The Wings of Liberation Museum is a lovely museum in the city of Best, the Netherlands, near the much wider known War Museum in Overloon. It is a medium sized museum displaying a surprising collection of vehicles. Highly recommended for a few hours of wandering around.
They present a nice exposition with an interesting collection of vehicles in several buildings. On arrival you’ll receive a warm welcome with a Sherman, type M4A1, which is on display in front of the museum. In the main building are multiple presentations and together with a movie room they give a good impression of what the Dutch people went through during the German occupation in World War Two.
The museum premises houses several buildings which contain numerous vehicles. Besides a Spitfire they have two C-53 Skytrooper airplanes, the troop tranport version of the C-47 Dakota airplanes, which are rare objects in the Netherlands. These planes are the military equivalent of the civil DC3 airliner.
American, Russian and German collections
The buildings are divided in a German collection, an American collection and a Russian collection. In the Russian collection the famous T34-85 is on display next to a Katyusha rocket launcher (Stalin Organ).
In the other corner of the same building a German Hetzer Tank Destroyer stands behind a wire fence. It’s a Swiss post war type G13 however, original Hetzer tanks are hard to find.
In the German section you will also find the mighty FLAK 36 88mm gun on display.
The American equipment refers mainly to the Operation Market Garden landing at Arnhem.
Visit
For more information about the Museum visit the website of Wings of liberation
UPdate
Several vehicles are sold to the Twents Oorlogsmuseum Vriezenveen ’40 ’45, the Sherman, the OT Halftrack and T34-85 for example are relocated to this museum. One of the C-47’s was lost in an accident when transported by road.
