do we have any experience here of previous years?.....this one was 75th so I guess a bit more special...I'm keen to know what it's like other years...
do we have any experience here of previous years?.....this one was 75th so I guess a bit more special...I'm keen to know what it's like other years...
For example Here:
Bastogne/Manhay 2016
or here:
Bastogne Dec. 2015
or here:
2010
Now & Then.. Ardennes Iconic Image Journey..
and 2009
Nuts, Bastogne 2009
Salut and enjoy
Alex
......does anyone here actually know the post-war history of the Easy Company woods?....those trees aren't 75 years old.....and any previous stumps have been removed...which is quite a brutal operation in itself.....which makes the whole surviving Fox-Hole story interesting. We went in December and there were MORE holes than there were 2 years ago....my heart tells me that perhaps some of the depressions happened to have survived 75 years of de and re-foresting but my head suggests otherwise.....are there photos of fox-holes through the ages or similar??...or at least pre-BoB?
Can't clarify the post-war history, but I visited in 1997 ( about 4 years prior to BoB ). The trees looked about 10-15 years old and plenty of old , moss-covered stumps could be seen so presumably the area had been harvested of trees and replanted as is usual in the Ardennes.
The foxholes were visible, but only about knee-deep and mainly along the roadside. This was back in the day before metal detector use became widespread, ditto Google Earth.....it was a nice dry day when I visited so I knelt on the ground to take some photos. Painful, because my right knee came down on something sharp which turned out to be a small but recognizable shell fragment.
When I returned in 2004 the foxholes were much deeper and there were other signs of digging clearly to be seen. I didn't linger.
But that bit of shell is still in my collection.....
Thank you Martin....I suspected/feared as much.....and always wondered why you limped! :-)
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