on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. . .

[HamptonRoads]

. . .the guns fell silent.

 

[HamptonRoads]

Keeping the light of hope shining

  

[Asym]

16 minutes ago, HamptonRoads said:

. . .the guns fell silent.

 

 

Happy Veteran's Day !

One of best Museums I have ever visited.  And, the elevator to the observation tower is something from a Steven King novel....  BTW, it's seam that bellows out at night.

For all of my Military friends that visited Leavenworth, this was where we met....  Wow, a must see.  

My Grandfather fought in WW1;  his sons fought and served in WW2 and Korea;  and his grand children served during the Viet Nam and Desert Storm(s) eras.  His great grand son fought and served for the rest of the the Desert Storm/Afgan conflicts.  And, on this veteran's day:  Pop, your Great Great Grand Daughter is on Duty in the Navy and is our first, first born, women to put on a uniform !  Hooah, being a 7th generation first born soldier/sailor speaks volumes..... 

Too all Veterans:  well done ! 

[HamptonRoads]

1 hour ago, Asym said:

Happy Veteran's Day !

One of best Museums I have ever visited.  And, the elevator to the observation tower is something from a Steven King novel....  BTW, it's seam that bellows out at night.

For all of my Military friends that visited Leavenworth, this was where we met....  Wow, a must see.  

My Grandfather fought in WW1;  his sons fought and served in WW2 and Korea;  and his grand children served during the Viet Nam and Desert Storm(s) eras.  His great grand son fought and served for the rest of the the Desert Storm/Afgan conflicts.  And, on this veteran's day:  Pop, your Great Great Grand Daughter is on Duty in the Navy and is our first, first born, women to put on a uniform !  Hooah, being a 7th generation first born soldier/sailor speaks volumes..... 

Too all Veterans:  well done ! 

Not sure the last time you were there, but in addition to the immersive displays and films there is now a VR room that allows you to experience life on the battlefield.

[Asym]

25 minutes ago, HamptonRoads said:

Not sure the last time you were there, but in addition to the immersive displays and films there is now a VR room that allows you to experience life on the battlefield.

We live close so, it's on the schedule !  Thanks for the update.  It's been 3 years since we were there last.  We've been visiting ships:  last one was the USS Kidd.  Which, is in dry dock now, getting some needed repairs.  Next:  the Texas.  I really wanted to see the San Antonio saved but......  I did visit the Des Moines and the San Antonio when they were docked in Philly.  I got to wander all over them...  (Pays to be stationed close by and know the civil servants whom run the place...!)   What a shame to lose them both.

Thanks.  I'll take more photos when we visit later this year.

[BigHeadShrimp]

For all the veterans who have served the country, I salute.

[Snargfargle]

I used to live three miles away from that memorial when I was attending the KU Medical Center. I think that I went there once. Too busy to see the local sights much, what with class and labs all day and hospital rotations in the evenings. It was one of those periods of intensive training in my life when I actually learned something useful though.

I knew a WWI vet when I was growing up. He was the grandpa of a classmate of mine. He used to take us kids fishing for bullheads at the local tail-water pits, back before center-pivot irrigation and no-till farming when there still were tail-water pits.

Edited November 11, 2024 by Snargfargle

[Captain Slattery]

Indianapolis Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

She also doubles as the world's largest Christmas tree.

[Admiral_Karasu]

Festival of Remembrance, Royal Albert Hall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wlT_DrX2fY

 

This one is actually a whole program, with clips and interviews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HurhWjpRkD4

[Silence_CN]

3 weeks ago in was in the Somme. I wanted to see since a long time the battlefields and the museum in Péronne. Very interesting btw.
We began my GF and I with the monument in Thiepval...  Very moving to see that there are 73 367 names of soldiers of the Commonwealth reported missing between 1915 and 1918 in the Somme area.
Their bodies have never been found.

In France many people remember Verdun, but the battlefields of the Somme have been even deadlier.
A battle where soldiers of the Commonwealth and the French have paid a very high price. Not to speak of the Germans too. A pure madness...
 

I visited Douaumont, Verdun and this sector too in 2014 and, damn, this is f***g impressive too.
One of the most impressive thing I remember is a path between fileds close to "Le Mort-Homme " (the well named, litteral translation being : "The Dead Man").
I was surprised at the beginning of this path by the colors of the ground : the soil in this aera is rather chalky, thus clear...but on the path there was an infinity of stains of rust.
And when I looked closer, it appeared to be metal scrap all over the path, for hundreds of meters :
Coming from there :

 

Going there, to the top of the hill  (the line of trees):

And on the path :

All this metal is omnipresent everywhere in the area. The forests can not be exploited : most of the time they were planted to prevent cultures on a spoiled ground...

[Silence_CN]

50 meters after, on the side of the path :

There are tons of these in the region. Still dangerous after all these years.
The day before I had stumbled upon a german grenade... unexploded and decayed of course.

Edit: sorry for the quality of the pictures: my reflex camera had decided to go on strike and my only solution at the time was my cell phone.

Edited November 12, 2024 by Silence_CN

[Ensign Cthulhu]

2 hours ago, Silence_CN said:

Still dangerous after all these years.

Some of them are gas shells. Even more dangerous in their own way. 

Historians estimate that up to 30% of the shells fired in the preliminary bombardment leading up to the first day on the Somme were duds, because of poor quality control. (Who was Minister of Munitions when all this was going on? Lloyd George; the same man who later, as Prime Minister, made a habit of trashing his generals' reputations and wringing his hands over the casualty lists his poor QC had helped bring about.)

[Silence_CN]

3 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

Some of them are gas shells. Even more dangerous in their own way.

Yes.
We had the opportunity to  make a picnic on the banks of a pond. My attention was attracted by a sign and when I read, it just explained that this pond had been artifically created in 1920, from a little brook, in order to bury, sink and stock chemical ammo.
Useless to say that fishing was forbidden....  🙂 
 

[Snargfargle]

13 minutes ago, Silence_CN said:

pond had been artificially created in 1920, from a little brook, in order to bury, sink and stock chemical ammo.

Out of sight out of mind also has occurred here in the US too. They used to just throw old power transformers into rivers. Now, most major US rivers have sections where you can't eat the fish due to PCB toxicity.

[Admiral_Karasu]

25 minutes ago, Silence_CN said:

Yes.
We had the opportunity to  make a picnic on the banks of a pond. My attention was attracted by a sign and when I read, it just explained that this pond had been artifically created in 1920, from a little brook, in order to bury, sink and stock chemical ammo.
Useless to say that fishing was forbidden....  🙂 
 

Pretty much standard practice in the old days, just dumping expired ammo and shells into some pond or small lake.

[Wolfswetpaws]

31 minutes ago, Admiral_Karasu said:

Pretty much standard practice in the old days, just dumping expired ammo and shells into some pond or small lake.

Yes, indeed.
Environmental concerns and scientific understandings were different, then.
I suppose that people figured that if the ordnance leaked, then the chemicals would be diluted and carried-away by the water, while inhalation of the chemicals by humans and air-breathing wildlife would be prevented.  The aquatic wildlife would be at risk, though.

[Silence_CN]

The amount of ammo of WWI which is still in the ground today is hardly imaginable.
On the front around Verdun and its area, 60 million shells were shot from both sides within 10 months.
To give you an  idea, on the 21st of february, the first day of the german attack, it's 1 000 000 shells shot on a 20 km wide front=> 1 400 impacts per minute, 6  shells per square meter.
And men were under this hail of steel... My two great-grand uncles for instance.

Regarding the cipher given by @Ensign Cthulhu of 30% shells that were dud (from what I know its closer to 25% but I may be wrong), I let you make the calculation of what has not exploded.
Sure, a part was cleaned up after the Great War, but how many are still  waiting, deep inside the ground ?
answer : a lot.. and they keep killing, every year.

I live in Normandy, I know "a bit" of the D-Day beaches and the battlefields.
I used to work in a farm close to Merville. My friends father had unburried a 750 kg english bomb with his plough in one of his fields.
And I found a german Tellermine (this => http://www.malcolmwagner.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/IMG_3478-1024x768.jpg) ... just near a school for little ones.
I almost rolled upon it with the tractor... not a good recollection.

Edited November 13, 2024 by Silence_CN

[Ensign Cthulhu]

1 hour ago, Silence_CN said:

To give you an  idea, on the 21st of february, the first day of the german attack

Then there's 21 March 1918...

1 hour ago, Silence_CN said:

1 000 000 million shells

I think you mean one million shells, not one million million?

[Silence_CN]

10 hours ago, Ensign Cthulhu said:

I think you mean one million shells, not one million million?

Correct. My bad... big fingers, small keyboard, not my  language.
Edited

 

Edited November 13, 2024 by Silence_CN