Brownlow House in WW2
We’ve previously looked at the wider history of Brownlow House, Lurgan and mentioned its role as the Headquarters of American troops stationed in Northern Ireland during World War 2.
With the opening of the Brownlow HQ WW2 Exhibition in the basement of Brownlow House it is worthwhile visiting to learn more about the American soldiers sent to Northern Ireland.
WW2 American troops
More than 120,000 GIs were sent to Northern Ireland following the United States entry into the war in 1941. This included men from:
- V Army Corp – setting up its HQ at Brownlow House, Lurgan
- 34th Infantry deployed throughout counties Antrim and Tyrone
- 1st Armoured Division, ‘The Old Ironsides’, set up its HQ at Castlewellan, Co Down
This first wave of Americans trained throughout the summer of 1942 before deployment to the battlefront of North Africa in the Autumn.
The second wave began to arrive in mid October 1943 and included:
- the 2nd US Infantry Division
- the 5th Infantry Division
- the 82 Airborne Division
- the 8th Infantry Division
- XV Corp (which was based at Brownlow House)
Brownlow House WW2 Remembered
Brownlow House includes two separate WW2 exhibitions –
- an upstairs command room (once visited by Dwight D. Eisenhower). This was used to plan for the D-Day landings and the invasion of North Africa
- Brownlow HQ is a WW2 Exhibition in the basement of the building that tells the story of the American Soldiers stationed in Northern Ireland and particularly in Brownlow House using a range of displays and video guides
Brownlow HQ provides an excellent overview of the WW2 era and the ongoing plans for Operation Overlord. Together with the main house tour this is a gem of an exhibition that provides much of interest to all visitors.
The Brownlow HQ WW2 exhibition is open to the public from 10:00am to 3:00pm Monday to Saturday at no charge (though donations are welcome) with the Brownlow House tea room well open for lunches or a morning/ afternoon coffee.
Full tours of the building are available by appointment for small to large groups, with an experienced tour guide on hand to provide the full history of this magnificent building.
See More on Operation Overlord:
World War 2 Normandy – Utah Beach
WW2 Normandy and Utah Beach may be an unusual setting for Belfast Entries but we thought it would be worthwhile following up on Operation Overlord and deployment of some of those American troops based in Northern Ireland during World War 2
Belfast Entries is a husband & wife hobby website featuring articles on our shared history, memories and entertaining stories of our past. We hope you enjoy visiting the website.
If you enjoyed this article…
Remember that we can only post to a specific FB group if the subject is relevant – no group will see all posts as our topics vary every week. If you like the Belfast Entries stories and want to see ALL new posts, please add us as Facebook friends by clicking the button to see new posts on your FB timeline. We will never send SPAM / unwanted messages to you.
A Word of Thanks
We would particularly like to thank those who have made a donation via Paypal or the “Buy Us A Coffee” feature. Every small donation goes a little way towards covering the costs of running the website and helps us keep Belfast Entries running. We are grateful for every donation and would like to thank every contributor. We will adhere to our promise never to send unsolicited emails. Your support is appreciated.
Click the image below to read more about making a small donation.
We have 5 donations this month. 🙂
Thank you for your donations and words of encouragement
We had 4 donations last month. Thank you
What are others reading now?
A Quick Question Before You Leave
Sharing Posts
Please share our posts to help us increase readership for future posts. All posts can be shared directly from this website page or can be shared from our Facebook page.
You can also add feedback to the Comments section below every post. Comments will not appear immediately as we have to vet the comments submitted to remove automated adverts/ SPAM. All genuine comments are welcome.
Copyright Notice
Belfast Entries posts & photos are our intellectual property and copyrighted to us. Where we use photos that do not belong to us, it is because we believe them to be in the public domain or shared under a Creative Commons licence with appropriate attribution. None of our content or images can be used without our consent. Note that a link to our Copyright & Takedown notice is included in the website footer on all pages.
