Dunkirk & Fortress Europe

Depart from your chosen UK pick-up point and travel to the port where a coach interchange will take place, you will then join your tour coach for the Channel crossing. On arrival on the Continent we continue to our hotel (passengers joining the tour in Europe will meet the group at the hotel this evening).

We start the tour with a look at some of the fighting in the Battle of France in May 1940 following the story of the Durham Light Infantry and Royal Welch Fusiliers at St. Venant, seeing the memorial and nearby graves. At Cassel Hill we examine the last stand here by the Oxs & Bucks and Glosters. Following lunch we visit the site at Wormhout where a massacre of British troops took place by the SS and then go into Dunkirk to visit the excellent War Museum of Operation Dynamo, followed by a visit to the East Mole. We end the day in the dunes of Dunkirk to remember the sacrifice of French troops in May-June 1940.

*Breakfast Included

We return to Dunkirk to see the Dunkirk War Cemetery and the Dunkirk Memorial to the Missing. At Bray Dunes we look at the story of the evacuation beaches and the ‘little ships’, forever connected to the Dunkirk story. At Eperlecques we see the massive Blockhaus, built as a launch site for V2 rockets. We then see a typical V1 Doodlebug ski-ramp site, hidden in the woods near Morbecque and constructed to fire more than 2000 V1s a day at London. In the evening join us on an optional trip to nearby Ypres for the moving Last Post Ceremony.

*Breakfast Included

On the Belgium coast at Raversijde we see how the WWI Aachen Battery was turned into a section of the Atlantic Wall by the Germans, seeing the bunker, trenches and many original features. We then travel to the French coast for lunch and in the afternoon visit Batterie Todt, a massive bunker that housed a huge artilery piece which bombarded Britain and could be used to fire on any invasion fleet. We see the museum here which includes a very rare German 280mm Railway Gun, then visit the V3 super-gun system at Mimoyecques. Here we go through tunnels built to house this incredible weapon which was never fired in anger due to Allied bombing. We end the day looking at the liberation of the coastal region in northern France in September 1944 with a visit to Calais Canadian Cemetery.

*Breakfast included

We leave the hotel after breakfast and travel to the Channel port. You will leave your tour coach behind as you join your transfer vehicle for your return journey to your original departure point.

*Breakfast Included