My visit to Northern France, WW1 sites and a mad dash around Europe in a day including Malmedy!

[Paul D]

On the road again towards Thiepval I passed Pozieres British Cemetary. I couldn't stop long as the light was against me but I did stop and take a bit of time to wander through the rows of graves standing silently in the weak, late afternoon sun.
There are 2,758 Commonwealth servicemen buried here and one German, 1,380 are unidentified. The names of a further 14,654 are listed on the walls surrounding the Memorial. A truly humbling place.

Pozieries is primarily a Diggers Battlefield and one for our Aussie members as the Aussies fought for and took the place in some horrendous fighting , the Gibraltor Blockhouse and the Windmill were infamous locations , it was here that that Albert Jacka VC should have been awarded a bar to the VC but wasn't because he didn't take kindly to orders and just did his own thing , very successfully !!!!

Great series of photos Adrian !!

[Adrian]

Adrian, in actual fact that field is the wrong one, we made that assumption as well, but we had with us an After the Battle magazine which stated that it was always assumed that the massacre was between the cafe opposite the memorial and the buildings in your photo, but it happened in the field behind the cafe which is now a normal house, the photo that you show is presumed to be where the ditch was where the GIs were actually captured, we went up and down that damn road for half hour trying to pinpoint all the locations but because of all the changes its difficult to find the lay of the land but the magazine helped us, also the famous photo of Peipers SS going past the crossroads with the St Vith and Malmedy signposts, is no longer a crossroads but a ruddy great roundabout with a truck haulage company off to the side and industrial units all around, also Ambleve is a no no, it doesnt exist, its the valley and the river but theres no town as depicted in Battle of the Bulge film

Thanks Dave, I was going by the location shown in the museum.

[Adrian]

Within the museum you enter a room, completely dark. There is the sound of branches creaking, the wind howling through the trees. Suddenly, there is an explosion, machine gun fire rips through the night, there are flashes, more explosions, then silence and darkness again.......

[Adrian]

The Chaplains on both sides were much needed amongst the suffering......

[Adrian]

Some more displays of German items.......

[davejb]

Great museum shots Adrian, its strange that there have been so many different locations for the Massacre, the memorial in fact was erected on the wrong side of the road by the Belgians , the original one was in the car park of the now rebuilt cafe/house, the reason for this was because it looked better when approaching it from Malmedy, it states " on this spot" which is wrong and also only lists 84 names

[Adrian]

And again......

[Adrian]

Some helmets and war souvenirs.......

[Adrian]

Some relics - real 'barn finds' - and the remains of an Me110 which was brought down near Malmedy......

[Adrian]

Again, you enter a darkened room. The wind is blowing strongly over the snow fields, dawn breaks and the bodies of American troops are shown buried in the snow.......