It was long planned, my closest friend, Tony (another Brit, became an American, married an American) lost two uncles and we have been planning this for almost 10 years. It turns out that Jody's grandfather fought with the AEF and when she and I met, she wanted in. Tony said "Ok, but no shopping." and thus it was. It turns out that Larry (Jody's grandfather) fought in 1918 with the Australian 2nd Division (Monash's guys) who were attached to the British IV army on the Somme. He fought with that contingent to take back the ground that my great-uncle gave his life defending in 1916. Tony and I found each of our relatives - in my case the grave and in Tony's one grave and one memorial for one uncle.
We attended the Last Post (think Taps for the US contingent) ceremony (they perform that every night) at the Menin Gate in Ypres on the evening of the 10th and then the memorial at 11am on the 11th, again at the Menin Gate. It was very moving.
We then headed to the Meuse Argonne (after which the national lab is named) where the AEF 33rd division formed part of Pershing's army from September 1918. We knew where Larry and the 123rd Machine Gun Battalion were every day of their deployment and I loaded maps online (using our GIGAmacro Viewer) and then marked them up with all locations and actions, so we had a specific set of places that we wanted to see and visit. [As an aside, if anyone had relatives in WW1 all the major action maps for each Diviion are online and you can consult / mark them up if so desired]. We used a military historian and guide who happened to be in France and knows the area well. In M-A many of the sites of battle are untouched even to this day, so we walked ( particularly on the heights of the Meuse) down the paths that the 33rd advanced down, and stood in the foxholes that they captured, checked out the bunkers and the defence and communications trenches.
In another of those small world things that happen, we met via the Facebook page for M-A, a man who talked about his father serving with the 33rd. I questioned that and when we met months later it turned out that it was indeed his father, he - Ed - being 'a very late surprise'. The small world stuff is that his dad and Larry were not only in the same battalion, but actually fought many of the same actions, Larry as a machine gunner in the 123rd and Ed's dad with the 129th Infrantry. We did a lot of reaserach and discussion to ensure that our differing locations for some actions were resolved, and so he wlaked the same ground in October to see where his father fought.
WW1 is huge in Europe but seems poorly commemorated in the US: that's a shame as many of the names we are so familiar with and shaped our contry were there: Harry Truman, MacArthur, Patton, and of course Pershing.
I gues that now that we have completed most of that I can start with my workshop, 3d printer, home automation, R Pis and anything I may be able to blow up.
Cheers
Graham
thats probably my next buy, but no one offers it yet, lets face it, type C is mainstream and common now on PC, mac, laptops, and phones. no usb 2.0 or 3.0 dragonfly copy, give me straight up type C direct plugin portable dac/amp for phones, and I will throw my money at you.
