Nine days, west to east

1944

Paris was liberated on 25 August 1944, when General von Choltitz surrendered rather than carry out the order to burn the city. Normandy, two hundred miles west, had been fought over for eleven weeks by then.

2026

Land at Charles de Gaulle, meet the group, and drive straight west. No sightseeing on day one — just the transfer, the introductions, and a first night in Normandy.

1944

In the dark before dawn on 6 June 1944, some 13,000 American paratroopers dropped behind Utah Beach. Most landed nowhere near where they were meant to. The 4th Infantry Division came ashore two thousand yards off target — and it was the best thing that happened all day.

2026

The first full day, and the one that goes where Easy Company started. Utah Beach itself, the Sherman and the B-26 on the sand, and the ground inland where the airborne divisions came down.

1944

On Omaha the first wave lost roughly a third of its men before it reached the shingle. At Pointe du Hoc the Rangers went up a hundred feet of cliff to guns that had already been moved. Gold, four miles east, is where the Allies brought their own harbour.

2026

The longest day on the itinerary and the heaviest. The American cemetery above Omaha, the cratered headland at Pointe du Hoc, then east to Gold, Longues-sur-Mer and Sainte-Mère-Église.

1944

On 18 December 1944 the 101st Airborne was trucked into Bastogne overnight from a rest camp in France — short of ammunition, winter clothing and, in many cases, helmets. By 21 December seven German divisions had closed the ring around them.

2026

The long drive east out of Normandy, and then straight to the treeline at Bois Jacques. The foxholes are the thing I most want to see on this whole trip.

1944

The Mardasson Memorial honours 76,890 American casualties of the Ardennes. Fifty miles south at Hamm, 5,073 Americans are buried, most of them killed in the same campaign — with Patton at the head of them.

2026

A full day on the Bulge: the Mardasson star, the vehicle halls and command cellar at Bastogne Barracks, two museums, and then south into Luxembourg to Patton’s grave.

1944

Munich is where the party began, in beer halls and back rooms from 1919, and where it staged its failed putsch in November 1923. It called itself the Hauptstadt der Bewegung — the capital of the movement.

2026

The long haul east: Bastogne to Munich, most of a day on the autobahn. Everything up to here has been about a campaign. From tomorrow it is about what the campaign was fighting.

1944

Opened 22 March 1933, seven weeks after Hitler became Chancellor. The first Nazi concentration camp, the model for all the others, and the training ground for the men who ran them. Liberated by American troops on 29 April 1945.

2026

The hardest day on the itinerary, and the reason the tour is worth taking. The memorial site in the morning; Marienplatz and the Hofbräuhaus in the afternoon, which is a strange sequence and probably the honest one.

1944

The 506th reached Berchtesgaden on 5 May 1945. Three days later the war in Europe was over, and Easy Company was working its way through the contents of Göring’s cellar.

2026

The last real day, and the only one with a view. A mountaintop tea house that took thirteen months and a fortune to build, that Hitler barely used, and that is now a very good place for lunch.

1944

The men of Easy Company went home in stages through the second half of 1945, on a points system that counted months served, combat awards and children at home. The company was formally deactivated on 30 November 1945.

2026

Transfer to Franz Josef Strauss airport and fly home. Flights need to leave after 10:00 — worth checking before booking anything.