It's a fine, warm weekend here which usually means we go on a road-trip somewhere, and this weekend was no exception. Today Carrie (my wife) and I went to the World War 2 reenactment held at Midway Village in Rockford, IL. It was, in a word, impressive.

Midway Village is filled with relocated historical buildings, like most things of this type throughout the States. This is one of the smaller ones we've been to, but it's still well worth the visit. They hold quite a few events here each year, doing the place up around Halloween and when they hold the WW2 reenactment. One of the newest additions to the village is a barn which was only at the foundation stage when we visited last.

This weekend the place was decked out with 1940s-era military hardware, uniformed U.S. and German soldiers, and a large encampment in the woods beside the village. They held two simultaneous battles twice today, so we were able to see each. Apparently the event has grown over the years, to the point where there were about 200 reenactors present at this year's event.

We arrived around noon and took a stroll through the village. There were several jeeps and pieces of artillery equipment scattered throughout and most of the buildings were commandeered by reenactors. The occasional jeep or German motorcycle drove past to add a little more flavour to the proceedings. The hotel was occupied by the Red Cross, complete with Red Cross nurses dressed in 1940s garb and hairstyles to match. The prison was taken over by the German soldiers (with surprisingly good American accents!) for the Axis HQ, whilst one of the other buildings was used as the Allied base. We also visited the print-shop where the guy there demonstrated movable-type, printing flyers in fractured French.

The military camps in the woods were quite extensive and were divided into Axis/Allied regions, with further divisions within the Allied region (e.g. British, Polish and so forth). At most of the campsites, soldiers answered questions, or just sat around fires to cook lunch. There were extensive displays of weapons and war memorabilia, with actual WW2 veterans and younger blokes talking about them. One young guy told us all about the various rifles laid out in front of his campsite and said they'd been quite busy during the night digging trenches and constructing camouflaged pillboxes throughout the forest. It seems many of the reenactors take this stuff quite seriously, which was good to see.

The first battle was truly something to behold - picture dozens of heavy armoured vehicles gathering at either end of the battlefield, accompanied by at least one hundred troops. The boom of German artillery signaled the start of the battle and before long was accompanied by the rat-a-tat of machine-gun fire and rifle shots. As the battle progressed, each side advanced with soldiers and APCs at the forefront and tanks and artillery bringing up the rear. With the village battle taking place simultaneously, the air was filled with the sound of explosions and weapons fire. They'd even rigged real explosives to blow up chunks of the battlefield soon after the tanks fired. Very impressive stuff :) By the end, the Allies had taken many prisoners and left several German vehicles smoking. Casualties were surprisingly light.

We returned to the village for lunch, wandered around some more, then waited in the spectators area for the village battle. The premise behind this was the 101st Airborne had just parachuted into the field behind the village and were attempting to take the town. A German scout alerted the occupying force and soon the battle commenced, with American soldiers streaming into the village and taking up their positions. Visibility was limited from our vantage point, but we were still able to see the Allied troops advancing through the village. The popping sounds coming from the couple of bazookas seemed quite unrealistic, but I'm not sure how they could have improved that. Still, this battle demonstrated the vagaries of urban warfare, as witnessed by the greater number of casualties. I'm not sure whether this was intentional or not :)

All in all, I highly recommend events such as this, if only to give future generations some insight into the nature of war. Naturally, things were a bit more sanitized than the battle scenes seen in movies like Saving Private Ryan or in the Band of Brothers TV series.

On a related note, I also recommend the DVD box-set of the World at War series (originally produced by the BBC in the 70s) which gives a broader historical perspective. I've still got to sit down and take a look at the Australians at War DVDs which cover Australia's role in various conflicts over the past century (including the first Gulf War). Unfortunately those without a PAL-capable DVD player are out of luck, so this series (Australians at War) is unlikely to be seen by many outside Australia.

Based on our experience with this event, we may have to check out the Civil War reenactment to be held in Stockton, IL in a few weeks time...