|
Heroes Return
It is designed to give veterans a travel grant to help them to visit a country they served in on active service during the closing stages of the war - the campaign in Italy, the war in Burma and the Pacific, D-Day and the Normandy campaign, the landings in Southern France, Operation Market Garden, the fighting for the Reichswald and the Rhine Crossing, VE Day, the liberation of the Channel Islands and, finally, VJ Day. This website is the result of just one of those trips - to Anzio and Cassino in Italy. These were scenes of heavy fighting. Allied forces, including British, American, French and Polish, gradually pushed the Germans all the way up the full length of Italy. Churchill called Italy "the soft underbelly of Europe" but it was anything but that. The mountainous terrain and the winter weather made it ideal for defence and the Germans defended it fiercely, every step of the way. The relief of Italy was hard won and this Heroes Return trip consisted of veterans who fought - on land, sea and air - in Italy in 1943 and 1944. Each was accompanied by their wife or a child or a grandchild and in some cases, both. One of the objectives of Heroes Return was to pass on the memories of what happened to the next generations and this objective was fulfilled a hundred-fold. Find out more about the Heroes Return trips at the Heroes Return website and Remembrance Travel website.
|
Heroes Return is
the perfect name for an exciting initiative which is part of the commemorations
of the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War 2.