Museum Wings of Liberation
Today my father, my brother in law and myself went to the museum Wings of Liberation (Bevrijdende Vleugels) in the south of the Netherlands near Eindhoven.
The area where the museum is located was also part of the landingzones during the operation Market Garden. Most of the museum is therefore showing what has happened during this operation.
The museum itself is not that big but the shown equipment is in great condition. Unofrtunately the planes are not all original. The C53, the Wako and the V1 however are still original.
Definitely worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood.
Link to the website of the museum is https://www.wingsofliberation.nl/
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- 1. C53 Skytrooper
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- 1. Internal view of tail section, lots of control wires
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- 1. Internally of main landing gear
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- 1. Birdsnest tells how often this plane is used recently
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- 1. Horsa replica, used in the movie "Battle of the Schelde" (2020).
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- 1. Spitfire replica
Thanks for sharing!
@gwfabian, you're welcome Greg
Amazing pics, John!
It is pretty obvious you had a great time there.
Thanks for sharing!
@fiveten, glad to share those pictures Spiros.
It was indeed a great day together with my dad and brother in law, going through all the details of the shown objects.
Nice stuff. thanks @johb.
They even managed to copy the postwar wing on the Spitfire replica. 🙂
@tcinla, parts of it were plastic others metal, I don't know what they did.
A look in the cockpit was even more scary, just a couple of meters and a simple cushion to represent the seat.
Nevertheless, the other objects were great.
Nice pics, John. Thanks for sharing
@gwskat, you're welcome Gary
Looks like a nice museum... some interesting airplanes . I had to read up on the C-53, I hadn’t heard about it... also read about a C-39... that’d be an interesting project for a scratch builder.
@ssgt, at first I thought it was a C-47 but the marking on side of the aircraft mentioned differently. Had to look it up as well.
Thanks for posting! @johnb
@michel-verschuere, it was a pleasure to share them.
John, @johnb
Thank you for posting this. It looks like a very interesting museum. Someday, if I am ever fortunate enough to go back to Europe again, I would really like to stop by and see this.
One of my ancestors was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne. He jumped in Normandy on D-Day, just like Tom Bebout's father did. He also participated in Market Garden, and was seriously wounded at Bastogne. In Bastogne he was injured by mortar fire, then shot twice by a German sniper a few minutes later. He laid there until it became dark, and somehow managed to crawl back to the rest of his men.
Eventually he was transported back to England, where he spent the rest of the war recovering from his wounds. He served in the US Army along with his three other brothers. Two were killed, and all four were wounded within 108 days, all serving in the ETO.
@lgardner, you're welcome Louis. What a sad story. So many brave soldiers died in this last part of the war. I'm living on the route of Hell's Highway and we have several memorial locations which show how fiercely the situation was during Market Garden.
Thank you for sharing John. It’s on the list of places to visit if we can ever travel again ! Ill look up “ the battle of the Schelde “ film. A battle that did not get a lot of historical coverage.
Thanks for sharing these, John.
Great photos and thank you for sharing….I too had to look up info on the C-53.
Great pics John, sorry I missed this one while stationed in Germany in the 70's. Some interesting subjects to view.