Land Battles

Could anyone tell me if the battles in Europe in WW2 were fought on the same battle fields as WW1 ??

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The Somme was heavily fought over in 1940, as was Arras. Arras is one of the Battle Honours of the Royal Highland Fusiliers

Verdun was also fighting occurred, including where the future-French president Mitterrand was was wounded.

And there must be many more areas during 1940 and 1944. However, as to exact battlefields I don't know

 

I once visited a place called Hill 60, near Hooge, a few miles from Ypres, where there was very heavy fighting in WW1, particularly around time of thje battles of Loos and Neuve Chappelle in 1915.

In WW2 the same patch of ground - its not much bigger than a tennis court -was fought over again. Additionally, among the memorials to the major battles, there is one to a couple of Resistance fighters killed in a skirmish with the Germans in WW2

Battle of Hill 60 (Western Front) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Here are some neat interactive maps from PBS on WWI battle areas
The Great War . Maps & Battles . The Battle of the Somme | PBS

 

Thank you all for the wonderful info you have supplied me re my question on land battles. I was thinking that if a major battle had been fought in two world wars over the same piece of land imagine the amount of killed in action or wounded in action and the missing in action. My mind boggles.
eep:

 

At least three VCs were won in Hill 60 actions in WW1.

I imagine that on the Eastern Front there were even more areas fought over both times.

And the Ardennes Forest was the scene of major battles in the winter of '44, of some of the earliest battles in 1914, and of course the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

And don't even think about how much Afghanistan and Iraq have been fought over in the past two centuries.....

 

The second battle of Arras in June 1940 was the only major victory inflicted by the BEF on the Nazi forces sweeping through northern France to drive us into the sea at Dunkirk.

There was a big problem. Our ancient but loveable Matilda tanks were totally outclassed by the state-of-the art Panzers. With a crew of only two, the gunner had to double up as radio operator. Unbelievable in today's terms. So the plan was very simple: to let the first wave, the superior German armour, sweep through while lying low, then launch a massive attack on the following infantry.

The attack was successful and resulted in the Nazi armour having to backtrack to rescue their infantry, pause to get reorganised again, and later continue their advance but at a much more cautious pace. This gave us vital time to organise the effective evacuation of our army at Dunkirk down the road. Without a scrap of equipment but essentially intact. Bloodied but unbowed.

Although all our tanks were lost, they could easily be replaced by more effective ones. The true price of the victory was the loss of life both in the battle and later at the hands of war criminals. 400 British and French prisoners were murdered in cold blood by the SS.

A gallant gesture if ever there was.

 

There was a great piece on the Matilda tank on BBC2 last night as part of a British heritage series. Told the story of how the Matilda ruled the desert in the campaign againt the Italians as they just couldnt penetrate the armour. Even the German tanks struggled to stop them but they also didnt suffer too much damage in return as the Matildas 2 lb gun wasnt a lot of good against panzer III and IV. An unsung hero the Matilda and it was nice to see it get some recognition.

 

The Battle of Arras was a victory? The SS motorised infantry colum initally suffered a severe drubbing but then the British units were either destroyed, broke down, or were forced to retreat. The RAC likes to say they won the war that day but the evidence is that the panzers would have been told to stop before Dunkirk anyway. They had been told to stop before but the orders got changed to "a reconnaissance in force" and had far exceeded those orders, They were also a long way in front of their supporting infantry and their commander, von Rundstedt, was a general of the old school - it was he, not Hitler who ordered the halt.

The Panzers (III & IV) were only state of the art in having a radio in every tank, three man turrets, and five man crews. Otherwise (armament, armour, numbers) they were equivalent or inferior to British and French tanks. The most common German tank in France in 1940 was the Panzer II, and the Panzer 1 was also there in significant numbers - there was nothing state of the art about them. The real problem was British tank doctrine, which left the tanks at the Battle of Arras charging a gun line (which included 105mm and larger artillery, not just 88mm guns) without supporting artillery or infantry (they were not present in sufficient quantity and had been stopped by the Stukas).

Yes, the Matilda II was pretty good (if unreliable) and as the "Queen of the Desert" there was nothing unsung about it. One of the Matildas at the Battle of Arras was hit 20 times by 37mm anti-tank guns without it being penetrated. The Germans were so impressed they got a Panzer 1 version built with the same armour and armament as a Matilda 1 (though by the time it came out it was obsolete).

The tanks lost in France were not easily replaced, the armoured divisions in the UK were not rebuilt until October 1940 and even then they had about 350 Light tanks Mark VI (worse armed than a Panzer II) and 64 "wheeled tanks" (Guy armoured cars) in their ranks. They were replaced with tanks that weren't any better, such as the Covenanter.

There was no plan to attack while they were lying low, just a poorly coordinated attack that achieved little.