Battle for the Belgian Canals

On September 6th 1944 the British Guards Armored division attacked across the Albert canal in Beringen. They were not expecting any significant German resistance and were hoping to be on the Belgian / Dutch border later that day. However the Germans were building a new defensive line behind that same Albert canal. It took four days of heavy fighting before a bridge across the next canal was captured, the now famous Joe’s Bridge across the Meuse-Escaut canal at Neerpelt.

In this tour we are going to follow the main line of advance of the Guards Armored division. The first stop is the Beringen bridgehead, the first toehold across the Albert Canal which was fiercely counterattacked by the Germans. We will then drive on towards Beringen – Mine and Beverlo which was the next village the Coldstream Guards had to fight their way through. Facing Jagdpanthers and Sturmgeschütze they were facing serious opposition

The next stop on the road to Leopoldsburg is Heppen, this village was taken in a very costly infantry attack in which the Duke of Hartington was killed.

We’ll then proceed on to Leopoldsburg where we’ll have lunch and we’ll visit the Liberation Garden museum and CWGC Cemetery.

Then we will move on towards Hechtel which only fell to the British forces after 5 days of heavy fighting, leaving the village utterly destroyed. The days of easy victories seem to be over.

We will end this tour at Neerpelt where we will visit Joe’s Bridge and talk about the capture of the bridge by J.O.E Vanderleur and the Irish Guards and the subsequent German counterattacks.

Tour itinerary

This tour begins at 09:000h at the Eindhoven railway station, we will visit the following locations:

Beringen Bridgehead
Beverlo
Heppen
Liberation Garden museum
Leopoldsburg CWGC Cemetery
Hechtel
Capture of Joe’s Bridge
German counterattacks at Joe’s Bridge

This tour takes around 8 hours and ends around 17:00h (5PM) back at the Eindhoven railway station.

Languages

This tour is available in English and in Dutch.

Pricing

We have a flat fee price for our tours:

Price for a full day private tour for 1 to 4 persons including transportation is €480.
For 5-8 persons I have to charge €650 to cover the rent of a large minivan.
Lunch and the Liberation Garden museum entrance is not included in the price.
For a group of more than 4 persons please visit my Groups page