At the recent Flying Heritage Collection Skyfair 2014 at Paine Field in Everett, Washington they had a little diversion from the aviation displays. A part of their collection includes World War Two tanks and on this event they were driving around their American M4A1 Sherman and Soviet era KMDB (Main Design Bureau) T-34/85 medium tanks….
Category: Military
Lest We Forget 2014
The Ode They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
The Siegfried Line
In 2012 whilst touring World War Two battlefield sites of the Battle of the Bulge (Germany’s last major western front offensive of the 1944/45 winter) in the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg I realised I was very close to the German border and also the remnants of the old Siegfried Line. I knew it would be the perfect bookend…
A Brief History of the Royal Australian Air Force: The Early Years – 1914 to 1939
Originally posted on Aces Flying High:
To commemorate the centenary of military aviation in Australia (1914 to 2014) I am writing a four-part series of articles on the key stages of the RAAF: 1914 to 1939 (World War One and the interwar years), 1939 to 1945 (World War Two), 1945 to 1953 (the Cold War begins and the Korean War) and 1953 to the…
Warsaw: Visions of the Past
Much like Berlin in Germany, by the end of World War Two the city of Warsaw, Poland lay in ruins. While Berlin was turned to rubble from round the clock Allied bombing and fighting, much of the damage in Warsaw was done by the Germans themselves. Firstly during the invasion of Poland in September 1939 that started the war, then during…
Canadian War Museum – Part II: LeBreton Gallery
The Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Canada is a must see for anyone interested in military history. The displays of equipment and vehicles is impressive and covers the entire scope of Canada’s military history from the First Nations and Colonial times to the modern age. My previous blog covered the majority of the display halls, but my favourite part of the…
Canadian War Museum – Part I
When visiting Ottawa in Ontario, Canada if you have any interest in military history you must not miss the world-class Canadian War Museum. The impressive looking museum covers every period in which Canadians have been involved in some form of conflict and the main galleries are in historical chronological order. The galleries start out with Battleground which covers…
Stately Ottawa – Canada’s Capital
Ottawa in Ontario is the capital of Canada. The city was founded in 1826 as Bytown and in 1855 became a city and changed its name to Ottawa which is also the name of the river that runs beside it. The word Ottawa is derived from the language of the first nations tribe of the Algonquin. In their…
D-Day June 6th, 1944: 69th Anniversary
Today marks the 69th anniversary of D-Day or “Operation Overlord” which was the largest seaborne and airborne invasion ever staged. This massive undertaking by the Allies on the beaches of Normandy in France in 1944 was the beginning of the end for the German Third Reich and Hitler’s reign over Europe. If you would like…
USS New Jersey – One of the last big Battleships to sail the seven seas
In my endless quest to see everything I have ever been interested in since I was a kid, I recently walked across the Ben Franklin Bridge over the Delaware River from Philadelphia, PA to Camden, NJ to see the mighty Iowa Class Battleship the USS New Jersey (BB-62) known as “The Big J“. She served…
Royal Australian Armoured Corps Tank Museum at “Pucka”
The Armoured Corps of most nations armies originally started as horse borne cavalry units. With the introduction of the tank in World War One by the British who first used Mark I tanks on the Somme battlefield in France on September 15th, 1916 the face of warfare changed completely (they were introduced to break the back of trench warfare). Cavalry…
East German Communism vs. the perils of the Free West!
I have always been fascinated by Communist history and have travelled to many countries in Eastern Europe and Asia under former and current Communist rule. in reality it was a very dark time in history. For all the ideology and the supposed better way of life, it was a time of struggle, fear and cruelty…
Deano's Travels 