This has been a great week for going on-site with world war history.
In December 1945, as they crossed the Franco-German border, a number of GIs carved their initials in border stones they had passed. On 19 September, I had the good fortune to visit one of those stones with the niece and nephew of one of the soldiers who we think may have scratched his name into the stone.
On 20 September, I was on hand as the mayor of Dambach, France placed a rosette next to the name of PFC Cecil Harris on the Tablets of the Missing at Épinal American Cemetery. PFC Harris was killed in action on 2 December 1945, but his remains were not recovered until September 2013.
On Tuesday, 23 September, while visiting the Lake Garda area in Italy, my wife and I visited the German military cemetery in Costermano, which contains the remains of almost 22,000 German soldiers killed in the Second World War.
Wednesday, 24 September, we walked in the World War One footsteps of Sapper Martin on Montebello, north of Vicenza. While there, we visited the British military cemetery at Giavara.
We’ll be heading home tomorrow, and this weekend, I will post more information on each of these events, along with links to photographs and, in the case of the Épinal visit, videos. I hope you’ll stop by again to take a look.
