Everyone at the American Heritage Museum wishes all of you a very happy and healthy holidays! Please come visit! We will be hosting the Battle of the Bulge Experience Weekend on December 28th & 29th and will be open Monday and Tuesday, December 30th & 31st.
As you come to experience what it was like to be an American surrounded in the cold of the Battle of Bulge (12/28 & 12/29), join the American Heritage museum on Saturday December 28th to learn about a similar battle 6 years later in the Korean War. Here the U.S. 1st Marine Division found themselves surrounded in a desperate fight in the extreme cold, outnumbered 5:1 against Chinese forces in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir. Like the Battle of the Bulge, the Chosin Reservoir is regarded as one of the most intense battles in American History, yet most Americans know little of this great battle of Korea, “The Forgotten War.” On December 28th at 1:00pm the museum will host a speaker series event about the Chosin Reservoir: “All Roads Lead to Hagaru” a special interactive discussion analyzing the crucial leadership decisions in the Chosin Reservoir that would decide whether or not the 1st Marine Division would escape the Chinese trap. More information see: www.americanheritagemuseum.org/event/speaker-series-korea-all-roads-lead-to-hagaru/
Check out the latest video from SpruesNBrews Scale Modeling in partnership with the American Heritage Museum featuring our M18 Hellcat!
Up Close & Personal with the M18 Hellcat | 360° WWII Tank Destroyer Tour
www.youtube.com
Welcome to *Up Close & Personal* - a new series where we'll be exploring some of the most iconic military vehicles of WWII and beyond as you've never seen th...
Don't miss our great talk on How To Research WWII Veterans - Friday, December 13th, 1pm to 2:30pm. No reservations needed. For more information see:
Speaker Series: How To Research WWII Veterans - The American Heritage Museum
www.americanheritagemuseum.org
Autumn Hendrickson, who has spent the last four and a half years working on a project to tell the stories of the men and women from Reading & North Reading, Massachusetts that served in World War II, ...Italian Campaign
M3A1 Scout Car – USA | PERSONNEL CARRIER/RECON
M5A1 Stuart – USA | LIGHT TANK
VW Kübelwagen Type 82 – GER | RECON CAR
Schwimmwagen Type 166 – GER | AMPHIBIOUS PERSONNEL CARRIER/RECON
2 cm Flak 38 – GER | ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN
The Italian Campaign lasted from 1943 to 1945. It is estimated that between September 1943 and April 1945, 60,000–70,000 Allied and over 100,000 German soldiers died. The invasion of Sicily in July 1943 led to the collapse of the Fascist Italian regime and the fall of Mussolini who was incarcerated on July 25th, 1943. German forces soon took control of northern and central Italy. Mussolini, who was rescued from captivity by German paratroopers. Hitler assisted Mussolini in setting up a puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, to administer the German-occupied territory. Italy fell into a civil war even as Allied and German armies clashed on its territory.
U.S. and British political leaders hoped that an invasion might knock Italy out of the war. The defeat of Italy would enable Allied naval forces, principally the Royal Navy, to dominate the Mediterranean Sea, securing the lines of communications with Egypt and Asia while forcing Axis divisions to transfer troops from the Eastern Front to defend Italy. This assistance had been promised to the Soviet Union, then facing the great majority of German and also Italian troops.
The land forces involved were the US 7th Army under General George Patton, and the British 8th Army, under General Bernard Montgomery. They started with the liberation of Sicily in 1943. Allied forces continued with the invasion of mainland Italy which precipitated the fall of Mussolini’s government and also provoked a German invasion o the north that blocked the Allies from Rome.
Mountainous Italy was a hard place to fight and mistakes were made by both sides, even before the main focus of fighting in Western Europe shifted to France in June, 1944. The result was that difficult, hardscrabble fighting in Italy lasted almost the the end of WWII.
