Pic : 'Favourite' WWII Battlefield....

I thin kthe best battlefield was possibly the places where the battle of the bulge occurred. D-Day is also a favorite, as well as Stalingrad. Iwo Jima is interesting, but a little to tropical for me.

 

I think the best battlefields are in North Africa (El Alamein, Tobruk, Kasserine). But I like also Kursk battlefield.

 

Haven't managed to get to any of those...but one day, who knows...?

 

Hello everybody, i'm back from my travels.

After a 4 hour drive through thick fog i arrived home this morning.

I didn't make anymore 'live' updates because the hotel we stayed at in Caen was having problems with their wifi connection.

The rest of the trip included tours to Le Bourg St Leonard, St Mere Eglise, Dead Mans Corner, Marcouf battery, Utah beach and Juno beach to name a few.

I will post my 'then and now' photographs in the coming days.

Mats, I have stopped off at the cafe Gondree at Pegasus bridge on previous visits, and don't worry, i'm quite sure there are still plenty more souvenirs for you to find at Moissy. For every one that Martin and i find there are probably a hundred more waiting to be discovered....

 

John!
Wellcome back. I bet we are many who are looking forward to your "Then and Now-pics"!!

Mats

 

Welcome back John - your after-action report is awaited with keen anticipation !

 

Oh yes they are. I haven't been there for several years and would love to see some pictures, especially of Le Bourg.

 

Jagdpanther,
This is the first time I'm trying to transfer an earlier post to my new one. Let's see if it works!!

When I visited the Mont Ormel Museum in, I think the year 2002 or 2003, they had many hundreds of photos on the walls inside the museum. They wanted help with "identifying" (how do you spell that word?) these photos. I am still very sorry that I did not have a camera with me!

When I get there next year I will ask them if I may see those photos again!

Mats

 

I couldn't resist posting more photographs from my recent visit to 'old favourite', the Tiger at Vimoutiers.

The first photograph shows the inside of the tanks turret and breech.

 

Hello everyone!

I happened to find some very nice pics from the Gap in this tread. What do you think?
Best regards / Mats

La Poche ... vue du ciel !

Edit: If you are interested in a link to the forum Pochefalaise, here it is:

Le forum de La Poche de Chambois

 

A Forum for to the Falaise Gap - unbelievable ! Now I know that there really is a Forum dedicated to avery conceivable aspect of WWII.....

My schollboy French will struggle, but there is some great visual material there - many thanks for posting the link, Mats !

 

What a find Mats! Thanks for sharing

I'm sure Martin as well as myself will be pouring over the forum, even though my French is well below par. However, i translated the forum using Google and it did a pretty good job of it, the only downside being that the images are not displayed in the translated version.

Language Tools

 

I am glad to be of some help! Please note that if you register in the forum, you will get access (is that correct english?) to more interesting threads!

Mats

 

Gentlemen!
I sent a mail yesterday to "Titidexmen" whose name is Tristan, asking if it was ok to write in his forum in other languages than french, and his answer was: "sorry but I dont speak Sweden ( Swedish ? ) - and my English is very bad. But I speak German !
So, you can of course put your question in English : dont problem !"

It might be good for you to know!

And as I wrote before - if you register, more threads will be open for you.

Le forum de La Poche de Chambois

I like his forum, but it is of course not close to this one!

Best regards / Mats

 

Thank you Mats for giving us the heads up on that forum "La Poche"; I'm a newbie here as you can tell but am very glad to find this place to share my father's wartime adventures with others.

in August 1944 he was a 35yr old Major, OC of 'A' Echelon of the 22nd Canadian Armoured Regiment (prev Canadian Grenadier Guards) and he spent from July 26th to the spring of 1945 criss-crossing that part of France. For example, he went throught the Trun-Chambois gap on August 22nd, then turned left on CG16, up past Mont-Ormel in the direction of Broglie which he reached August 24th. The aerial maps on that forum were a great help in visualizing his route; I will explore more in the next few days.

I also encourage others to find Kieran Bridge's previous thread from December 2007 for the article his dad wrote...from one who was there and an eye witness. Beautifully written!

 

Welcome to the forum, ctcarlisle.

You must be very proud of your father, it appears that he was in the thick of the action in the Gap. I hope you can share his recollections of his time in Normandy.

 

I was rather pleased to get this shot in Normandy last week.

Taken on a warm, hazy Spring afternoon, this is the central 'corridor of death', the lane leading from Saint Lambert-sur-Dives( off-shot, top left ) to Coudehard ( off shot, bottom right ). I took the photo from Coudehard Chapel and is exactly the view that the defending Poles would have had of the thousands of German troops and vehicles heading in their direction. This was the absolute epicentre of the 'hell of Falaise' and the contrast with today - absolute peace and quiet, with not even the sound of cars or aeroplanes to break the spell - is complete.

 

Great shot Martin, almost ewactly as it was. too bad modern agriculture has banned most of the boccage hedges. In some villages they are putting these back. They realized that the hedges were harbouring fauna and flora and protected the fields from floods and erosion.

 

Fortunately, the area in the photo wasn't really 'bocage country' and not too many of the hedges have been completely removed, although apple trees have now mainly given way to arable farming.

The roadside hedges are mostly still there, and if you look very hard as you walk along, you can still find things.....

 

all right! I can imagine what you would find with a metal detector.
I forgot the legendary apple trees which make the famous normandy bitter (brut) or sweet (doux) cider and the Calvados. The soldiers who tasted these for the first time would fall over. There is a local Normandy drink called "trou Normand" which is made with Calvados, you should try it, it's the best way to become friends with the locals. During the war, farmers used to put Calvados in their ersatz coffee to improve the taste, it was so good that some keep doing it!