I haven.t read about Vimy eidge yet. Dare I ask what happen to the Canadians when they did assault it.
It is amazing how much of a mess the areas became, deciphering the photos must have been one hell of a job.
Thx for sharing it, Barry. Like a lunar landscape.
Attilio
What gets me is the work that must have had to be done after the war in destroying (as much as possible) the vast ammounts of unexploded ordinance!
Lots is still there, from both wars. Heck, their still finding unexploded shells at US Civil War sites. And sometime in the early 90s, a fishing boat sank on the East Coast because their net hauled up a WW2 torpedo.
Karl
It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows. -- Epictetus
But did they? I kind of get the impression that what happened was that once the war was over the various armies just filled in a few dugouts then cleared off home.
Leaving the locals to clear up as best they could, apparently people are STILL turning up unexploded ordinance from WWI battlefields on such a regular basis that it hardly ever gets remarked upon in France or Belgium.
When I visited Vimy last year, they have specifically marked trails that have been cleared of UXO that you are allowed to walk on. It seemed like the standard for most of the WW1 sites that haven't been developed.
Also, since they cannot get lawn mowers and such onto much of the grounds, they let sheep graze on the grass to keep in in check.
As a matter of fact we have an entire military organisation that has a full-time job clearing ordnance that still turns up on a regular basis. There's a lot of ammo left from WWII but in the fields around Ypres and such WWI ammunition still frequently turns up when farmers plough there fields. The people there are so used to it that they instinctively do the right thing:stop all work and run away to call DOVO ( cfr military organisation )
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