Atten...Hut!

Thursday 26 April
Leggermuseum Delft

The Army Museum (since 1913)

It is the Army Museums wish to keep alive the history of the Dutch soldier throughout the centuries by creating a bridge between society and armed forces. For this reason the Museum has been building its collection since 1913. Currently its collection contains more than 200,000 objects. This makes the Museum the visual memory of Dutch military history par excellence.

Castle Doorwerth

The Museums foundations were laid by Frederic Adolphe Hoefer, a former officer. Hoefer brought together a number of Dutch military collections and added his own private collection. He bought the castle of Doorwerth, close to Oosterbeek, and in 1913 the new museum was openend there. It grew rapidly. During the war it was decided to move the museum to the former Plague Hospital in Leiden. In 1944, during the move, at a time when a great deal of the collection was still in Doorwerth, the castle was bombed, destroying a large part of the collection. After its stay in the Leiden Plague Hospital, the collection was moved to the Armoury in Delft in 1984, where the Army Museum opened its doors to the public in 1986.

Free admission with our museum cards, which are proving to be quite a worthwhile investment. I had wanted to visit and thought that with Gary here it would be the perfect time.

In spite of the rainy weather we set off for Delft, with Jerry along for the fun. The museum was empty which made it perfect. The setting in the old castle was really impressive and the whole museum was very interactive. The first thing we did was see if the kids were fit for the Dutch Army. They had to run through a boot camp like course of rope climbing,belly crawling and the like. They had to shoot an automatic weapon! They even had to go on a mission through a dark room with fake snipers...and good news, they all made it ! So they are in the Army. Then the museum itself, which has exhibits that range from the Middle Ages,Romans,Fire weapons,Prince Maurits,Eighty Year War,Republic,The age of elegance,The French Period,Waterloo,Belgian Troubles,KNIL,World War I,In between wars,World War II,Reconstruction,Cold War to Peace Missions. And since all the exhibits were in Dutch, Danny was a bit speedier than usual and we got through most of the museum! We tried on knights gear (I fell off my pretend horse and hit my tailbone..ow!!) went to a medieval pub, saw no end of amazing weapons. It was fabulous! 

The sun came out around 5pm as we were leaving and we walked along the canal lined streets of Delft. We took Gary down to the Grose Markt, where the Thursday markt was closing up, so he could get a feeling for it. He thought it was neat. We came home and had a big shwarma stirfry dinner which was a big hit...Danny bagged out on judo and Jerry and the girls did a local run so we were all able to relax together. Charades and UNO finished up the evening!

Army recruiting station

Gary tackles the boot camp course

you can do it Private!

Charlotte made it to the top!

crawl to the end, hit the red button, check your time!

weapons handling

radio operation. This is what DzaDza did in the Army in WWII

Molly and Jerry made it out of the mission room

Danny tries the course one more time

medieval dancing

the medieval feast

Sir Gary of Plane

they have mounted their horses and are ready to joust!

my knight in shining armor

Lord Jerry

if the clogs fit......have a beer!

tanks

i thought this sign was great

the words on the swastika read; murder,blood,hunger,terror and concentration camps. This was what this symbol
signified to the Dutch people

a WWII radio operator in a trench. This is where Jerry's Dad would have been

canal in Delft, outside the museum