My father was sent to Belgium at the end of WW 2, a few months before the end that is. He was there for a time period to acclimate before he was sent into the Battle of the Bulge. Even though there was success in the war or it seemed to be, they brought in fresh troops to add to the numbers or replace all of the thousands of dead. The invasion into Germany was at hand also so they needed to strengthen their ranks.
Before going into battle, he and a couple buddies took the weekend and played tourist. It was ironic as what my dad was about to go into was the very opposite to a vacation.
My dad had sent pictures home to my mom, continually, with his daily letter, and I finally found my CD of over 130 scanned pictures of these photos. I still have the photos, lost their scanned images on a computer repair. My son had a copy, and I didn't want to rescan them again. I was on the search and my wife finally found my son's CD of my original scan.
As a tourists, and being that France was so close, they crossed over the Belgium border and visited Paris. This is a photo of Nortre Dame, compliments of Photoshop, which help me resurrect back to it's original form. The photo is blurry at the bottom but you can see a woman walking along the street to get an idea of the actual scale of the building. It is a beautiful church. Do click on the photo above and see the detailing of this building and the statue too.
My Paris friend blogger, Claude, was asking if I had my dates correct, and I didn't, as I found his first letter home, dated February 1, 1945, that was the day he had arrived in Belgium. I assume this photo was taken in February, 1945. He apparently arrived after the major part of the Bulge battles but soon enough to get into the gruesome invasion into Germany.
Ballpoint pens either had not been invented yet or my dad didn't have one. Can you imagine them carrying bottled ink and pen with them? All of the pictures he had sent home were written on the back with fountain pen.
I am participating with a group originating from England, that is jointly doing Sepia Saturday.
Click here to go to the blog to find other SEPIA SATURDAY PHOTOS. Kat is from Canada an is monitoring the post for a few weeks. Thanks Kat for helping us out.
12 comments:
Amazing photos!
Ironically, my husband's dad was also at the Battle of the Bulge AND also went to Belgium.
We had a Belgian exchange student and he spoke with her about the places he went and she lived...
Wonderful post, Larry. My dad was in the British Army, but was too young to see active duty in WWII.
He took our family to Europe in 1977 and we toured major battlesites including Bastogne, the location of the Battle of the Bulge.
I'm happy to be of help to this great blogging feature.
Wow...really amazing story and photo, too! I'm glad you mentioned the woman walking on the side...I would have missed her and she is key to knowing the scale of the building. Just lovely!
At that time all the buildings and monuments of Paris were durty and almost black. Some years later our culture minister wanted to clean Paris and now Notre-Dame is very beautiful.
I love so much when you write about your father during the last WW II.
I really enjoyed this Larry. You must have breathed a huge sigh of relief when that CD turned up! Hope we get to see more from that collection.
Wonderful post Larry. I enlarged the photo and that really changes your sense of scale. It all makes me want to go rummaging through my parents old photo albums.
This is a fabulous photo, Larry. What a family treasure. I'll be looking forward to seeing more of your dad's wonderful snaps. Glad you found the CD!
Wonderful photo - finding beauty at a time like that just goes to show you there is always hope.
Gees, I'd never thought about having to actually carry pen and ink in life before ballpoint pens. Duh. Lovely photo and enjoyed your story!
I loved this post, and in fact just called my husband over to read it and look at the amazing photo. Thanks for posting it!
and do you have all the letters too? how wonderful - this is a great post.
No, I'd never thought before about the pen and ink - quite a thought
Hello! Thanks for stopping by my blog! Great older photo of the cathedral, but the back story is even better. My father was in Europe during WWII as well. I need to dig into those photos! I have also visited your "creative" zone and love the wintry scenes. Your little bulldogs look like the ceramics done by Wade who make the figurines found in Red Rose Tea. Do they have any marks or makers stamped on them? Good luck finding the missing family members.
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