims we continue to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport for return flights. (B).