Upcoming Battlefield Tour 2026
Dear Members,
We are pleased to announce our intention to hold an Arnhem Fellowship Battlefield Tour in 2026:
Date: Friday 17th April to Sunday 19th April 2026
Itinerary:
Friday 17th - Jory Brentjens from the Airborne Museum, Hartenstein will give Part 2 of his talk on Operation Anger.
This will take place at 1700hrs at the Museum.
Saturday 18th – A day trip by coach to the German War Cemetery in Ysselsteyn organised by Geert Jonker & Martijn Cornelissen.
Here we will receive an introduction by the cemetery staff, given a tour of the visitor’s centre and visit the graves of a number of high and low profile German soldiers killed during the Arnhem operation. Specialist speakers will be lined to up to present their stories at different stands and of course time will be set aside for you to wander around this overwhelmingly large cemetery yourself. Lunch will be included.
The small village of Ysselsteyn in the southern province of Limburg, is home to the largest military war cemetery in Europe (32.000 graves on 21 hectares) which was established by the Identification and Recovery Service of the Dutch Army in 1946. The vast majority of German soldiers who died during the Battle of Arnhem are buried here. In 1976 the Dutch Ministry of Defence handed the cemetery over to the VDK, the German equivalent of the CWCG. Ysselsteyn War Cemetery; in a word, impressive: the remoteness, the silence, the simplicity, everything. Visitors are awestruck by the vastness of the landscape and the endless repetition of identical crosses.
If you’ve been on a Geert Jonker & Martijn Cornelissen tour before you know you won’t be disappointed!
There will be a charge of €40 for this part of the tour to cover the cost of coffee, lunch, battlefield tour guide and a contribution to the cost of the coach hire.
Sunday 19th – The 10th Battalion organised by Niall Cherry
We will be running a similar tour to the one in 2016 covering the actions of the 10th Battalion around the Amsterdamseweg including the pumping station and the 6 mile marker post; their withdrawal across the railway line and into Oosterbeek. Along the way we will, if time permits, look at associated actions in the area including the location of the 4th Parachute Brigade Headquarters and the 4th Parachute Squadron RE
This will be a walking tour of several km. Be prepared for inclement weather. We have toured in horizontal freezing rain before!
Travel and Accommodation
For those of you not used to our tours, all we provide is the tour with tour guides.
All travel and accommodation arrangements are down to you, as is getting to the start line of the tour on time!
Expressions of Interest
If you would like to book a place on the tour then please email the Secretary the following information by no later than 1700hrs on Sunday 22nd February:
- That you will be attending.
- The names of all the people who will be in your party.
The Tour is ONLY open to Fellowship members (If you wish to attend with non-members then we will require that they become members of the Arnhem 1944 Fellowship).
We will operate on a first come first served basis with a waiting list being created if we exceed 60 participants.