March to Victory

Preface

This guidebook is intended for the veteran of World War II, the student of military history, and any traveler to Europe, in fact or imagination, who has an interest in the Allied effort to defeat German military forces in Western Europe. We describe by both text and maps a series of tours over the principal World War II battlefields in northwestern Europe.

The tours described are arranged in geographical sequence, beginning in England, then to France, north to the Netherlands, and east through Belgium and Luxembourg to the Rhineland in western Germany. The tours describe the battlefields and the exploits of particular individuals and units, identify relics in the field, and locate monuments and museums. In the summer of 1984 and again in 1986, 1988, and 1991, we drove the roads, walked the ground, and visited the museums we describe. Each tour is preceded by an overview of the battle that establishes a context for, and allows a better understanding of, what you will see.

In our European travels, we have had many occasions to regret the absence of a guide like the one you now have in your hands. Too many times we have unknowingly passed by battlefields and arrived at museums closed for the day. There are, of course, many military histories of World War II, but these give scant assistance to someone who wants to visit the Normandy beaches or the battlefields around Bastogne. There are also many guidebooks for the European traveler on a variety of subjects, but none pays more than incidental attention to the sites and relics of the war. Our frustration at lost opportunities and lost time, and our keen interest in the events of the war, have inspired this book.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Our debt is large to those historians who labored in the Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, and to other authors, many of whose names appear in the bibliography appended to this book. We are indebted as well to many nameless Europeans who made our visits to the sites described herein a provocative and informative experience.

We wish to thank: Mr. Luther Wilson, Director of the University Press of Colorado, Ms. Jody Berman, Managing Editor, and Ms. LaurieSirotkin, Editorial Assistant for their assistance; Professor Al Cornebise, our friend and colleague at the University of Northern Colorado, who provided unflagging encouragement; the many readers of the first edition who wrote us with suggestions for improvement. We are particularly indebted to the late Charles McDonald, General George Ruhlen and Carlo D'Este for their comments. We also thank our companions Andra Schmidt and Carolanne Blender, who were forced to endure hot afternoons looking at weapons collections and wandering over weedy fields and wind-swept beaches, and our children, Leah, Jessica, Rachel Bookman, and Greg Powers, who were denied the attention of their fathers for long months. May this book be some repayment to them all.