# Vacation Planning



## 6811 (Jan 1, 2013)

Since several of my relatives served (and two died) during the last two world wars I have always been interested in the history of these conflicts. I lately came across an ad for battlefield tours of England, Normandy and the Netherlands that I think would satisfy my curiosity generally, with the added event of a visit to a Canadian War Cemetery where a fallen relative lies buried.

Has anyone taken one of these tours from http://www.thebattlefieldtours.com/ (or similar) before, and did you enjoy it and feel it was worth the expense? Aside from taking several 'day' tours in various vacation spots, I have never taken a multiple day bus tour before and would really appreciate any comments, for or against, that you may have.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

6811 said:


> Since several of my relatives served (and two died) during the last two world wars I have always been interested in the history of these conflicts. I lately came across an ad for battlefield tours of England, Normandy and the Netherlands that I think would satisfy my curiosity generally, with the added event of a visit to a Canadian War Cemetery where a fallen relative lies buried.
> 
> Has anyone taken one of these tours from http://www.thebattlefieldtours.com/ (or similar) before, and did you enjoy it and feel it was worth the expense? Aside from taking several 'day' tours in various vacation spots, I have never taken a multiple day bus tour before and would really appreciate any comments, for or against, that you may have.


The war cemeteries are very moving. I've never had a chance to see the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge, which is very impressive and humbling. 
However, I did have a chance in the 80s to visit a friend in Luxembourg, and we visited an American war cemetery, where General Patton is buried..facing his men. 

I also had a quicky tour of a similar German cemetary..just for completeness I suppose. 

The battlefield tour sounds very interesting, although I'm sure there will be a LOT of walking involved. I hope you are up to ELEVEN days
of visiting historic sites..without any rest inbetween...you will be very tired, I'm sure.

I am a WWII history buff and have some of the movies that were made about some of the more famous battles. 

I recommend that you get some dvds to see at least on a re-enactment film of what happened there, so when you visit, you have a better understanding of the sacrifices made. 
If you are touring Hollands historic WWII sites, (Nijmegen, Arnhem), it will make better sense of what took place there.
"A Bridge too Far" is a very good American made movie that reasonably accurately depicts an allied failure and consequent high allied losses in Operation Market-Garden.

Other movies, to watch is "Saving Private Ryan"..a Steven Spielberg production of what happened on Omaha Beach.
For the WWI battles, "Passendale" is probably worth watching. This is a Canadian made movie by actor Paul Gross.


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## marina628 (Dec 14, 2010)

My daughter did this for the 65th Anniversary and came back to say it is a trip we all need to do together as a family.My husband has a great uncle buried there and was quite emotional for her to actually find his grave.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

On our one month visit to France 2 years ago, we rented a car in Paris and drove to Juno Beach in Normandy. We also visited Omaha Beach and the US cemetary. It had been on my bucket list. Very worthwhile and we enjoyed staying in 2 wartime towns that escaped bombing in the war.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

*Regina Rfiles website*

I will be watching this thread as I have a similar interest in battlefield tours - especially in France/Netherlands.

I have been doing my own research on battles - especially those that involved the Regina Rifles Battalion. My uncle was the regiments padre and won an MC after DDay (Juno Beach) and battles fought in the weeks and months afterward. I would urge you to learn more about the battles and do research by reading the many books written by Mark Zuelke - a Cdn. historian based out of Victoria BC. http://www.zuehlke.ca/canadian-battle-series/juno-beach. He has written several books : Juno, Holding Juno etc - one of which was made into a (low budget) movie - but still very good. He provides vivid details on the battles and has books written on all of the Cdn military campaigns.

I also connected with some folks via email through a regiment website - http://www.reginarifles.ca/ - it's amazing how facebook and other sites have functioned to bring people information, contacts together. I even found a "google map" - complete with GPS coordinates that documents where battles were fought and casualties sustained - to follow the regment as they made their way from the beaches inland.

We are off to France this summer and I hope to use those GPS coordinates, and walk in my uncles footsteps -from 1944!


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## 6811 (Jan 1, 2013)

dubmac said:


> I have been doing my own research on battles - especially those that involved the Regina Rifles Battalion. My uncle was the regiments padre and won an MC after DDay (Juno Beach) and battles fought in the weeks and months afterward. I would urge you to learn more about the battles and do research by reading the many books written by Mark Zuelke - a Cdn. historian based out of Victoria BC. [/QUOTE]
> Since both you, Dubmac, a...irk, where I lost another uncle on HMS Keith.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

gosh that reminds me, one of the things i have is a box filled with letters from a grandfather during World War I. He wrote in rotation to each member of his family here in canada & they kept all of the correspondence, more than 160 letters & military postcards.

he was an ordinary soldier, an engineering student who signed up at the age of 16 with the mcGill brigade. When they got to england the army found out he was underage, so they kept him at a british base until he turned 18 in april 1917. Eventually he got to the front in france as a signalman with the royal canadian horse artillery.

although the signalmen did string up primitive phone systems at each camp, the year was 1918 so these never operated for more than 30 minutes. Otherwise, messages had to be transmitted by semaphore flags or - more usually - by galloping a horse while carrying a hand-written message to the next battalion, often under gunfire. "One doesn't feel afraid," wrote my grandfather to his own father, somewhat unconvincingly. Amazingly my ancestor survived, although 2 of his horses were shot dead as he rode them. Somehow a round lead bullet - surprisingly large & heavy - which was said to have killed one of the horses ended up in the box of letters. 

there are stunning descriptions of the hindenburg line trenches. Most touchingly, descriptions of starvation, total starvation. The canadian horse artillery literally had nothing to eat for days on end. They tore vegetables out of farmers' fields but the practice caused trouble because the farmers were starving too. At one point my grandfather wrote that all he had had to eat for 5 entire days was his own horse's oats.

in 1918 the allies started to move east from the hindenburg trenches. They believed they were going to march to berlin, wrote my grandfather. The soldiers had no tents, no tarpaulins, no coats, nothing to sleep on. As dawn came - they marched at night, in the darkness - they would fall down together on the bare ground in each others' arms in order to keep warm. It was fall 1918 in northern europe & already very cold.

in one letter my grandfather scribbles how they managed to dig a sheet of scrap metal out of the town dump & improvise a rough shelter. At least 20 soldiers had piled in. It was, my grandfather wrote, "the finest palace i have ever known."

a job i have to do is transcribe all those letters for members of the family. I might also look around for a publisher of the group of letters from the french & belgian front in 1917-1918, because the ancestor wrote vividly & well. There are very few surviving records which tell the story of how an ordinary soldier lived day-by-day during the Great War. Most first-hand description that has survived documents history from the generals' points of view.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

HP - I'm sure you see those letters and notes of your ancestor are treasures. I certainly would!

Our family has a similar cache of letters, receipts and post-cards from an uncle and my father - one of whom is an aformentioned padre with the RR, and my faterh who was with bomber crew 427th sqdn based out of Leeming in England. Dad was the bomb aimer, and the crew included Arthur Hiller - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Hiller of Hollywood fame etc. Hiller was the air navigator.

I have also contacted Vetran's affairs in Ottawa to obtain a copy of my father's service records - any living relative of a vetran can obtain a copy of these records by writing to the library in Vetran's Affairs. The file is full of information on where the serviceman/person served and interview notes etc. You need only provide proof of your relationship to your relative. http://www.warmuseum.ca/military-history-research-centre/ The War Museum in Ottawa has some interesting resources and catelogues.

After explorring some cotacts through the RR website I started a dialogue with a woman whose uncle had died in battle in France. Her mum had given her the hand-written letter (written by the padre - my uncle) informing her on the death of her brother. I have plans to get a copy of the letter.

The memory project http://www.thememoryproject.com/ is a site where many of these stories, pictures and even interviews can be found. Not sure whether this is of use to you as many of the stories focus on WWII and Korea - not WWI. But check it out if you like anyhoo.


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

The History channel featured "For King and Empire" series,narrated by Norm Christie. Some of these episodes with a narrated walking tour is 
available on Youtube.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Adk-0DQB_hE

The battlefields visited many years later have been restored to farmland again, but they show some pictures of what it looked like during the Great War.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

black mac thank you so much. I am going to copy your messages into permanent files so i can study all of your links carefully. You are an inspiration to me ! 

yes the 167 letters are a treasure. There is not much from ordinary soldiers from WW I that has survived; a great deal more from WW II as you say.

my grandfather's cache includes a sweet, comical letter describing the arrival of the US forces into the Great War some time in, i guess, 1917. The royal canadian horse were fighting with a british regiment. Every soldier was horribly exhausted, underweight & emaciated from starvation.

by contract, the newly-arriving americans were so huge, robust, loud, ruddy & healthy, wrote my grandfather. The canadians & the british, pale & gaunt, shrank back.

but the british commander drew a map in the dirt with a stick.

Fritzi is ovah theah and we aah gahing to be ovah heah, he said to the assembled american squadron. But all of you baaaahstids are gahing to be stuck ovah theah.


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

6811 said:


> I have been doing research but with special attention to The Blackwatch RHR of Canada, where two uncles served; one of whom died at Verrieres Ridge, the other went on with the regiment to liberate Holland. .


If you can make it over in May you could celebrate the liberation with the Dutch themselves. May 5th is the day Canadian General Foulkes signed the liberation of Netherlands in the Hotel de Wereld in Wageningen. The 4th is Dodendag, a day of remembrance with a memorial during the day and a silent march at 8pm. The 5th is a huge celebration in Wageningen by mostly the Dutch, known as Bevrijdingsdag. In Canada we focus on the somber remembrance of the sacrifices but for a vacation Bevrijdingsdag would be great perspective to add. The Nijemegan march in July is another liberation celebration. It was mainly British/Canada/US/Aussie before but now many countries are involved and it's the largest event in the Netherlands. There's a Canadian ceremony just about every month really - April is Vimy Ridge, June is D-Day, September is Battle of Britain and the Liberation of Belgium etc

The bus tour would be good to let someone plan everything for you, but because the options are endless in Europe I would much rather rent a vehicle myself. To me Europe is made perfect for motorbikes with tight roads and not enjoyable on a bus at all, but a small car with satnav would be fine as well. The train is convenient to get from city center to center but you would miss a lot. A lot of the sites are found outside of the big traffic and it's always easy to find a quaint old town to eat or stay and meet some of the locals. You can stumble upon war history just about everywhere between the famous sites. Try researching some of the Canadian legions in Europe and maybe attending some of their events if you want to meet the vets and present military in Europe.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

@HP and anyone else...
I thought you might also like this search engine 
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-100.01-e.php
Type in the name of your WWI veteran, and the database will return with the soldiers "attestation" papers -the attestation papers are a fancy word for "application for employment? !

I found one of my great uncle's papers through this site - he signed up in 1915 in Uxbridge Ont. and joined "Sir Sam's Own" BEF. It's neat to see the data that was collected on these soldiers, and their handwriting.


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

dubmac said:


> I thought you might also like this search engine
> http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cef/001042-100.01-e.php
> Type in the name of your WWI veteran, and the database will return with the soldiers "attestation" papers -the attestation papers are a fancy word for "application for employment? !



salut black mac - that LAC search engine worked like a charm. I'm really grateful to you for posting it. There he was, every detail perfectly in place, nearly a century ago, exactly as the family mythology always recited.

we'd never known, though, that at the age of 18 he had 20/20 vision or an expanded chest girth of 41 inches. We knew he was considered to be of sound health but did not know that this evaluation included the pronouncement that he appeared to be "free of fits." 

there's the LAC accession box number. Next stop: explore the contents. Great stuff !!

btw would you happen to know of a similar search engine for WW II veterans.


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## SpIcEz (Jan 8, 2013)

As there was mention of documentaries and WWII movies, I saw this series (originaly in French) but I think there is an english translation out there, I think this is one of the best recent documentaries on WWII with never before seen COLOR footage of WWII.

Its well worth the time IMO for any WWII history buffs. "Apocalypse: The Second World War" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1508238/


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

humble_pie said:


> btw would you happen to know of a similar search engine for WW II veterans.


HP - you'll need to contact the Veteran's affairs (by mailed letter - with a copy of the obit notice or other) they will send you a copy of your veteran's service file - but I know of no online database for WWII vets.

As for good documentaries - if anyone is interested in the debacle of Stalingrad, there is an amazing youtube 3 part series (3 hrs long) that is dreadful, but very informative. Many interviews with soldiers and survivors from both sides. Find it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZpVN90BgK0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5v8Argltc0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kVhcJDck4A


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## humble_pie (Jun 7, 2009)

black mac i don't have a WW II vet in mind except for a leatherbound dog tag that my son bought at a church rummage sale. 

it was a soldier from a local regiment. I've always thought that if i could find the family, his descendants would be happy to have this piece of memorabilia.

but it strikes me also that it might be a sad story. Perhaps the lad was killed in the war & buried overseas; they sent the dog tag to his parents; they grew old & died; the dog tag that nobody wanted wound up in some effects in a rummage sale ... sic transit gloria mundi.

& no, i'll probably never have the time to start writing to DVA about some anonymous dog tag.


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