Normandy photos, was I there?

[Runyan99]

I took the following photo when visiting Normandy in approximately 2003. I was seeking the field where the 2/155th was famously ambushed on I think June 10 around Le Carrefour. I took some considerable time in locating this particular field.

Years later, I found this spooky photo online. There wasn't much description, but it seems to tell of some kind of American disaster, and looks like the same field. Only a couple trees look different some 60 years later.

Am I crazy, or did I nail the field, and take the exact same photo decades later. It was just off a dirt road, at a convenient spot to duck over into the field and snap a photo.

[Michael Emrys]

Looks close. I think the original pic was taken with a longer lens and that changes the look of it. Plus trees grown or cut down makes comparisons hard after 60 years.

BTW, I've seen another photo somewhere that must have been taken earlier because in it the bodies are still in place.

Michael

[gunnergoz]

Many - if not most - of those helmets are German, either regular or para.

I'll bet that reflects where, at some point, they collected POW's and divested them of their weapons and helmets. They are almost lined up as where their guards might have had them form lines to be marched to the POW collection cage and had them drop their helmets where they stood. The litter on the ground is also reminiscent of what's left over after you rifle through prisoner's pockets and toss out anything you don't want them to have and that you don't plan to keep.

[Mord]

That's at LEAST twenty thousand dollars worth of helmets on Ebay...

Cool pics, Runyan.

Mord.

[Michael Emrys]

Many - if not most - of those helmets are German, either regular or para.

Hmmm. I wondered about that. I trusted Runyan to have it right. I guess I should have known better.

Michael

[Speedy]

One flat field looks much like another, honestly there is no feature in those photos you could use to determine if they were the same.

[LemuelG]

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say no - your field is larger, and looking downhill, the war-time field is looking uphill.

But yeah, a field's a field, as they say somewhere. Maybe.

[George MC]

Using my navigation approach of verifying where you are by comparing four bits of info and making most of the contour/terrain info.

Doing that the main piece of info that does not tie is the lie of the ground. If you like rear centre in the modern shot there is slight rise in the ground before it drops down, the slightl swells again. The shape is like shallow wave. Look at the WWII shot and terrain is flatter but is also rise up impercetibly to the hedgerow. So nope I would say they are not the same field.

[daft]

Any links to info on what happened to the 2/155th? Don't recall this incident out of memory.

[Speedy]

Doing that the main piece of info that does not tie is the lie of the ground. If you like rear centre in the modern shot there is slight rise in the ground before it drops down, the slightl swells again. The shape is like shallow wave. Look at the WWII shot and terrain is flatter but is also rise up impercetibly to the hedgerow. So nope I would say they are not the same field.

Pretty hard to judge the actual lie of the ground when the photos are taken from such different heights though.

[Sergei]

I think the answer is obvious. In one picture there are helmets on the ground; in the other none. And in one picture there are haystacks; in the other none. Also in one photo you can see the sun through a cloud of dust; in the other there is a clear sky but no sun in sight.

In conclusion, I would say that it is not the same location.

[Roach]

That would be the 2/115 who were involved in the incident at Le Carrefour. There isn't really a lot of information about it on the web, almost none in fact - it seems to have been largely glossed over in the history books. It does get a mention in Glover Johns' Clay Pigeons and the 29th Div History - although the latter is simply a quote from Clay Pigeons - and that account has become the definitive one. I can’t remember if Joe Balkoski mentions it in his books but I'd be stunned and amazed if he doesn't; I just haven't read any of them for a ling time but it's got to be in Beyond the Beachhead.

Anyway…

Where it is mentioned (other than in the above), it's often referred to as an ambush but essentially, amid the general confusion and chaos, it was more a case of the 2/115 getting ahead of the German forces retreating from the invasion area so that when they holed up for the night at Le Carrefour they were suddenly surprised by a fairly large enemy force of mixed odd and sods (including some armour) heading south to a new defensive line, and coming right up behind them along pretty much the same route they had just travelled themselves. Initially, in the dark, they mistook the German activity (vehicle noises, etc.) behind them as being friendly forces.

In Clay Pigeons it states how the 2/115 made no defensive provisions at all when they halted because they were so exhausted but just went to sleep in the field - something that 2/115 vets hotly dispute - so that when the German force hit them they were totally unprepared and, essentially, they went to pieces and fled. Again, the 2/115 vets hotly dispute this and they put the exaggerated stories about the incident stemming from Gerhardt jumping to conclusions before he had all the facts.

The battalion became admittedly somewhat disorganised during the action but they certainly hadn’t fled en masse with their tales between their legs - if they had they wouldn’t have left the significant number of 'dead' pieces of German armour on the battlefield that they did. So not exactly the debacle that Gerhardt's immediate reaction indicated that it was. Not to mention that the battalion was back in the saddle the next day or there and thereabouts (with a new CO, the previous one having been killed in heroic circumstances during the battle).

Again, I have no links to the above but I do know that quite a few years back a lot of 2/115 vets at a 29th Convention got together and thrashed out the whole incident to put the record straight once and for all, having become just a little bit fed up with how the action had been depicted and perpetuated in various books and, naturally enough, how that reflected on them. I recall a 1/115 vet amongst a group we were ferrying around Normandy saying that he didn't mind missing the memorial ceremony at Le Carrefour because it was just a ceremony for a bunch of guys who went to sleep in a field! I think that it was that kind of reaction from their own contemporaries that made some of the 2nd battalion guys want to get the true story out there. In an attempt to get a balanced picture of the incident, there was also, I believe, a certain amount of research done regarding the composition of the German forces that attacked them; all the results were published in an article in the 29th Division Association newsletter some years ago And of course, naturally enough, now that I actually need it, I cannot find the beggar!

There ends my virtually monotonous monologue.

Meanwhile, back on topic, I don’t think it's the same field.

Now, back to lurking...

[Other Means]

I'd say no. The WWII field is flat while running to the right, with a slight dip towards the camera, while the modern is a low wave: high-low-high. The right hand side is actually higher than it looks but the grass grown on it hides it a bit but the back of the shot is overall below the height of the main field – you can't see the bottom of the trees or bushes.

Also in the WWII shot the tree line in a lot closer, more so than can be accounted for with a lens.

[daft]

That would be the 2/115 who were involved in the incident at Le Carrefour. There isn't really a lot of information about it on the web, almost none in fact - it seems to have been largely glossed over in the history books. It does get a mention in Glover Johns' Clay Pigeons and the 29th Div History - although the latter is simply a quote from Clay Pigeons - and that account has become the definitive one. I can’t remember if Joe Balkoski mentions it in his books but I'd be stunned and amazed if he doesn't; I just haven't read any of them for a ling time but it's got to be in Beyond the Beachhead.

Anyway…

Where it is mentioned (other than in the above), it's often referred to as an ambush but essentially, amid the general confusion and chaos, it was more a case of the 2/115 getting ahead of the German forces retreating from the invasion area so that when they holed up for the night at Le Carrefour they were suddenly surprised by a fairly large enemy force of mixed odd and sods (including some armour) heading south to a new defensive line, and coming right up behind them along pretty much the same route they had just travelled themselves. Initially, in the dark, they mistook the German activity (vehicle noises, etc.) behind them as being friendly forces.

In Clay Pigeons it states how the 2/115 made no defensive provisions at all when they halted because they were so exhausted but just went to sleep in the field - something that 2/115 vets hotly dispute - so that when the German force hit them they were totally unprepared and, essentially, they went to pieces and fled. Again, the 2/115 vets hotly dispute this and they put the exaggerated stories about the incident stemming from Gerhardt jumping to conclusions before he had all the facts.

The battalion became admittedly somewhat disorganised during the action but they certainly hadn’t fled en masse with their tales between their legs - if they had they wouldn’t have left the significant number of 'dead' pieces of German armour on the battlefield that they did. So not exactly the debacle that Gerhardt's immediate reaction indicated that it was. Not to mention that the battalion was back in the saddle the next day or there and thereabouts (with a new CO, the previous one having been killed in heroic circumstances during the battle).

Again, I have no links to the above but I do know that quite a few years back a lot of 2/115 vets at a 29th Convention got together and thrashed out the whole incident to put the record straight once and for all, having become just a little bit fed up with how the action had been depicted and perpetuated in various books and, naturally enough, how that reflected on them. I recall a 1/115 vet amongst a group we were ferrying around Normandy saying that he didn't mind missing the memorial ceremony at Le Carrefour because it was just a ceremony for a bunch of guys who went to sleep in a field! I think that it was that kind of reaction from their own contemporaries that made some of the 2nd battalion guys want to get the true story out there. In an attempt to get a balanced picture of the incident, there was also, I believe, a certain amount of research done regarding the composition of the German forces that attacked them; all the results were published in an article in the 29th Division Association newsletter some years ago And of course, naturally enough, now that I actually need it, I cannot find the beggar!

There ends my virtually monotonous monologue.

Meanwhile, back on topic, I don’t think it's the same field.

Now, back to lurking...

Awesome, many thanks! Need to get some more books from the looks of your overview... Too bad not many of the are available on the Kindle.

[Runyan99]

Chances are I guess that they are similar but different fields. I was struck by the similarity though, and only put the two photos together recently.

Here are three I know I got right, some photos from Lingevres.

[Runyan99]

[PLM2]

I found the photo after some google searching and it seems to say that those are disgarded German helmets left by retreating Germans during the Falaise pocket scenerio. True? I don't know.

[Pvt. Ryan]

I found the photo after some google searching and it seems to say that those are disgarded German helmets left by retreating Germans during the Falaise pocket scenerio. True? I don't know.

They weren't called scenarios in real life.

[MikeyD]

One of my favorite old magazines was "After The Battle." Shots just like that. A famous photo of blood-stained carnage beside another picture from the same angle of a modern ELF filling station & painted crosswalk where the smouldering Panther had been. I've got a large (and very expensive) book of Bulge battle then/now pictures just like that.

[JonS]

I like these ones. That is, I like the way these photos are composited.

http://boingboing.net/2009/01/29/contemporary-city-ph.html

[Agua]

Many - if not most - of those helmets are German, either regular or para.

I'll bet that reflects where, at some point, they collected POW's and divested them of their weapons and helmets. They are almost lined up as where their guards might have had them form lines to be marched to the POW collection cage and had them drop their helmets where they stood. The litter on the ground is also reminiscent of what's left over after you rifle through prisoner's pockets and toss out anything you don't want them to have and that you don't plan to keep.

I think you nailed it. Looks largely to be fmj helmets.