First Battlefield

[johan_steele]

Gettysburg didn't do it for me. Shiloh and Chickamauga though were positively stunning in comparison. The rampant commercialism hasn't invaded either place and they look very similar to how they looked when all hell was breaking loose.

Standing at the edge of Kelly field was both invigorating and sobering. It really isn't that big of a place. And walking to the top of Snodgrass hill, it's easy to understand the why & how Thomas became the Rock. And the tradition of American soldiers (taking or holding)saying "My Hill!"

I remember reading that one of Longstreets Colonels, a man who had been in the thick of it at Gettysburg, said: "Chickamauga made Gettysburg look like a church social." Of course my favorite: "What the hell kind of yanks are these; they don't break worth a ****!"

Shiloh... the size of it baffles me, so many men in an area so small, the Hornests nest, bloody pond and the peach orchard. All places I had read about but to walk them was to bring them to life... to the point that there is a set of letters in my Historical Society I cannot read. I've walked the ground the young man watched his battery get torn up on.

Vicksburg... I was reminded of a Bill Mauldin Willie & Joe cartoon. "My God we was down there and they was up here!" The NPS does a superb job w/ their Living Historians on site and the Park Rangers know their stuff. Even w/ what's left it's easy to see just how brutal that seige was.

All the battlefields I have visited gave me an appreciation of the soldiers maxim: Our job is to chase em till we ketch em then whup em till they run again.

Little Big Horn... a fascinating place and i was lucky enough to have one of the areas foremost experts on the battle give me a personal guided tour.

[M E Wolf]

Dear ole and List Members,

My first visit to any Civil War site was at Fairfax Court House, Fairfax, Virginia in my youth. On June 1, 1861 There was a skirmish to which the first Confederate officer was killed in battle--Captain John Quincy Marr.
The first Confederate private wounded and captured was on May 27, 1861 of Private Peyton Anderson (CSA) where Fairfax Circle is today. Visited in 1961.

The first visit to a recognized battlefield was Bull Run/Manassas Battlefield.
Two battles were fought in the area. Visited in 1961. My father was a railroad buff so we did spend many hours on the railroad right-of-way. I also visited these battle grounds on horseback as well as with a horse drawn wagon.

Sincerely,
M. E. Wolf

[Blockaderunner]

Ole,

Arnhem is well worth a visit. The Hartenstein Hotel, which was Models HQ then Urquarts HQ is the battlefield museum. The bridge is named the John Frost bridge. If you have seen A Bridge Too Far, you will remember he was played by Hannibal Lector. I never got to Nijmegen, but I believe there is a US Airborne museum there. If you are ever in the Low countries, there is also a Battle of the Bulge museum in Bastogne. Nuts.

[william42]

Blockade: I have seen "A Bridge Too Far" more times than I can count. I think it's one of the best WWII movies ever made. It chronicles the vast efforts and planning made by the allies for "Market-Garden" and then proceeds to show to the audience how, in spite of the very best well-laid plans, things can fall apart. It's an honest movie, which details the many 'little" things that went wrong to defeat the largest allied airborne assault of the war, up to that point. I don't think it did that well at the box office because, generally, folks don't like to see their team being defeated, especially in war. Nevertheless I think it was time well spent watching the movie.

I don't know if Anthony Hopkins (Lt. Col Frost) won an Oscar for his part as the British Commander in Nijmegen, but he should have.. The end, when he and whoever was left of his division were waiting to surrender to the Germans in the devastated Arnhem rubble, was especially painful to watch. German general Bittrich (Maximllian Schell) offers a tired, hungry, exhausted Col. Frost a bar of English chocolate that was dropped by air, erroneously, to the Germans.

Unforgettable.

Terry

[ole]

Guess I'm going to have to obtain a copy of "A Bridge Too Far." Have the book, I think, but don't have the movie.

Once worked with a man who had jumped with the 101st in Operation Market Garden. He had also jumped in on the initial Operation Overlord. Lordy! The stories that man could tell!

Unfortunately, he didn't have many nice things to say about the Brits. I'd guess that might be be expected from a guy who saw things from where he landed.

ole

[Parault]

Vicksburg when I was but a young lad in the early 70's.

[Blockaderunner]

Hard to see how they could lose when they had a team including: The Jackal, 007, Popeye Doyle and Hannibal Lector. The museum in the Hartenstein Hotel has some fantastic exhibits. One of the most interesting is a piece of wallpaper salvaged from a wrecked house. Two British snipers had been keeping score, marking up a swastika for every hit. There is also a Vickers machine gun found in a ditch as recently as the late 70's.
The British Airborne division troops also had very few good things to say about the RAF and XXX Corps.

[Blockaderunner]

Just as an aside. If you ever see the 1970's British TV series The World at War. There is an interview with General Horrocks. Horrocks was played by Edward Fox. The resemblance is uncanny. Especially in the mannerisms. "..and we my friends are the cavalry! Coming to the rescue!"

[william42]

That was a great line by Fox, delivered on stage in front of a huge map of Holland in front of an audience of all the allied brass.

I don't have the movie because I didn't want it to lose its luster, so to speak. Movies that I like that I have purchased lose their appeal. They're here all the time. I know I can watch them anytime, and for some reason they sort of lose their luster, and I end up not watching them. That sounds strange I know. I always watch "Bridge" when it's on cable uninterrupted by commercials or "time and content" editing. I hate that.

A couple of lines I remember: Gene Hackman(Maj. General Stanislaw F. Sosabowski, as the Polish commander, disagreeing totally with the plan of action put forth and ordered by Monty, is over the drop zone at night in the drop plane watching his men drop out, off the static line. His turn comes; he looks up, pauses, sighs heavily, then utters: "God Bless Field Marshall Montgomery", then jumps.

Lt. Col Frost (Hopkins) and his men entering Arnhem quietly, quickly, making their way towards a building with a good view of the bridge and the river. They come across a three story residence which they need. Frost knocks on the door. The son of the elderly woman who resides there answers. Frosts says, in his King's English: "Look here I'm terribly sorry but I'm afraid we're going to have to occupy your house." The troops in the house, most of them, and the old woman would die soon. The beautiful, well-tended stone would be reduced to rubble.


Dirk Bogarde,(Lt. General Browning) the English commander directly under Montgomery, says after it's all over to Sean Connery, who is Maj Gen. Robert Urquhart (Roy):Well, as you know, I've always thought that we tried to go a bridge too far."


The names I had to go back to the internet for, but the lines are from memory and may not be quite verbatim in the movie. Below is a link to the trailer.


http://imdb.com/title/tt0075784/trailers-screenplay-E14319-310

[Blockaderunner]

Another classic line

"Those are British troops being massacred in Arnhem! You can't just stop now..and..drink tea!!"