Mat McLachlan History Cruises

10/06/2026

Exploring the Hotel Majestic in Saigon, where JFK stayed in 1951.

19/05/2026

For centuries, battlefields have been all about roads. Although armies can move slowly and for short distances cross-country, they need roads to properly move across a landscape. So if you control a town where roads intersect, you can control a startlingly large area.

Gettysburg only became a battlefield because nine roads converge there. Wellington defended the ridge near Waterloo because it straddled the road that Napoleon would need to get to Brussels. In the German Spring Offensive of 1918, their objective was the town of Amiens, the main road and rail hub in the Somme.

I saw a perfect example of this while researching the 1944 Normandy campaign for our D-Day cruise next year. On August 2, 1944, the US 4th Armored Division broke through German lines and charged for the city of Rennes in Brittany. They were low on fuel and ammunition so had no hope of capturing the city, so instead they set up as a blocking force west of the city and with that one action cut off the entire German force in Brittany.

And you can see why from this map. The only way the Germans could move in Brittany was by utilising the small number of main roads, which all converge in Rennes. With Rennes cut off, they were marooned on the peninsula.

Although major strongpoints like Brest held out until September, Brittany was cut off and liberated by the Allies within 10 days of the 4th Armored’s arrival on the outskirts of Rennes.

www.historycruises.com

08/05/2026

VE DAY, 8 MAY 1945

Eighty-one years ago today, Britain stopped.

Winston Churchill broadcast to the nation at 3pm from Downing Street. The war in Europe, he told the country, would end officially at one minute past midnight. Outside, the bonfires were already lit. Pubs had thrown open their doors the night before. Bunting strung from windows in streets that had spent six years under blackout.

The crowds were vast. A quarter of a million people pressed into the streets around Whitehall and the Mall. Churchill emerged onto the balcony of the Ministry of Health and told them, “This is your victory.” They roared back, “No, it’s yours.” The King and Queen stood with the two princesses on the Buckingham Palace balcony eight times that day. Princess Elizabeth, in her ATS uniform, slipped out into the crowds with her sister to celebrate anonymously among her own subjects.

The cost had been enormous. Nearly 384,000 British servicemen and women dead. Some 67,000 civilians killed in the Blitz and the V-weapons campaign. Cities from Coventry to Plymouth lay in ruins. Rationing would continue for nine more years.

And the war was not over. Churchill reminded the crowds that Japan still fought, that hundreds of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops were locked in the jungles of Burma and the camps of the Far East. Victory in Europe was half a victory.

But for one night, the lights came back on. Floodlights illuminated St Paul’s. Searchlights drew a giant V across the sky over London. After six years of darkness, Britain remembered what peace looked like.
We remember those who made that day possible.

Lest We Forget

05/05/2026

Friday marks the anniversary of VE Day, the formal end of the war in Europe. But there was another surrender four days earlier that's almost forgotten, and for the soldiers who'd fought from Normandy across France, Belgium and the Netherlands, it was the one that actually ended their war.

On 4 May 1945, in a tent on Lüneburg Heath in northern Germany, a German delegation signed the unconditional surrender of all German forces in the Netherlands, Denmark and northwest Germany. The man who accepted the surrender was Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.

The general European surrender came later, signed at Reims on 7 May and ratified at Berlin on 8 May. But for Monty's 21st Army Group - the British, Canadian, Polish and other Commonwealth forces who'd fought every yard from the D-Day beaches - the war effectively ended on that quiet German heath.

The Germans wore full uniforms. Montgomery, characteristically, wore a battledress blouse and a beret.

Five years and eight months earlier, Britain had declared war on Germany. On 4 May 1945, that war ended for the men who'd carried it across Europe - four days before the world celebrated.

02/05/2026

Just came across this aerial photo of Caen in Normandy in 1944 (first photo). Although located only 10 miles from the nearest landing beach, the Germans managed to hold out in Caen for 75 days after D-Day, and the city was levelled during the fighting. Eerily reminiscent of the town of Ypres, Belgium, in 1917 (second photo).

30/04/2026

German Helmet with Bullet Hole

This helmet was worn by a member of the Luftwaffe in Normandy, and was souvenired by an Allied soldier. It’s an amazing piece of history, the most amazing part of which is the bullet hole in the side. It’s highly unlikely that the man who wore this survived.

Adding to the story is the helmet’s colour. At some stage prior to the Normandy campaign the standard field grey paint was overpainted in dark brown, in order to provide better camouflage in a warm environment like North Africa or Italy. When the soldier was transferred to Normandy, the dark paint was a hindrance, not a help, so he scratched most of it off to reveal the original grey, and in doing so has actually created an effective mottled camo colour.

There’s a Luftwaffe decal just visible under the brown paint.

What an amazing artefact - if only it could talk! I’ll be heading back to Normandy later this year and can’t wait to walk the ground where stories like this unfolded. I’m looking forward to sharing them with you.

24/04/2026

Today is Anzac Day. In Australia and New Zealand, it's a sacred day — the anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.
What often surprises British visitors to the peninsula is how much of it is their own story.

Gallipoli was a British-conceived, British-led operation, and the 29th Division carried the main assault at Cape Helles while the Anzacs went ashore further north. At V Beach, the Munsters and Dublins came off the River Clyde into a killing ground. At W Beach, the Lancashire Fusiliers won their six VCs before breakfast. The casualties that morning were horrific, and they kept coming: several failed attempts on Krithia, the grinding attrition of Helles, Suvla Bay in August.

By the time the peninsula was evacuated in January 1916, British casualties exceeded 73,000. Australia suffered 28,000. New Zealand 8,000. France, fighting alongside, lost 27,000. It was a catastrophe that touched every corner of the Empire.

None of this takes anything away from what Gallipoli means to Australians and New Zealanders, and Anzac Day is observed with the reverence it deserves.

But Gallipoli is also one of the most extraordinary and under-visited British battlefields in the world. Helles. Krithia. Gully Ravine. Redoubt Cemetery. The Helles Memorial looking out over the Dardanelles. It's all still there, and remarkably unchanged.

Lest we forget.

24/04/2026

Gallipoli: A walk through history.

07/08/2025

03/03/2025

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT! Join Lambis Englezos, the man who discovered the mass grave of Australians at Fromelles, on a tour to the Western Front in July this year! This is a very special group tour, and will commemorate the anniversaries of the Battles of Fromelles and Pozieres on the ground where the Anzacs fought and died. Spaces are extremely limited, so book fast if you wish to join us! Find out more here: https://battlefields.com.au/fromelles-pozieres-anniversary-tour-2025/