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BAND OF HISTORIANS

Peter Schrijvers — Wed, 12 Jan 2022 13:26:02 +0000

Last year I was asked, as author of Those Who Hold Bastogne, to participate in the making of an exciting new Smithsonian Channel series: WWII by Drone. It took some flexible planning, in between virus waves, to get the filming done in the Ardennes. Readers in the US are now telling me that the series is being broadcast. I can be seen in the episode on The Battle of the Bulge, in the good company of British author Peter Caddick-Adams and American author Robert Citino, senior historian at The National WWII Museum in New Orleans.

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MORE EXCITING WWII TELEVISION WORK

Peter Schrijvers — Sun, 23 Aug 2020 12:25:42 +0000

First, there was the National Geographic episode on Bastogne in the ‘Hitler’s Last Stand’ series. Then there was the Battle of the Bulge episode for the Smithsonian Channel in the ‘Pivotal Battles of the Second World War’ series. Just recently, I was on the road again with an international crew for the series ‘World War II by Drone,’ to be broadcast sometime next year by the Smithsonian Channel in the US and the BBC-owned Yesterday Channel in the UK. A small convoy formed as we travelled (face masks on) to the Patton Monument in Bastogne town, the Mardasson monument, and the Bois Jacques of Band of Brothers fame. But glances at the camera monitors told me that the end product will show it to have been more than worth our while.

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IN PATTON’S TRACKS WITH NATO

Peter Schrijvers — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 14:38:05 +0000

How to make your weekend special? First, by being asked to take seventeen ambassadors to NATO on an author’s tour of the Battle of the Bulge. Next, to have the War Heritage Institute liven up that tour just that little bit by organizing a long column of vintage World War II vehicles, including three Sherman tanks, to trace Patton’s long slog from Bastogne to Houffalize in January 1945. I am too busy this year with the development of the new Belgian World War II museum, Liberation Garden, in Leopoldsburg to take on any author’s tours in the Ardennes. But how could I not have made an exception for this one?

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TODAY’S SCREAMING EAGLES

Peter Schrijvers — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 14:28:27 +0000

It is one thing to be complemented on your book by a reader. It is quite another thing to get praise for ‘Those Who Hold Bastogne’ from a young officer in today’s 101st Airborne Division. Here posing with Captain Jack LaZebnik who dropped by for a chat at the Bastogne War Museum book signing session for the 75th anniversary commemorations. Hanging on the lips of WWII veterans in their nineties, one sometimes forgets how very young those are who fight in wars.

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THE MONUMENTS MAN

Peter Schrijvers — Mon, 23 Sep 2019 15:02:49 +0000

Had a memorable meeting with Robert Edsel, author of the international bestseller ‘The Monuments Men,’ made into a movie with George Clooney and Matt Damon. Robert had suggested a get-together after reading my book, ‘The Margraten Boys.’ Monuments man Walter Huchthausen is one of the ten thousand American fallen commemorated at the Dutch WWII cemetery of Margraten. Robert and I spent a fascinating afternoon discussing books past, present, and future.

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HAPPY AUTHOR

Peter Schrijvers — Tue, 30 Apr 2019 11:54:31 +0000

Very pleased to announce the publication of what promises to be the standard work on Belgium during World War II for some time to come. It is an exhaustive and richly illustrated history and the work of a team of passionate historians. As we approach the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, I am happy to have been part of this ambitious book project as the author of the history of the liberation of Belgium.

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THE LONGEST NIGHT

Peter Schrijvers — Tue, 18 Dec 2018 10:42:53 +0000

Signing my books long after dark at the Bastogne War Museum. The museum exceptionally stayed open for a book fair where I gave a talk and had an opportunity to meet readers just hours away from the 74th anniversary of the start of the Ardennes counteroffensive. A very special occasion.

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THIS IS IT!

Peter Schrijvers — Fri, 26 Oct 2018 13:15:30 +0000

Posing at a Sherman in Clervaux that stands as a reminder of the heavy fighting in the Luxembourg town on the road to Bastogne. “We’re surrounded and can’t get out,” Sergeant Donald Fink from his tank radioed to his commander in the American 9th Armored Division as the veteran German 2nd Panzer Division clinically took out one American tank after another near the ancient castle. “They’re closing in, and we’re fighting like hell. Guess this is it!” But, as I describe in my book, THOSE WHO HOLD BASTOGNE, stubborn American resistance at Clervaux and other towns and villages east of Bastogne is what bought just enough time for the 101st Airborne Division and supporting troops to dig in at the crucial Belgian crossroads town and tell the Germans, ‘Nuts!’

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HOLLYWOOD STAR POWER

Peter Schrijvers — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 08:26:39 +0000

That is the guys standing, of course: Matthew Leitch (Sgt. Floyd Talbert), Ross McCall (Joseph Liebgott), and James Madio (Sgt. Frank Perconte) from the iconic series Band of Brothers. I am perfectly happy sitting at their feet as the Easy Company Tour historian for The National World War II Museum in New Orleans and the author of ‘The Margraten Boys’ and ‘Those Who Hold Bastogne.’ Here at the end of the long trip through Europe in Zell am See in Austria, where Major Dick Winters took a cool dip in the green lake and decided to shed his skin as a soldier at the end of the war.

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NEW WORLD WAR II MUSEUM

Peter Schrijvers — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 13:04:04 +0000

Pleased to share that I have just been named historian and project manager for a brand-new museum to be built and developed in Leopoldsburg, Belgium. The planned museum – Liberation Garden – will tell the transnational story of the Allied liberation in the region, with a strong emphasis on Operation Market Garden’s ground offensive in the autumn of 1944. The ground offensive was launched near where the museum will be built. Indeed, in an iconic scene in the movie ‘A Bridge Too Far,’ British General Horrocks can be seen unveiling the operational plans in Leopoldsburg’s Cinema Splendid. The below selfie shows me scouting related heritage sites last autumn, here at the vast German World War II cemetery in Lommel, just a few miles from Leopoldsburg.

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