Today we went on a group field trip to Fort Hackenberg and the second largest American WWII cemetery.
Fort Hackenberg is the largest fort on the Maginot Line which stretches from Belgium to Italy. It has 19 blocks which house ammunition, kitchens, barracks, etc. The deepest point is 96 m underground. Fun fact about the barracks: there are 3 men per bed. While 1 man was sleeping the other 2 were working and they took 8 hour rotational sleeping shifts!
The fort entrance
This is the magazine where they store ammunition. This magazine is the largest in the Maginot line. The trains used to carry stuff were gas up until a certain point and then switched to electric. However neither could be used in the magazine around such highly explosive material. Also, the trains were electric because the fort is 6 miles long and they wanted to be able to transport throughout it during time of war so they needed the fort and trains to be self-sufficient.
This (if you rotate your head to the left) is the anti-explosion door. It's extremely thick and was guarded at all times. There was a small cave/door on either side for the guard to get to the other side quickly. It is slightly distorted because of an explosion -- story to follow later!
Power room! Each color means something different (oil, etc.)
Just a lovely family stroll with our gas masks. Note the tube running from the Mom's "purse" to the stroller...
This is the above ground view of the turret. It is a huge gun that weighs 19 tons and rotates 360 degrees. It has a 5.6 km range. It has 2 positions down (eclipsed) or up (in battery). It works on either electricity or a lever. When the shot has been fired, the empty shell travels down a slide inside the turret to the gallery level.
(rotate to the right) This is the wall outside block 8.
In 1944, General Patton and the US Army came to help take Metz back from Germany. When they approached the fort, there were Germans in the observatory so they saw the US Army coming and used one of the 3 75 mm guns in block 8 to ward off the Americans. Since the guns have a 10 km range, the Americans couldn't do much damage from that far away so they approached from a different angle. The US Army destroyed block 8 and the Germans surrendered. Once they surrendered they tried to blow up their ammunition stored in magazine 3 to destroy the fort. The design of the magazine is to send the impact of the blast out into the hallway to the entrance. However the door to the entrance was closed so the blast shot back down the hallway to the anti-explosion door (pictured earlier). The impact of the explosion caused the door (open at the time) to slam shut which is why it's slightly distorted in shape. So in an attempt to destroy the fort, the Germans closed the anti-explosion door and contained the explosion in that hallway. Effectively protecting the fort instead of destroying it.
Next we went to the second largest American WWII Cemetery in Europe -- the Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial. Originally during the war there were approximately 5 temporary cemeteries in the area. The 28,000 bodies were transported from these temporary locations to the St. Avold cemetery in 1946 and 1947 where they were identified. The families were notified and chose to either repatriate the bodies or have them buried in the cemetery. The cemetery contains 10,849 graves. Including 4 medal of honor recipients. The cemetery also contains 11 women serving as nurses during the war. It also has the grave of the cartoonist of Popeye, Superman, and Betty Boop -- Willard Bowsky
The cemetery
There is no order to the graves based on rank or anything. The only strategic placing was for 30 sets of brothers who are buried side by side.
Andrew Miller - a medal of honor recipient. Among other things, he ordered his unit to remain undercover and entered a building alone armed only with a bayonet where he convinced 5 Germans to surrender.
One of the medal of honor recipients was for a fine young man who served in the 761 Battalion. This was a group of primarily African-American soldiers who at the time were not permitted by federal law to serve alongside white soldiers. He died in 1944 and his family wasn't given his medal of honor until the 1990's. I'm glad he finally was given the recognition he deserved.
Something that I found interesting was a story about the 5 Sullivan brothers. All 5 brothers enlisted in the Navy together and served on the same ship. This ship was sunk in the South Pacific and all five brothers were lost. As a result, brothers were no longer allowed to serve in the same unit. Also, if all brothers passed and there was only one left serving -- he had to be saved and sent home alive.
Remind you of the plot to Saving Private Ryan? That's because it's a fictional story based on a real concept!
In the cemetery, one of the medal of honor recipients was shot down in his plane accidentally by Americans on a foggy day. When his brother was found and told to go home, he replied, "my brother is my hero and I'm staying" -- so he did. He passed nearly 4 months later. They are buried side by side in the cemetery.
Grave of the unknown solider. There were approximately 150 bodies with no names. And approximately 440 names with no bodies.
Grave of an unknown soldier. It reads:
"Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God"
We had a phenomenal tour guide who was a great speaker. She said something about the unknown solider that really struck me: "An unknown solider is someone who came to fight like everyone else but he lost more than his life; he lost his identity."
Today was an extremely educational and valuable experience. It was great to see the forts and efforts of the war followed by the somber experience of the cemetery.
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