Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

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chairborne
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Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

Post by chairborne »

A couple of weeks ago, four of us from the Hitchin club - and also of this parish - me, Simon (SJWi), Phil (philt602) and Dave (skidave65) fulfilled a long held ambition to visit the Deutsche Panzermuseum in Munster, between Hanover and Hamburg. Given this is a 10 hour drive from Herts and so a long way for a single museum, we decided to make a long weekend out of it and visit other sites along the way. Our semi-pro tour guide (Phil - I've told him he needs to give up the day job) drew up an extensive itinerary taking in the key sites of Market Garden, then through Germany to Munster, back to Belgium via the Mohne Dam and then to the fort at Eben Emael.

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I thought it might be interesting to write up our various stops and sites. We covered a lot of stuff (and road - about 1,300 miles) and I took a lot of pictures so its probably easier to break this into several posts, one covering each day.


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Day One - following XXX Corps

We spent most of the first day traveling from Herts to Eurotunnel in Folkestone and then over to Holland. When we got there we made a few stops at sites of interest. These included:

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Site of Joe's Bridge (where a plaque that used to mark the spot's significance appears to have vanished, along with the concrete structure it was attached to)

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A slightly random Pak-40 in a village centre - in good nick.

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The 101st drop zone near Eindhoven. Big flat open fields (as you might expect)

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A couple of monuments to the 101st (not in correct sequence)

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Site of Son Bridge (which seemed to be in a much more built up area that protrayed in 'A Bridge Too Far'. It was striking how relatively narrow the canal was - I wondered if a modern AVLB could bridge it in one go.

Eindhoven Commonwealth Wargrave Cemetery. A small but as ever beautifully maintained site just off the main road. (I didn't take a picture here).

The remainder of Day One was spent wandering around trying to find somewhere to eat and have a beer (which was eventually accomplished).

Forgive pic quality - these were taken on my phone.
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Day Two - Overloon and Armhem

The morning of the second day began with an unexpected highlight - the Oorlogsmuseum at Overloon. I had never heard of it and therefore had little expectation. Arrriving ahead of schedule (these trips tend to run to quite a tight schedule) we wandered about Overloon briefly but there was little to see. The main other feature of interest was the model shop just outside the museum entrance.

The museum opened (charging a very reasonable 10 euros). My first impression was - 'this has had some money spent on it' - I had been expecting something akin to the more rustic establishments one tends to find in Normandy. But the Oorlogsmuseum felt like a professional set up.

The first half of the museum was largely focused on the run up to 1940, the Dutch experience of invasion and then the occupation. It was very well done, with an English website (and free wifi) that allowed you to look up English translations of the exhibit info panels - a clever system I've not seen before.

However, the second half was the real surprise. A large hangar space chock filled with a wide range of WWII (and a few later) AFVs. There were the usual suspects (such as a Panther which apparently suffered a mobility kill when a road wheel was knocked out by a PIAT), some airborne stuff, a rather odd but impressive scale model of the 'Dora' railway gun using Action Men as the crew, a FT-17, a Sherman flail and a Challenger TD. There was also a Royal Engineers 'Conger' (apparently the only surviving example of this experimental and hazardous machine) and, much to my delight a really eclectic range of US engineering kit (I have a bit of a thing for engineer stuff). The vehicle collection was in really good condition and well set out. Stand by for photo overload....

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Obligatory T-34-85 in the museum grounds.

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Staghound - a tall beastie for a recce vehicle

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Panther - allegedly this was a mobility kill, due to rear wheel bars being hit by a PIAT (you can see wheel is missing)

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Can anyone tell me what this is mounted on the side? Track related?

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A nicely set up Pak97/38 (I think?)

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Slightly out of context, but an impressive number of MGs

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Airborne 6-pounder (I believe)

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The large-scale Dora (what scale is an action man?)

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The 'Conger' mine clearing experimental vehicle

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Gun tractor

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US Sherman ARV

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US pontoon bridging kit (I got disproportionately excited about these)

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US Dragon tank transporter

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Churchill AVRE (not the greatest pic)

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Sherman Crab

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Challenger

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A mad, massive thing called a BARC (Barge, Amphibious Resupply Cargo, from Vietnam)

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An FT-17 in German markings

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T-55 with mine-plough (and gratuitous detail shot of plough)


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There was also a small diorama and video explaining what had happened at Overloon. Gist seemed to be the US had advanced on it, got bogged down and then shot up by AT guns. The Brits turned up with Churchills, and then Allied artillery and air pounded the heck out of the town (civvies largely evacuated) until the Germans surrendered. Nice terrain/model

I don't know if Overloon is THE best WWII museum I have been to, but it's certainly up there in the top 5. Very much recommended if you are visiting the MG sites.

Day 2 continues below....
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Day 2 continued.....

After this we carried on up to Arnhem, where we visited the site of the John Frost bridge and the small (free), but nicely done Airborne at the Bridge Museum (worth a brief stop - our visit was slightly curtailed by our collective distress at another tourist loudly opining to her party that the Poles had been allied with the Germans during the battle).

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John Frost Bridge

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Airborne at the Bridge Museum

The main thing that struck me at the Bridge was how much housing had been destroyed/demolished, as the area seems to be an industrial zone now.

Our next stop was the Airborne Museum at Hartenstein, which was small, but well done. I failed to take any decent pics here.

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We then visited the Osterbeek CWGC. These are always moving places, but seeing all the British and Polish airborne headstones felt particularly poignant.

By now it was early evening, and we had to set off on a four hour drive across the border into Germany and to Munster. We arrived at our hostelery (appropriatley named 'The Grenadier') to discover it had something unusual - an honesty bar, and a very well priced one at that! Sixteen beers later (note that was between us and they were small bottles) we called it an evening.
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Day 3 - The Panzer Museum

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At an otherwise enjoyable breakfast we had to endure the ignominy of our massed empty beer bottles standing accusingly in the corner. Then on to the main attraction - the Deutsches Panzer Museum (there is very little else in Munster).
Again, first impressions were that this was a professional set up. There is a good English audio guide (not advertised but it exists) which is helful as lot of the signage is only in German. The exhibts were largely organised in chronological order, with a bit of history about the evolution of the tank, followed by WW1, WW2 and Cold War vehicles. I won't detail much (there was a lot) but some highlights were:

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a Panzer 38T

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a Panther that had apparenty been put together from spares after the war for the British to evaluate

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a fake Tiger - a life size replica, weighing only 3 tons, but very convincing

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a lovely Sd Kfz 251/7 Engineer half track

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a Jagdpanther with several 17 pounder dents in it

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a 234/4

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an Achilles TD (never seen one of these before)

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a BMP-1 in Bundeswehr markings (from unification)

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They also had Rommel's death mask - a bit odd.

There was a lot more, but I don't want to abuse people's bandwidth

All in all it was a good morning's visit. One of us remarked it was a bit like Bovington before it was overhauled. It had a huge amount of stuff, packed in quite tightly so it was hard to get among things. But overall a really interesting collection of vehicles and definitely one crossed off the bucket list.

After a brief stop for some schitznel (I can't say I'm a huge fan of German cuisine), we set off on the five hour run towards Belgium. En route we made a short stop to see the Mohne dam and I marveled at a) the amount of explosives it must have required to blow a hole in it and b) the courage/skill it must have taken to fly low and in a straight line towards two large flak towers. There didn't seem anywhere to hide.

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Onto the final leg to Belgium, during which the only excitement was watching German drivers trying to push their BMWs, Audis and, in one notable case, a Porsche through the sound barrier (and anyone foolish enough to be in the outside lane).
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Day Four - Eben Emel and a niche museum

The final day of the trip saw us making the short drive to Fort Eben Emael. The site is only open a few times a year, and Phil had chosen the dates to make sure we could get in.

Entrance to the fort complex
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I knew the basic story of the Fort and the action - I can remember a scenario for it from one of Featherstone's books as a kid. But what I hadn't realised was the sheer scale of the place. If I remember the tour, there were 6km of tunnels supporting the various casemates and cupolas. And they seemed to go on forever. We had a very knowledgable volunteer guide (whose name escapes me I'm afraid), and for good reason - you could get lost in the dark pretty quickly.

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There was a lot of this....

We saw the various command and control rooms (though our guide was at pains to point out there wasn't a lot of either on the Belgian side). We were shown the rather clever air filtration system designed to defeat gas attack. We got into one of the 75mm casemates, and saw the after effects of a 50kg shaped charge on an armoured door, which was a bit unsettling.

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Casemate door

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75mm gun

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Shaped charge effects

After spending about 90 minutes running around in the gloom, we perused the small display area and shop, and watched a short, but well put together, video on the German attack on the fort and the bridges. Afterwards we ventured topside and had a nosey at some of the fort's emplacements.

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Some useful research material.

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Cupola looking a lot like a UFO

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Shaped charge which failed to penetrate (apparently due to layered construction of the cupolas).

Again, I had few expectations about Eben Emael and came away very impressed. A huge amount of engineering, construction and money negated in a couple of days by about 70 motivated paras. I now have ideas involving gliders and bridge assaults (and have bought a book)...

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Our final stop was a classic, quirky little museum: the Musée du Corps de Cavalerie Français 1940 in Jandrain-Jandrenouille. Situated in part of a Belgian school, and run by a one-man (Richard) curation operation, who turned out specially on a Sunday afternnon to give us a tour. It largely focuses on the 1940 tank battle at Hannut. I know very little about this part of the war, so it was an enlightening stop.

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The Museum

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Possibly the best collection of S35 photos on the planet?

And that was that. We headed back to Calais, only to find Eurotunnel had a power cut. An emergency booking on P&O and we were headed home, if a few hour later than planned. All in all an excellent trip, planned and executed with precision by Phil. There is talk of the Bulge next.

Hope this was of interest.

Greg
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Re: Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

Post by Kalinovsky »

Action Man is 1/6 scale I would think
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Post by mausmann »

Many thanx for the excellent report and pics, looks like an amazing trip..... thmbs2)
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Re: Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

Post by Hincmar »

Wonderful photo report and I now wish I had gone with you guys!

The object in the pioneer tool cluster on the right side of the Panther is the standard German towing clevis. There would be a second one in the cluster on the left side. Interestingly (ok, marginally), these items appear in a single couplet on the left fender on a Panzer IV of the same time frame (H / J versions).
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Re: Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

Post by SJWi »

Hincmar, thanks. We were really perplexed as to what this was. We knew you would save the day! You will be ecstatic to know that I have added to my collection of photos of "odd bits of armoured vehicles" for use in military quizzes.
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Post by Don McHugh »

Overloon is very much on my to do list.
Thanks for the pictures.

Don
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Post by Alanmccoubrey »

Is that not a Churchill 95mm CS rather than an AVRE ?
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Re: Operation Garden Panzer - Pic Heavy

Post by Adler »

Brilliant post, thank you :D
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Alanmccoubrey wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:29 pm Is that not a Churchill 95mm CS rather than an AVRE ?
Alan, it could well be - there were a lot of vehicles and I may have got muddled up. I bow to your superior recognition skills.
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chairborne
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Don McHugh wrote: Mon Jul 09, 2018 8:28 pm Overloon is very much on my to do list.
Thanks for the pictures.

Don
Thank Don. Overloon is well worth a trip. I can’t believe I’d never heard of it before the trip.
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Post by Bluewillow »

great stuff

planning a Holland and Belgium trip in Autumn, thanks for the ideas


cheers
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Post by dead1 »

Thanks for a most excellent report, Chairborne.
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Post by Fire at Will »

Thanks a great inspiring photo report
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Thanks chaps, glad it was of interest. It was a great trip.
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Post by SJWi »

As one of the four who made the journey with Greg, I thought it worth adding a few comments about other museums in the area. Due to our limited time we couldn't visit all the museums we might have done, and there are at least 4 others in the vicinity. There is the "National Liberation Museum" in Groesbeek, and the "Wings of Liberation" in Best. These both look pretty good. Between Nijmegen and Arnhem on "The Island" there is the small "Betuws" museum. Finally in Arnhem itself there is the "Arnhem War Museum". This look s reasonably large but fairly ramshackle, not helped by the T34/85 standing outside repainted in German camouflage! The redeeming feature of this museum is its proximity to the "Burger Zoo" where on my first visit to Arnhem I deposited my wife and daughter who had a wonderful time leaving me free to visit the WW2 sites.

For the battlefield tourist can recommend Mr and Mrs Holts' Battlefield Guide plus the Pen and Sword "Battleground Market Garden" series, albeit to use the latter fully you will need to buy 5 books. The "After the Battle" 2-volume set is also excellent but pricey, and not very practical to carry round on a tour. I can also heartily recommend Robert Kershaw's "It Never Snows in September" and "A Street in Arnhem" .
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