Secret Army: Belgium in World War 2

On this fascinating tour, led by Head Battlefield Guide Paul Reed and WW2 author Dr Victoria Humphreys, we look at the story of Belgium in the Second World War and the so-called ‘Secret Army’, the Belgian Resistance, which was immortalised in the 1970s BBC Drama of the same name. With readings and history at all the main sights we bring this period of the Second World War to life.

Tour Includes

4 nights hotel with continental breakfast & 2 evening meals
Specialist Battlefield Guides
Local joining points

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Local departure by coach, then to our hotel in Belgium where we stay for four nights.

We begin our tour with a look at the occupation of Belgium by Nazi Germany and how the Holocaust affected the population in Belgium, and we travel to Fort Breendonk for an included visit. A nineteenth-century defensive fort, it was used by the Germans as a detention and later Concentration Camp, with over 3,500 prisoners passing through it. We have plenty of time to explore the site and hear the moving stories of those held here. In the afternoon we visit Kaserne Dossin. A former army barracks, thousands of Jews were deported to Death Camps from here during the war. It is now a national memorial and museum site to the Holocaust in Belgium, and we have an included visit to the museum of genocide and remembrance now opposite this site.

Includes Breakfast

Includes Dinner

Fort Breendonk Holocaust Memorial, Fort Breendonk Occupation Memorial, Fort Breendonk Kaserne Dossin Holocaust Memorial, Kaserne Dossin Holocaust Museum, Mechelen

Today we look at the Battle of Belgium in May 1940 leading up to the Belgian surrender, seeing the 1940-45 Museum close to the battlefields near Charleroi. After lunchtime in Dinant, we travel to Bruly where we visit the unique chapel and memorial to the local Resistance Group and see the ‘Hitler Bunker’ where Adolf Hitler sheltered during the Battle of France and which is now a museum to the Belgian Resistance and Escape Lines, seeing a reconstructed Resistance post and visiting the church used by the Germans to draw up the terms of the Armistice in France in June 1940.

Includes Breakfast

Includes Dinner

Dinant Hitler Bunker, Bruly Resistance Headquarters, Bruly Resistance Memorial, Bruly Musée Souvenir 40-45

We travel to Leuven area and visit Heverlee War Cemetery to look at the fighting in this area and the role of the RAF, and then examine Resistance in Leuven seeing the Resistance Memorial there and having lunchtime in Leuven. We then continue to Brussels visiting the Brussels Town Cemetery and ‘Secret Army’ Memorial. We then have a walking tour of central Brussels looking at locations connected to the BBC ‘Secret Army’ series. Starring Bernard Hepton, the series told the story of a Brussels café at the heart of the local resistance cell. We visit the actual café used in the series and walk to some of the key sites which feature in the series, linking the fiction with the real stories of WW2. We end the day with free time in Brussels in the evening, where we have time for an evening meal, before returning to our hotel.

Includes Breakfast