Holiday Tour Part 3 : Overloon and Maastricht

After Market Garden we travelled south to Overloon and then down to Maastricht. Prior to the trip I wasn’t really aware of the battles which took place around Overloon late in 1944. However, as part of the planning I discovered there is a large military museum close to the town. Turns out the Overloon War Museum is a little like the British Imperial War Museum, focussing mainly on WW2 it has one of the largest collections I have seen. They also do tank displays on special days a little like Bovington.

A T34 in the woods, the museum was actually started in 1946 in these woods which saw quite intensive fighting as the Germans defended Overloon itself. There is quite a big section in the museum about the local battles. The museum collection is VERY extensive so Im only sharing a few photos to give people a taste 👍

Converted French/German tank

Wonderful collection of German Blitzkreig bicycles, showing all the variations of kit they carried

A very extensive weapon collection

Lots of tanks all with their own specific back story

Panther which I think was the first tank in the collection

Some slightly more modern military kit…….apparently these were used to transport tanks late Vietnam ?

Stug

German motorcycle collection

Lots more tanks each with a story

This one notable as all but one of the crew were killed , the survivor continued to visit the museum each year to commemorate his lost friends

Almost every piece of kit I could think of

A ‘full’ collection of ordinance including the ‘Dora’ shell on the right 

Just so much stuff…..you could easily visit this museum many times and not get bored. Highly recommended if you are visiting the Netherlands

We travelled south to Maastricht and a visit to Fort Eban-Emael. With a couple of options in this area we almost didn’t visit the Fort but I’m glad we did. A few of you will know the history of this fascinating fort, for those that don’t i believe it holds a unique place is in history. Built in the late 1930’s in Belgium close to the Dutch border, it was at the time the ‘state of the art’ defensive structure incorporating multiple design features to make it impregnable. Located close to the Albert canal it was built to prevent or at least delay any potential advance from the East.

The fort housed around 1200 Belgium frontier troops and gunners

All underground in a series of tunnels on two or three levels. 

Lots of massive gas proof doors to protect them

Multiple levels, mean lots of steps, and deep to prevent impact from any surface bombing

Some of the tunnels are sloped to allow the movement of kit around the fort. All of this eventually proved to be futile. In the early hours of 10th May 1940 the Fort was the first location to be attacked by the newly formed Fallschirmjager troops. In a night time glider assault 71 German paratroopers landed on the top of the fort, they knocked out the surface defenders and then spent about 12 hours knocking out the defences before the defenders were forced to surrender.

One of the most interesting aspects of the fort is you can see the evidence on the ground of the battle and the assault took place. The doors above were blasted off in the final underground attack, causing chlorine gas to leak from the toilets and causing the defenders to surrender.

Put together from a number of different wrecked gliders the museum in the fort has a German glider

Lots of photo evidence of the attack as after the event the Germans used the successful  assault for extensive propaganda

An interesting museum with Belgium and German artefacts 

As well as visiting underground you can tour the exterior of the fort which consists of numerous gun emplacements, observation posts and various gun turrets

Particularly interesting is you can see where the Germans placed their shaped charges to take out each of the observation posts or bunkers

The fort has a built in tank defence on one side

The central turret which originally rotated with twin 120mm guns. Again you can see where the shared charge was placed, just above the left port on the picture

Finally the Germans took out each bunker, the big circular hole shows where the shaped charge was placed. One can only imagine how terrifying this would have been, the walls are about 3 feet thick and the charges create a hole big enough for a man to climb through ! All in all it is a fascinating place to visit.

We also visited Maastricht where there is an earlier 18th Century Fort, although we didn’t have time to go inside.

Town walls

And the medieval Helport gates

That’s it for now thanks for checking in, some games and figures to share next

Matt