My visit to Northern France, WW1 sites and a mad dash around Europe in a day including Malmedy!
Article about: I'm just back from a very short break to Northern France, an area I have never visited before. I had two full days to pack in as much as possible and I think I achieved my goal! This thread
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Re: My visit to Northern France, WW1 sites and a mad dash around Europe in a day including Malmedy!
Very impressive memorials Adrian, most of which ive visited, did you also manage to get to see the battleground of the canadian trench system, most of which has been left as is where you can walk among the trenches, the dividing lines between allied and enemy troops , were in some cases less than 50mtrs, i dont know if you knew it but Hitler visited Thiepvel during WW2 and at that time you could go to the top, apparently one of his entourage scratched a swastika into the parapet and he was so enraged that he threatened to have the man shot, also there is one small cemetary that during the war a patrol of german soldiers came across the old guy who looked after all the smaller cemetaries in the area, the officer in charge was questioning him because he was British, he found out that this old guy had to walk some 10miles a day to keep the cemetaries looking neat and tidy so the very next day had a bicycle delivered to him, had he only known that the old guy was part of a lifeline and that at the time of being questioned there were 6 British airmen sitting in the old guys tool shed 50ft from the patrol, oh by the way, the german patrol were SS, that shed is still there also with the unmarked crosses of three "deserters" who were shot, all three were under 19yrs of age one i believe was 16yrs, all three were suffering from shell shock at the time
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Re: My visit to Northern France, WW1 sites and a mad dash around Europe in a day including Malmedy!
by
ObKrieger
Very nice Adrian. That museum's method of displaying uniform items is kind of strange. I don't think I have ever seen anything like it.
I agree! I wonder how many clumsy tourists end up stepping on the displays...
Their uniform displays kind of reminds me of fallen soldiers. Creepy in a way...
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Re: My visit to Northern France, WW1 sites and a mad dash around Europe in a day including Malmedy!
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
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