Verdun

[Creaghorn]

hallo all,

 

my girlfriend and i went to a trip to paris and disneyland the last couple days. we drove by car so we had the opportunity to stop at former ww1 battlefields on the way back. we visited monuments and museums from argonne forest all the way to verdun. lots of hughe graveyards with one white cross next to the other. museums with even some aviation related things. one can still feel the spirit of what happened there almost 100 years ago. you can feel the war at the verdun area to this day. it was funny i was able to tell her what happened where in which town and which airfield of wich countries have been there stationed. mostly of old rb3d days and BHAH. one touching moment was when we stopped at a resting place between argonne and verdun to plan our next moves. on some wild meadows i suddenly saw some poppies (although not flanders). i asked my girlfriend if she knows what they are. she said, yes. they are poppies. pretty unbreakable flowers. they just grow everywhere. i smiled and said, yes. i don't know nothing about flowers. one could sell me stinging nettles as roses and i wouldn't notice. but i know what poppies are and why they are the symbol of the whole war at the western front. everything was dead, destroyed, vanished from the surface. the only thing which were tough enough to grow here and there were those poppies.

 

i wanted to make pictures about the monuments and graves but unfortunately we had only one cell for the camera and on the way back from paris it was empty

[+Olham]

Touching report, thank you for sharing, Creaghorn.

[rabu]

Good story. I remember years ago Shredward told me about his trip over there visiting the different sites and grave yards, and he sent pictures, very moving.

[+Hasse Wind]

Thanks for the story, Creaghorn. I've been planning for years to visit at least some of the battlefields of the Western front, but somehow I never end up actually putting those plans into action. Too little time and money, I guess. The Western front battlefields are well preserved in at least some areas and many monuments have been built there. The same can't be said about the Eastern front battlefields of WW1.

 

I've found Google Earth to be a great tool to use for looking at old battlefields. The Verdun area for example has plenty of interesting pictures, and you can clearly see all the forts from satellite photos. It's great for searching airfields too.

[Snoopy syndrome]

I've found Google Earth to be a great tool to use for looking at old battlefields. The Verdun area for example has plenty of interesting pictures, and you can clearly see all the forts from satellite photos. It's great for searching airfields too.

 

you still be able to find reamaining of WW1 airfields with Google Earth?

I imagine few of them where used nowadays as civilian airfields (so, easy to find) but for the rest of the others...it should be much more difficult!

[Bullethead]

Here are the Verdun forts, for them as are interested and use Google Earth.