Digging Up The Trenches of WWI

[Ad Orientem]

http://youtu.be/QIRoetUSq4E

A fascinating, and horrifying, documentary of an archeological excavation of some of the trench works from the First World War. I have a great uncle on my father's side of the family who died somewhere near where this excavation occurred. He was killed during one of the battles in or around Ypres in 1915. There must be hundreds of thousands of bodies still buried under the mud around and between the trench works all along what was the Western Front. Not to mention millions of rounds of ammunition, unexploded ordinance and artillery shells and even live poison gas bombs.

[Mountaineer]

http://youtu.be/QIRoetUSq4E

A fascinating, and horrifying, documentary of an archeological excavation of some of the trench works from the First World War. I have a great uncle on my father's side of the family who died somewhere near where this excavation occurred. He was killed during one of the battles in or around Ypres in 1915. There must be hundreds of thousands of bodies still buried under the mud around and between the trench works all along what was the Western Front. Not to mention millions of rounds of ammunition, unexploded ordinance and artillery shells and even live poison gas bombs.

As a side note, I had the opportunity to visit Ypres (sometimes called Ieper if you come from France) in the late 1990s for business reasons.  I remember visiting the military museum and a WWI graveyard just inside the city wall that was the most well cared for and immaculate cemetery I have ever seen anywhere.  The edging around the flower beds was ruler straight, the flowers beautiful and the grass must have been cut and trimmed daily.  The grave markers were mostly for Brittish soldiers but I think there were also a few German soldiers that had been laid to rest.  There was a parade every evening with the marchers, mostly really old guys, in full miitary dress that paid tribute to the allied soldiers who had fallen.  If I remember correctly, the parade had been going on since the end of WWI.  I marveled at how grateful the people in that small town were for the allies who had ultimately ended the multiple battles around Ypres in WWI.  I think many of the deaths, military and civilian, were from war use of chlorine and phosgene gas and widespread use of the Hiram Maxim designed machine gun.

... Mountaineer

[FarmerD]

I haven't watched the whole video yet so I don't know if they mention the French Bayonette trench.  Supposedly after the war they found a row of bayonettes sticking out of the ground.  Upon digging they found a French soldier buried under each gun. 

http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Coun/Fr ... un_1-1.htm

[Bob]

My grandfather was a "wagon master" in General Pershing's American Expeditionary Force (AEF) that went to France during WWI.  Since he had worked with a team of horses delivering fuel oil for Standard Oil in Chicago, the Army gave him a team of horses and a wagon and he delivered supplies to the soldiers in the trenches and actually spent some time in the trenches.  He told me it was the most horrible thing imaginable:  rats, filth, blood, death, constant fear, enemy shelling, snipers, etc.  But they were there to defeat the "Hun" as he referred to the Germans at that time.  Ironically, his parents came to the US from Germany (Bavaria) in 1885 and he was born in 1888 in Chicago - so ethnically, he was 100% German but ultimately 100% American.

My mother, who will be 96 in April, was born in 1918 while my grandfather was deployed to France.  I still have his honorable discharge certificate which hangs next to my father's honorable discharge certificate (US Navy WWII) and my Certificate of Retirement from the US Army (combat ops in Iraq in 1991).  My family's military history and service even extends to an ancestor that fought on the winning side at the Battle of the Little Big Horn