A WWII Heritage Journey • Scotland to the Alps

In the Footsteps of R.L. Berrier

A drive-it-yourself itinerary tracing his January 1945 arrival through the 10th Armored "Tiger" Division's battle path to the Austrian border — with the best WWII museums, memorials, and must-see stops along the way.
Core route: 12–14 days +3 days UK prologue +2 days Bremerhaven epilogue ~1,900 km / 1,200 mi driving (core)

I.Route Map

Blue = his 1945 journey to the front (UK prologue) • Red = the 10th AD battle trail he fought along • Green = occupation-era and epilogue stops. Click any pin for what's there.

Prologue — the way over Battle trail — 10th Armored Division Occupation & epilogue

II.Prologue — The Way Over (Optional, Days 1–3)

Recreate the January 1945 crossing in reverse comfort: Scotland's Clyde, London by rail, and the Channel by overnight ferry — the same water he crossed on the Île de France, a boxcar train, and the coal-fired Antenor.

Day 11Glasgow & the Firth of Clyde
In his footstepsThe Île de France anchored off Gourock/Greenock on 14 Jan 1945; he went ashore by tender two days later. The Clyde was America's great troopship gateway — over a million GIs landed here.
  • Lyle Hill Free French Memorial, Greenock — cross-and-anchor monument above the anchorage with a sweeping view of the waters where the troopships lay WWII
  • Watt Institution / McLean Museum, Greenock — local maritime and wartime Clyde history WWII
  • Glasgow — Riverside Museum (transport/shipbuilding), Kelvingrove, the revived Merchant City Must-see
Day 22London by railTrain ~4½ h
In his footstepsHis boxcar train rolled through blacked-out London at midnight on 17 Jan 1945 — his 19th-birthday journey, and bitterly cold.
  • Imperial War Museum — Britain's definitive WWII collection; the Holocaust galleries are world-class WWII
  • Churchill War Rooms — the underground cabinet bunker, untouched since 1945 WWII
  • HMS Belfast — D-Day bombardment cruiser moored on the Thames WWII
  • Westminster, St Paul's (Blitz survivor), Tower of London Must-see
Day 33Southampton & Portsmouth → night ferry to Le HavreTrain ~1½ h + ferry
In his footstepsHe arrived Southampton 5:30 a.m. on 18 Jan 1945 and boarded the old Antenor the next morning for Le Havre. Today's Portsmouth–Le Havre / Portsmouth–Caen overnight ferries cross the same water — book a cabin and do it his way, minus the coal smoke.
  • SeaCity Museum, Southampton + surviving medieval town walls of the great embarkation port WWII
  • The D-Day Story, Portsmouth — superb museum on the Channel crossing to Normandy, with landing craft LCT 7074 WWII
  • Portsmouth Historic Dockyard — HMS Victory, the Mary Rose Must-see

III.France — Landing & the Replacement Trail (Days 4–6)

Day 44Le Havre & the Cigarette CampsPick up rental car
In his footstepsHe landed here ~20 Jan 1945 and slogged up a steep hill through two feet of snow to a 50-tent replacement camp — one of the "cigarette camps" on the plateau above the ruined port.
  • Le Havre rebuilt city center — flattened in 1944, rebuilt by Auguste Perret in concrete; now a UNESCO World Heritage site. St. Joseph's Church tower is extraordinary Must-see
  • Camp Lucky Strike monument, Saint-Sylvain (near Cany-Barville) — memorial on the site of the most famous cigarette camp, ~45 min up the coast WWII
  • Étretat cliffs — the iconic chalk arches, 30 min away Must-see
Day 55Normandy D-Day Coast (side trip)~1½ h to Bayeux

Berrier arrived seven months after D-Day, but no WWII journey through this corner of France should skip the invasion coast.

  • Omaha Beach & the Normandy American Cemetery, Colleville-sur-Mer WWII Must-see
  • Pointe du Hoc — cratered Ranger battlefield, left as it was WWII
  • Arromanches — Mulberry harbour remains visible at low tide; D-Day Museum WWII
  • Bayeux — the Tapestry, the cathedral, and the Bayeux War Cemetery; overnight here Must-see
Day 6The long drive east to Lorraine~5½–6 h to Metz

Cross France the way the replacement trucks did — though the A13/A4 autoroutes beat a canvas-backed GMC in two feet of snow. Optional lunch stop in Reims: the cathedral, champagne houses, and the Musée de la Reddition — the schoolhouse map room where Germany signed its first surrender on 7 May 1945 WWII. Evening arrival in Metz; stroll the Place d'Armes and the glowing golden-stone cathedral.

IV.Lorraine, Luxembourg & the Ardennes — Tiger Division Country (Days 7–9)

Day 76Metz — where he joined the Tigers
In his footstepsTrucked from Le Havre, Pvt. Berrier joined HQ Co, 20th Armored Infantry Bn here in early Feb 1945, as the 10th AD refit at Metz after Bastogne. The division had first entered combat just west of here (Mars-la-Tour, 1 Nov 1944) and fought the Metz campaign that November.
  • Metz Cathedral & old town — one of France's great Gothic naves ("God's lantern") Must-see
  • Fort de Queuleu memorial — Gestapo internment camp inside an old fort; sober, moving WWII
  • Ouvrage Hackenberg (Veckring, ~30 min) — the largest visitable Maginot Line fortress: 10 km of galleries, working turrets. Check tour times before you go WWII Must-see
  • Mars-la-Tour / Gravelotte — where the 10th AD entered combat; the 1870 war museum at Gravelotte covers this blood-soaked plateau's older battles 10th AD
Day 8Luxembourg — Patton & the Bulge museums~1 h to Luxembourg City
  • Luxembourg American Cemetery, Hamm — 5,000 Bulge dead and Gen. George S. Patton's grave, facing his men WWII Must-see
  • National Museum of Military History, Diekirch — arguably the best Battle of the Bulge museum anywhere; life-size dioramas built by veterans' donations WWII
  • Luxembourg City old quarters & casemates — UNESCO fortress city Must-see

Overnight in Luxembourg or push on to Bastogne (~1 h).

Day 9Bastogne & Noville — the 20th AIB's finest hour~1 h; then ~1¾ h to Saarburg
The unit's storyBerrier joined six weeks after the Bulge, but his battalion's legend was made here: Team Desobry — built around the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion under Maj. William Desobry (CCB, 10th AD) — held Noville against two panzer divisions on 19–20 Dec 1944, buying the time that saved Bastogne. McAuliffe himself said CCB/10th AD never got proper credit.
  • Bastogne War Museum & Mardasson Memorial — the region's flagship WWII museum beside the star-shaped American memorial WWII Must-see
  • Noville village — memorials to Team Desobry and the 101st; stand where the 20th AIB stood 10th AD
  • 101st Airborne Museum & Bastogne Barracks (McAuliffe's "NUTS!" HQ — check opening status) WWII
  • Foxholes of the Bois Jacques near Foy — Easy Company's woods WWII

Afternoon drive to Saarburg, your base in the Saar-Moselle Triangle — a storybook town with a waterfall through its center.

V.The Saar-Moselle Triangle & Trier — His First Battles (Days 10–11)

Day 107The Triangle: Westwall, Saarschleife & the Ockfen crossing
In his footstepsOn 20 Feb 1945 — the day of his Combat Infantryman Badge — the 10th AD broke through the fortified triangle between the Saar and Moselle, overran it in 48 hours, and crossed the Saar under fire near Ockfen on 22 Feb. His memories of half-track convoy guard, point-blank 88s, and diving from artillery belong to these weeks.
  • Westwall "dragon's teeth" near Borg/Perl — long preserved rows of the Siegfried Line anti-tank obstacles the division had to breach WWII 10th AD
  • Cloef viewpoint, Saarschleife (Mettlach) — the Saar's spectacular hairpin loop from a treetop walkway; the Orscholz Switch Line ran right here Must-see
  • Ockfen & the Saar vineyards — the assault-crossing site is now world-class Riesling country (Ockfener Bockstein); taste where they crossed 10th AD
  • Saarburg old town — waterfall, castle, riverfront wine taverns Must-see
Day 118Trier — the city the Tigers took~30 min
In his footstepsThe 10th AD wheeled north and captured Trier on 1–2 March 1945, seizing a Moselle bridge intact — prompting Patton's famous reply to orders to bypass the city: he'd already taken it, "What do you want me to do? Give it back?"
  • Porta Nigra — Rome's mightiest surviving city gate north of the Alps Must-see
  • Roman Trier — amphitheater, Imperial Baths, Constantine's Basilica, the Rheinisches Landesmuseum (all UNESCO) Must-see
  • Trier Cathedral & the Hauptmarkt Must-see
  • The intact-bridge story: stand on the Römerbrücke, the Roman-piered Moselle bridge the Germans failed to blow 10th AD

VI.To the Rhine & Across Württemberg (Days 12–13)

Day 129Kaiserslautern → Speyer → Mannheim → Heidelberg~3 h total
In his footstepsIn late March 1945 the division drove through Kaiserslautern to the Rhine and crossed at Mannheim on 28 March — his convoy riding somewhere in that armored column.
  • Technik Museum Speyer — U-boat U9 you can walk through, aircraft, a Buran shuttle; plus Speyer's great Romanesque cathedral (UNESCO) Must-see
  • The Rhine at Mannheim — pause at the riverbank where the Tigers crossed 10th AD
  • Heidelberg — almost untouched by the war (and postwar HQ of the US Army in Europe): the castle, Philosophers' Walk, old bridge. Overnight here Must-see
Day 131011Heilbronn & Crailsheim → Rothenburg~2½ h total
In his footstepsApril 1945: the division fought for Heilbronn's Neckar crossings and held the exposed Crailsheim salient — a week of hard fighting against fanatical resistance, with supplies flown into a captured airstrip.
  • Heilbronn — rebuilt from near-total destruction; stop at the Neckar bank and the rebuilt Kilianskirche 10th AD
  • Crailsheim — also leveled in April 1945 and rebuilt; a quiet marker of how hard the "waning" war still hit 10th AD
  • Rothenburg ob der Tauber — Germany's fairy-tale walled town (itself bombed in March 1945, lovingly restored). Overnight inside the walls after the day-trippers leave Must-see

VII.The Danube, the Alps & War's End (Days 14–16)

Day 1412Ulm & the Danube → into the mountains~3 h total
In his footstepsThe division crossed the Danube 23–25 April 1945 and struck south toward the Alps and the rumored "National Redoubt."
  • Ulm Minster — the world's tallest church spire; climb 768 steps for a Danube panorama. Einstein's birthplace, and a city rebuilt from December 1944 bombing Must-see
  • Danube riverbank — the crossing corridor ran through this stretch of Swabia 10th AD

Afternoon: drive south past the Ammer hills to Oberammergau or Garmisch-Partenkirchen; settle in for two nights.

Day 151314Oberammergau & Garmisch — "Day of the Tigers"
In his footstepsThe 10th AD took Oberammergau in late April; Garmisch-Partenkirchen surrendered to the Tigers on 29–30 April 1945 — locals still recall the "Day of the Tigers." The war ended with the division holding this stretch of the German-Austrian border, where Berrier stood guard through the summer.
  • Oberammergau — Passion Play theatre (plays each decade; next 2030), painted Lüftlmalerei houses, woodcarvers. Messerschmitt's dispersed jet-development offices were captured here WWII Must-see
  • Zugspitze — Germany's highest peak by cogwheel train and cable car from Garmisch Must-see
  • Partnach Gorge — thundering slot canyon walk Must-see
  • Garmisch town — the 1936 Olympic ski stadium; the US Army has kept a presence here since the Tigers rolled in 10th AD
Day 161516Mittenwald → Innsbruck — end of the trail~1 h
In his footstepsDivision elements halted at Mittenwald on the frontier by 9 May 1945; spearheads reached Innsbruck as the war ended. This border country — "between Austria and Germany" — is exactly where he told the interviewer he stood guard.
  • Mittenwald — violin-making town on the old border; Geigenbaumuseum, frescoed lanes, the Karwendel gondola 10th AD Must-see
  • Innsbruck — Golden Roof, Imperial Palace, Bergisel ski jump, and the Nordkette cable cars straight out of the old town Must-see

VIII.Occupation Bavaria & the Way Home (Days 17–18 + Epilogue)

Day 1717Munich & Dachau~2 h from Innsbruck
In his footstepsHis unit was ordered "up to Munich" in autumn 1945 while he stayed behind with the medical stores — the moment he likely passed to the 9th Infantry Division, whose occupation zone included this region (and which took charge of the liberated Dachau camp complex in July 1945).
  • Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial — the essential, sobering visit; allow a half day WWII Must-see
  • NS-Dokumentationszentrum — unflinching museum on Munich's role as birthplace of Nazism, on the old party-HQ site WWII
  • Marienplatz, Viktualienmarkt, a beer hall evening Must-see
Day 1818Choose your finale: Ingolstadt or Berchtesgaden
  • Option A — Ingolstadt (1 h north): HQ area of the 9th Infantry Division's occupation — his probable final outfit. The Bavarian Army Museum in the New Castle is one of Europe's best military museums; walkable Danube old town WWII
  • Option B — Berchtesgaden (2 h southeast): the Obersalzberg Documentation Center over Hitler's ruined mountain complex, and the Eagle's Nest (mid-May–Oct) with its brass elevator and alpine views; Königssee boat trip WWII Must-see

Fly home from Munich — or add the epilogue below.

Epilogue +219Bremerhaven — the port home~7 h or rail via Hamburg
In his footstepsOn 14 June 1946 he most likely embarked here — the US Army's port in occupied Germany — for the 8-day crossing to New York, where a radio ship-reporter read his name and his family heard it.
  • German Emigration Center (Deutsches Auswandererhaus) — award-winning museum of ocean crossings from this very quay Must-see
  • U-boat Wilhelm Bauer — the last Type XXI, walkable stem to stern WWII
  • Klimahaus & the Havenwelten waterfront; fly out of Hamburg (1 h) Must-see

IX.Practical Notes

Planning essentials