Has Anyone Got A Photograph Of..........

[Fattyowls]

Just to test out the new forum look and feel and to add to the list of shame that my photos represent, this is the southern Petit Bois crater, which adjoins the wood. Yet again it is two photos welded together (badly). Not only does the water appear to be on a slope but the slope is not even even. It takes talent to be this talentless.......

 

Pete.

 

 

[Knotty]

But you can do downhill water skiing😁

[healdav]

1 hour ago, Knotty said:

But you can do downhill water skiing😁

Can you do cross country water skiing?

[Knotty]

Careful or we will upset Pete😁

[Fattyowls]

3 hours ago, Knotty said:

Careful or we will upset Pete😁

I'm relaxed about it; I quite like the surreal images the last two posts conjour up. Rene Magritte could do them justice, this being Belgium after all. I'm also interested in how this post comes out given that the forum at the moment appears to have been designed by Jackson Pollock.......

Pete.

[Marilyne]

On 19/08/2020 at 14:36, Fattyowls said:

Just to test out the new forum look and feel

 

 

... that I just discover today and like very much !! 

Just back from what we have decided to call the "St Bernardus Walks 2020", considering how the Yzer was cancelled and that there was no way I'd have a year without spending four days marching in that area.. 

So, we did it like Frank would say: "our way"and had a great time!! 

 

 

 

[brummell]

Thanks to all for the many wonderful photos that have been shared so far.  I feel I should make my own (meagre) contribution...!

 

This is the Ploegsteert Memorial to the Missing.  I wanted to capture the shadows of the columns falling on panels with the names of men in whom I have an interest; initially annoyed by the chap wondering up and casting his own shadow, I actually quite liked it when I reviewed it.  More of his shadow might actually have worked well, but it would have been a bit contrived (and he wasn't mine to command!).

 

- brummell

 

[Fattyowls]

Nothing meagre about that Mr B; I love it. I'm with you on the human shadow, that adds an air of mystery; there is only so much composition that is possible when the light conditions are just right. Not that I do any composition in any circumstances of course.

 

Pete.

[Christina Holstein]

On 18/06/2020 at 16:22, Fattyowls said:

Steve, John,

 

I have several of that 2nd view on 35mm; as to the first I still shudder at the thought of looking in the low windows of the Ossuary. I've been several times but I've only looked in once.

 

I've got a feeling that no. 2 is Douaumont, although it may be an observation turret. I think the machine gun ones are retractable (could be wrong of course). There is a similar turret on top of Vaux which is shown in post 13 in this thread; Douaumont is the low hump on the horizon in the first photo.

 

What is interesting to me is that in August 1914 the horizon was indeed Germany, which is why the fort is there in the first place. I have it on good authority that on a clear day you can see the 1870 battlefield of Gravelotte-St Privat; now that would be a looking back the other way photograph and a half.

 

Pete.

I'm coming very late to this thread but I'll pull myself together and post some photos from Verdun and surrounding area.

 

You're right, Pete. No 2 shows an observation post on Ft. Douaumont, one of the two that served the 155mm gun turrett.

 

As for the view from Gravelotte-St. Privat towards Ft. Douaumont, you can see the ridge but Ft. Douaumont is flat on top, so you can't make it out. However, you can see the bump that is Fort Souville and that's extraordinary in itself.

 

I was recently in Verdun checking on the damage done by bark beetle and subsequent logging. Some hidden views are appearing after 50 years but other things are being lost.

 

Christina

[Christina Holstein]

On 18/06/2020 at 18:05, Fattyowls said:

There is a story in Alastair Horne's 'Price of Glory' about the bombardment of fort Vaux by a huge German gun sited behind the Jumelles d'Ornes (I think). A sharp eyed and fleet footed sous-lieutenant was stationed in the observation turret watching for the flash of the big gun. He had time to shin down the ladder, raise the alarm and take cover while the shell was in the air.

 

Pete.

Hi Pete,

 

Something like that happened at Fort Moulainville but I don't remember it at Ft. Vaux.

 

The roof of Ft. Vaux survived all the shelling. The concrete layer was 2.5m thick and that resisted everything. At Ft. Douaumont the concrete was thicker at one end that the other. The shells came through where it was 1.5m thick but not where it was 2.5m thick.

 

More useless knowledge ...

 

Christina

[Fattyowls]

1 hour ago, Christina Holstein said:

More useless knowledge ...

 

Not to me, I'm fascinated. Moulainville as the scene of the acrobatic sous lieutenant's descents sounds correct; I've been struggling to find various references and photographs recently and it is a long time since I delved into 'The Price Of Glory'. I knew that one of the locations was questionable but I thought it was more likely to be the location of the German gun. I seem to remember that Moulainville attracted a lot of shelling but I was always slightly perplexed by its description as being Douaumont's twin in Horne. It doesn't appear that way on the map, but maybe Google Earth might be illuminating.

 

I'll look forward to seeing the photos Christina, thanks in anticipation.

 

Pete.

[Fattyowls]

 

On 24/08/2020 at 21:14, Christina Holstein said:

I don't remember it at Ft. Vaux

I think I am mixing up my heroic (and agile) sous-lieutenants. I seem to remember a young officer carrying messages in and out of Vaux despite it being surrounded, I think that may be the Vaux connection that has confused me.

 

Pete.

Edited 26 August , 2020 by Fattyowls

[Christina Holstein]

Hi Pete,

 

You're perhaps thinking of Lt. Buffet, who carried the message out of Ft. Vaux and actually managed to return with another. The chap at Moulainville was an Alsatian called Weiss, who was an artillery observer on the Woevre Plain when the order to withdraw was given. He didn't want to withdraw and turned up at the fort asking to carry out observations from there. He found the steel observation turret too small and was allowed to construct an observation post outside on the parapet. It was fairly ramshackle and destroyed several times but as he was doing useful work he was allowed to continue. He managed to pinpoint the 420 that was firing on the fort and waited for the flash before running for shelter but that meant running 30 metres into the fort and the commandant decided it was too dangerous to continue, so he had to return to the steel turret.

 

Moulainville is an unknown and overlooked fort and the one that suffered the most from the 420mm guns. If you read French there's an extraordinary book  by Lt. Ménager, former artillery commander at Moulainville and Ft. Douaumont (post recapture). It's called Les Forts de Moulainville et de Douaumont sous les 420. I happened to come across it on a flea market in Brittany 20 years ago and bought it immediately. 

 

Christina

[Christina Holstein]

There was a mention of Tavannes railway tunnel earlier. Here's a pic of the western entrance. 

After the war another tunnel was excavated to take a new line, so today there are two tunnels. It is a working line but you can of course cross it to go and have a look at the old one. This was April 2006.

 

Christina

[Christina Holstein]

The fire that started the explosion started at this end, i.e. at the entrance to the left hand tunnel. The tunnel was reinforced at some time - I'm assuming it was after the war. Y

Sorry, that loose Y was a mistake.

 

Here's another one that I'm rather proud of, being a point-and-shoot sort of person.

[Christina Holstein]

I suppose I must have desaturated it through the wonders of Photoshop, but I don't remember.

 

Christina

[Heid the Ba]

Great photos, thanks.

[Fattyowls]

1 hour ago, Christina Holstein said:

Here's another one that I'm rather proud of, being a point-and-shoot sort of person.

 

As a point and shoot sort of a person too I'm really impressed with that one; it has an otherworldly quality that seems to fit. It could be a still from a German Expressionist movie of the 20's. I've certainly never pointed and shot anything that good.

 

Pete.

[Fattyowls]

 

1 hour ago, Christina Holstein said:

You're perhaps thinking of Lt. Buffet, who carried the message out of Ft. Vaux and actually managed to return with another. The chap at Moulainville was an Alsatian called Weiss, who was an artillery observer on the Woevre Plain when the order to withdraw was given.

 

I am thinking of Lt. Buffet and conflating him with Weiss, whose story is far more impressive when you think he was outside when he saw the flash of the 420mm gun. I put the search terms 'Fort Moulainville Verdun' into my search engine of choice last night, looked at the images and there are some excellent contemporary ones, including a couple of what I think might be Weiss' observation post. It certainly fits the description of ramshackle. There's also a photo of a 420mm shell hitting the fort; which makes Weiss' courage and agility even more impressive.

 

If it were me I'd see the flash, make a run for it and not stop until I reached Bar-le-Duc.

 

Pete.

[Christina Holstein]

8 hours ago, Fattyowls said:

 

As a point and shoot sort of a person too I'm really impressed with that one; it has an otherworldly quality that seems to fit. It could be a still from a German Expressionist movie of the 20's. I've certainly never pointed and shot anything that good.

 

Pete.

You're too kind, Pete. It was accidental. I think I must have been wondering whether I could use it in my last book and so tried it in B & W. In the end, I didn't.

Christina

[Christina Holstein]

I've enjoyed the sunrise/sunset photos in this thread and I've got a bit of a thing about that time of day. This was the top of Ft. Douaumont at sunset in June some years ago. This is the 155mm gun turret.

And this is the northwestern machine gun turret which featured in another pic earlier in the thread.

[Christina Holstein]

Another of my favorites. The bump of trees covers Fort Souville and I took it from the top of Fort Vaux one December evening in 2001.

 

There had been forestry work and for the first time ever I could actually see how near Ft. Souville is to Ft. Vaux. It's only a couple of km in a straight line. It really made me think about observers in Ft. Souville straining their eyes for messages from Ft Vaux during the siege. So near and yet so far.

 

Christina

[Marilyne]

Thanks for all the info and the pics Christina!! I like the one of Tavannes!! 

It's been too long since I was in Verdun... that's one of the next destinations with Boyfriend!! 

 

M.

[Christina Holstein]

Glad you like them, Marilyne. You'll find things changed now. A plague of Bark Beetle has been killing the spruce trees and they're being felled. As there are whole blocks of spruce, it means forested areas are suddenly bare. That can mean that views reappear that have been lost for years but it also means, unfortunately, that sites will be damaged. This is what it does to the spruces. The beetles get under the bark and eat away and in the end the bark falls off. Before that, the needles turn brown and fall off. Last September I was walking through needles falling like rain. 

Later the trees look like this and then they start to fall.

[Christina Holstein]

Some really popular sites are quite changed. This is the approach road to the memorial on Cote 304. It used to be a long avenue of pines.

The memorial is now on a cleared  hilltop.