Heartbreak Crossroad - Battle of the Bulge

Top of an ammo crate

Ammo

Cal .45 shell

Ammo

M1 Garand clips with ammo, approx 100 pcs in total. Black tip on the bullet

Button of US battledress jacket and a toothbrush

Mortar shell tail fin

Approx 155 mm howitzer shell, at least a part of it

Memorial for a GI KIA found recently in the forest

Shovel blade

Part of a can

Lid of ammo crate

Button partially cleaned

Post for barbwire

German gasmask

Gasmask

Post for barbwire. It was screwed with the shovel like a corkscrew so that enemy forces couldn´t hear you hammering it in.

Hatchet

Tools. Used by pioneers.

Pliers and a nail

Tools

Barrel

German barrel, so called "Rollreifenfass". Used for fuel or water.

Tank track on Kall Trail

Tank track ( Sherman M4 )

US Radio

US Helmet

Package of US artillery ammo

Mortar round found in the woods

Probably of US origin.
Found in the forest of the Eifel ( Hürtgenwald ).

Live 81 mm mortar round

Remain of WW2 and the battle of Hürtgen Forest.

Mortar shell

A bunker

Another MG bunker

Another MG bunker, side facing the enemy

MG Bunker, back view

Map of the area. Every blue dot represents a bunker, a fortification or an MG nest

Artillery ammo recently found in the woods in April 2014 on Belgian Territory. Belgian bomb squad right after defusing the shells

Memorial

A memorial for a PFC Jahr. Killed in December and awarded the Silver Star posthum. In such a big battle in a great war individual fate is forgotten easily. But memorials like this always recall that every death is an individual tragedy, families that lost their father, brother, husband wahtever. Kinda makes me sad if you keep in mind that almost 40000 people died in this battle. Even more were severly wounded or are MIA. Ardennenoffensive and Hürtgenwald had a loss of more men in half a year than almost ten years of Vietnam War. That´s easily forgotten if you live in the States, but it´s really tangible if you live in the region the battles took place.

Stove

Improvised stove in a trench. Winter 1944/1945 was really hard. You can see the chimney right in the middle of the roots of the tree.

Batteries

Battery packs used by US Army

Ammo

Ammo and bullet

Scrap Metal 1

Scrap metal is to be found throughout the whole area. This is a german post for barb-wire

Scrap Metal 2

A flange or something. Maybe from a German Bunker nearby that´s been blown up.

Scrap Metal 3

I don´t have a clue.

Uniform

A rotten US battle dress from which I took the button. The M1 Garand clips were also lying in the same foxhole as well as the toothbrush. So you can assume that some GI probably died there which is kinda sad. If any personal items are found like a ring or a dog-tag they will be returned to the Volksbund with the exact position so its possible to probably return personal items to the families

Ammo

M1 Garand clip and a .50 cal bullet

Trench

A German Trench / Foxhole. You can still see the metal posts that were used for probably fixing pieces of log

Barbwire

German barbwire. The barbwire produced for Wehrmacht has almost three times as many spikes as the civil version used by farmers

Barb-wire post

This was called "Infanterie Hindernis mit aggressiver Spitze" ( sth. like Anti-infantry obstacle with aggressive tip )

Barb-wire post with bullet hole

They were used to fix barb-wire

Barb-wire post seen from the backside

You can see a bullet hole. According to its diameter I would guess it was a .50 cal round.