It’s the most recognizable film footage of the D-Day invasion. Now, nearly 80 years after Canadians rushed ashore on Juno Beach on June 6, 1944, to begin the liberation Europe, we know the exact location of that filming site.
War cinematographer Bill Grant and his D-Day camera in 1944.
For years that black & white 35-mm movie footage was thought to be shot by a camera mounted in the back of a landing craft in front of Courseulles-sur-Mer. I spent a year helping to give Cdn Film & Photo Unit cinematographer Bill Grant credit for capturing that moment. Now historians have proven the landing spot was at St-Aubin-sur-Mer.
If you can imagine yourself riding in a WWII-vintage Jeep around the D-Day beaches for an afternoon…
Or discovering Canada’s actual role in the Dieppe raid…
Or meeting a Great War tunnelling expert who also serves beer and lunch near Passchendaele…
Historian & bartender Johan Vandewalle.
Then our upcoming D-Day 80th Anniversary Tour is for you! Merit Travel has just put the seats for our trip on the market. We leave on our 10-day trip on May 15, 2024. Check the details at this Merit Travel link: https://www.merittravel.com/d-day-tour
And, if you’re available, I’m hosting a ZOOM with Merit Travel this Thursday, Dec. 14 at 2 p.m. to describe the tour and answer your questions.
Join historian Ted Barris and be a part of history! It’s Merit’s Dutch Liberation Tour 2020, commemorating the 75th anniversary of Canada’s role in securing victory over Germany’s occupation army and liberating the citizens of the Netherlands.
The tour includes visits to historic sites and attendance at commemorative events, including: “Bridge Too Far” site at Arnhem, National Liberation Museum and cemetery at Groesbeek, participation in Holland’s annual “Silent March,” attending Canadian commemorations of the surrender at Wageningen,travelling to Walcheren Island where Canadians completed the liberation of the Scheldt Estuary, and joining annual VE Day festivities at Apeldoorn… with lodgings in Amsterdam.
It’s a springtime journey when tulips bloom and the Dutch pay homage to their Canadian liberators. For more detail, go to:
Facing the prospect that Hitler’s armies might cross the Channel and invade, in 1940, Britons braced for the Blitz, intense German bombing of the U.K. In this darkest hour, the Royal Air Force’s Arthur Harris said, “They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind.”
Almost immediately, Commonwealth aircrews – many of them Canadian – gathered at air bases across the U.K. to fly nightly against enemy targets in Nazi-occupied Europe. Our new “Bomber Command Country Tour” takes travellers to the heart of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to explore Canadians’ role in this remarkable WWII story.
Our stops in Yorkshire include: Andrew Mynarski Memorial; Betty’s Café; guided tour of former Canadian station RAF Tholthorpe; Yorkshire Air Museum, and visit to York’s famous Railway Museum and York Minster cathedral. Then in Lincolnshire: a guided tour of RAF Scampton, home of Dam Buster 617 Squadron; International Bomber Command Centre; RAF East Kirkby, home of “Just Jane” Lancaster; RAF Coningsby, home of Battle of Britain Memorial Flight; and Lincoln cathedral, all while based at our home-away-from-home the unique Petwood Hotel, WWII quarters of the Dam Busters’ Squadron. Also, stops at IWM Duxford, RAF Hendon, Cambridge American Cemetery and full-day tour in London visiting related Bomber Command sites.
Ted Barris, recently retired professor of journalism at Centennial College, has written extensively about Canadians and the liberation of Europe. His book Dam Busters: Canadian Airmen and the Secret Raid against Nazi Germany, was a national bestseller and was awarded the RCAF Association NORAD Trophy for 2018. He and his wife Jayne MacAulay have co-hosted annual Merit tours to Europe since 2004. Our “Bomber Command Country Tour”marks their 17th trip to European wartime locations that have particular resonance for Canadians.
They postponed it twice. They kept it secret from everyone. They mobilized 7,000 ships, 10,000 aircraft, and five divisions on the south shore of Britain. They ensured that this time an invasion force would gain a permanent toehold in France. By their actions thisday, the Allies made victory against Hitler’s Fortress Europe a certainty.
Nearly 15,000 Canadians – at sea, in the air and on the beach – joined the D-Day invasion force on June 6, 1944. Their section of the Normandy shoreline was code-named Juno.That day, Canadians fought their way farther inland than any other Allied troops.
As the world prepares for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, historian, journalist and bestselling author Ted Barris is organizing a return to Normandy. During the first week of June 2014, Ted and his wife, Jayne MacAulay, will attend ceremonies, visit historic sites and cemeteries, and rekindle friendships with French guides and citizens as they bring their unique brand of storytelling and remembrance to another Merit tour.
Join Ted’s 75th Anniversary of D-Day Tour for ten days in Normandy. Merit travellers will enjoy day-trips to airborne landing sites such as Pegasus Bridge, to the Canadian cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer, the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches, American landing sites, and the Juno Beach Centre for the Canadian D-Day ceremony. Included is a side-trip to Dieppe site of Canadian raid there in August 1942, and a tour in vintage D-Day vehicles. This is an opportunity to join remaining veterans to honour their victory 75 years ago.
For the full itinerary, accommodation, travel details and pricing, visit the Merit Travel website http://www.merittravel.com
Or call Georgia Kourakos, Senior Manager, Product Development & Groups, Merit Travel, 416-364-3775 x4259, or 1-866-341-1777.
On Jan. 19, 1989, the head of the East German state exclaimed, “The Wall will be standing in 50 and even 100 years.” Ten months later, both he and the Berlin Wall were gone. For 40 years, concrete and wire had physically divided a Germany already ruined by WWII. It had often brought the Communist Bloc and the Western Democracies to the brink of another world war. Perhaps most important, its existence and its demise changed Europe.
From June 10 to 23, 2018, the wartime experience before the Wall, the Cold War deadlock during its existence, and the nature of the Europe since it came tumbling down, are the focus of Merit’s “Beyond the War” Tour.
Again, co-hosted by award-winning author and historian Ted Barris and his wife Jayne MacAulay, the tour gives travellers a unique exploration of stops in Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany where war, politics and people knew a history that can only be touched to be understood.
Please use this link for full itinerary and travel details: http://www.merittravel.com/product/eastern-europe-beyond-the-wall/
The Americans called them “an inspiration … for a generation.” The British described what they did as “the greatest victory of the war.” The French declared their achievement an “Easter gift.”
What the world witnessed that Easter Monday morning – April 9, 1917 – was a near miracle of ingenuity, co-operation and courage among volunteers of the Canadian Corps. That day, 80,000 of them – fighting for the first time as a national army – swarmed up that strategic ridge in north-central France and in a matter of hours accomplished what no Allied army had, in nearly three years of blood-letting in Europe. They seized Vimy from an entrenched German army. Some say those young citizen soldiers also breathed life into a fledgling nation – Canada.
The year 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. So, for 10 days next year, travellers will return to the scene of those historic four days in 1917. Ted Barris, author of the bestselling book Victory at Vimy, will lead his fellow travellers to the centennial observance at the Vimy Memorial on April 9, 2017. But in addition, the tour will visit other important First World War sites, such as Beaumont Hamel and Thiepval, Ypres, Passchendaele and the Menin Gate. As well, in the latter half of the tour, Ted will lead his group to Second World War sites at Dieppe and the Normandy beaches to recognize the significance of the D-Day invasion and beyond.
For the full itinerary, accommodation, travel details and pricing, visit the Merit Travel website http://www.merittravel.com
Or call Georgia Kourakos, Senior Manager, Product Development & Groups, Merit Travel, 416-364-3775 x4259, or 1-866-341-1777.
We’re turning the clock back to the Second World War again this year. Only this time we’re returning to the centre of the war effort in Britain between 1939 and 1945.
As we did back in 2006, we will visit some of the most secretive locations in and around London, England, when wartimes in the British Isles were at their darkest and when people, places and events on the home front were turning the tide.
Among our stops this trip will be the D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, Winston Churchill’s war cabinet rooms under London, the Imperial War Museum, Bletchley Park where the Allies decoded the Germans’ Enigma transmissions, and the RAF Duxford Aerodrome home of the U.K.’s largest military aviation museum.
Decoding Enigma at Bletchley Park shortened the war by two years and likely saved 14 million lives.
Other attractions included on this trip: Stonehenge, a Shakespearean play at London’t Globe Theatre, Lady Diana’s Memorial, Westminster Abbey, and the secret wartime tunnels under Dover Castle. Not to mention a traditional pub meal, visits to wartime haunts of spies and on and on.
For the full itinerary, accommodation, travel details and pricing, visit the Merit Travel website http://www.merittravel.com/product/the-secret-war-tour-to-britain/
Or call Georgia Kourakos, Senior Manager, Product Development & Groups, Merit Travel, 416-366-5268 x4259, or 1-866-341-1777.
Citizens of Utrecht celebrate newfound freedom on May 5, 1944, with their British and Canadian liberators.
They said 2010 would be the last hurrah. The parades, the observances, the remembrances would never happen again. Officials claimed the vets and the community had acknowledged it all… for the last time. Well, apparently not. For those who know anything about the Netherlands, the Dutch never say never. And so we’re going back – for the Holland Liberation Tour 2015.
Our plans are to join the 70th anniversary commemoration of Canada’s role in securing victory over Germany’s occupation army and liberating the people of the Netherlands.
The tour – organized by Merit Travel – includes visits to historic sites and attendance at commemorative events, including:
Canadian vets feted by Dutch during 2010 Apeldoorn parade.
“Bridge Too Far” site at Arnhem, National Liberation Museum and cemetery at Groesbeek, participation in Holland’s annual “Silent March,” attending Canadian commemorations of the surrender at Wageningen, travelling to Walcheren Island where Canadians completed the liberation of the Scheldt Estuary… And we’ll join the VE Day festivities at Apeldoorn, to celebrate the 70th!
It’s a springtime journey when tulips bloom and the Dutch pay homage to their Canadian liberators.
See more at the Merit Travel site for detailed itinerary and package prices.
Join CBC broadcaster and bestselling author Ted Barris and attend the 70th anniversary of D-Day at JUNO Beach in Normandy, France. We are pleased to have Ted Barris lead a unique tour to this historic Second World War region in France. Travellers will fly to Paris and arrive in Normandy in time for the 70th anniversary observances at Canada’s D-Day landing site – the new Juno Beach Centre.
The tour will also include visits to one of Europe’s best war and peace museums, Le Mémorial de Caen, Canada’s D-Day cemetery at Beny-sur-Mer, the Pegasus Bridge museum, the Arromanches Mulberry harbour site, and home of the famous Bayeux tapestry. The Normandy tour will include a guided, day-long immersion into the life, diet and transport of the Canadian soldier 70 years ago, and a one-day side-trip up the coast to the site of Canada’s other history Second World War landing site at Dieppe to see the beaches, museum and cemetery.
