June 25, 2023 - Belgium
Military History Museum - Diekirch
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From Ettelbruck, we backtracked a little bit eastward to another little town called Diekirch to visit the Military History Museum. Of the three war museums we would visit today, I enjoyed this one the most.
In the front courtyard were a bunch of tanks and a 155 mm howitzer.
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Outside the museum's front entrance. The place was like a maze inside. Outside, you can see it is made up of a hodpodge of different buildings.
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A map of Luxembourg showing where the German panzers came through on the first day of "Fall Greb" (Case Red): May 10, 1940. As you can see, the 10th Panzer Division came through Diekirch and Ettelbruck. Luxembourg was overrun in a matter of hours. The Belgian border was reached before noon. No one really expected the German attack in Luxembourg or the Ardennes forest.
The grey arrow pointing north represents 42,000 Luxembourg civilians fleeing Luxembourg city to the north.
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| A model of the famous German Tiger tank which featured an 88mm gun. An 88mm shell lays in front of the model. |
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A German soldier during the Battle of the Bulge: December, 1944 carrying his kit on a bicycle, including two panzerfausts -- the German's very effective hand-held anti-tank weapon.
To the left is a SD 500 thick-walled fragmentation bomb used by the Luftwaffe during World War II.
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| An American soldier during the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944. The expression on the GIs face conveys how miserable combat is during winter conditions. |
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| Diorama of American soldiers hunkered down in a barn. |
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| There were artifacts galore in this museum. Those circular things are German land mines which explosives at bottom. |
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A German crew mans a mortar in a frozen hole.
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| Americans soldiers man a 40mm Bofors light anti-aircraft gun. The gun could also be used in ground combat. Of Swedish origin, this "ack ack" gun was so effective that the U.S. Navy put as many of them as would fit on their warships. |
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More artifacts including the famous German "coal scuttle" helmets.
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| American soldiers manning a foxhole in the snow. |
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| A German Jagdpanzer 38, known mostly post-war as Hetzer, was a German light tank destroyer based on a modified Czechoslovakian Panzer 38(t) chassis. It first entered service in July 1944 and featured a 75mm gun. |
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| Most of the vehicles were in this large room. The German equipment is on the left and American equipment on the right. |
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| The Sd.Kfz. 251 was a World War II German armored personnel carrier commonly known as a half-track. The Sd.Kfz. 251 was designed to transport the Panzergrenadier (German mechanized infantry) into battle. Sd.Kfz. 251s were the most widely produced German half-tracks of the war, with at least 15,252 vehicles and variants produced by seven manufacturers. In practice, there were never enough of them to go around, and most Panzergrenadier units had to make do with trucks for transport. |
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A German 105mm artillery piece. The leFH 18 was the standard artillery piece of the German Army, adopted for service in 1935 and used by all divisions and artillery battalions to the end of the war,.
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| An American truck, outfitted with all sorts of things. |
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Most know about the German V1 "buzz bomb" and V2 ballistic rocket, but did you know there was a V3 cannon? It was a very long-range gun. Extended range was given to the shell by a series of branched secondary side chambers with additional propellant increments.
The Germans planned to use the weapon to bombard London from two large bunkers in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France, but they were rendered unusable by Allied bombing raids before completion. Two similar guns were used to bombard Luxembourg from December 1944 to February 1945.
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| Big American bomb. |
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German Panzerfaust: a single-shot man-portable anti-tank system using a shaped charge. It was an inexpensive, easy-to-use anti-tank weapon for the common infantry man. Because of the weapon's short range, not only enemy tanks and infantry, but also pieces of the exploding vehicle, posed dangers to its operator. As such, the usage of Panzerfäuste required relatively great personal courage. |
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| At center is the Mauser Karabiner 98 Kurz or K98, the primary German service rifle throughout World War II. |
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| German SS Soldier during the Battle of the Bulge. |
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| Did anybody say artifacts? |
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An American artillery crew about to fire.
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A German advanced Command Post in a barn somewhere outside of Diekirch. A messenger in winter camouflage dress is just entering the poorly illuminated room and handing a message to the switchboard operator.
The inscription of the wall reads: "Victory will be ours, nevertheless ...." (bitter irony)
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A German medic prepares a cold meal consisting of pumpernickel bread and lard.
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| American soldiers pushing a boat through the snow on a cold winter night. |
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| German soldiers occupy a defensive position. |
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A German artillery crew stands by awaiting a fire order.
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A German horsedrawn field kitchen. It relied exclusively on wood as fuel. The crew consisted of five people: 1 NCO, 1 cook, 2 assistants and 1 driver. Feeding capacity was 120-150 troops.
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| A 60 mm light mortar and crew. |
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| It was no picnic to have your country occupied by Nazi Germany. All young men are forced to serve in the German Army where most serve, and many die, in the Russian front meatgrinder. |
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| The dreaded Gestapo. |
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Outside the museum, a big American 155mm howitzer.
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| The ubiquitous American tank, the M4 Sherman. |
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