{"id":461,"date":"2006-08-06T11:12:50","date_gmt":"2006-08-06T18:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/06\/a-visit-to-verdun-france\/"},"modified":"2006-08-06T11:12:50","modified_gmt":"2006-08-06T18:12:50","slug":"a-visit-to-verdun-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/461","title":{"rendered":"A Visit to Verdun, France"},"content":{"rendered":"

John Jwanauski served in the U.S. Army in World War I .\u00a0 He was stationed in the G\u00e9rardmer Sector, Vosges, France and\u00c2\u00a0was deployed\u00c2\u00a0in the Meuse Argonne Offensive, the battle that led to Germany’s signing of the Armistice on November 11, 1918 .\u00a0 Today, November 11 is celebrated in the United States as Veteran’s Day and in Canada as Remembrance Day.<\/p>\n

Several years ago\u00c2\u00a0I traveled to France\u00c2\u00a0and visited\u00c2\u00a0Verdun, site of one of the worst battles of World War I .\u00a0 Verdun is located not far from the location of the Meuse Argonne Offensive that ended the war with Germany .\u00a0 The treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, and the final peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire (today known as the Republic of Turkey) was signed at Lausanne on July 24, 1923.<\/p>\n

\"Bunkers\"<\/a><\/p>\n

World War I Bunkers at Verdun
\nPhotograph copyright 2001 by Lewis Michaels, used with permission<\/em><\/p>\n

The trip was an adventure, not only because\u00c2\u00a0it was my first trip to\u00c2\u00a0France, but because I flew there shortly after the terrorist attacks on America .\u00a0 My flight to Paris\u00c2\u00a0was cancelled and I had to book a flight on another airline .\u00a0 While in Europe, SwissAir went bankrupt, and again my flight was cancelled .\u00a0 Then, the day before I was to return home, the United States invaded Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

\"Bunkers<\/a><\/p>\n

Bunkers and Barbed Wire at Verdun
\nPhotograph copyright 2001 by Lewis Michaels, used with permission<\/em><\/p>\n

I toured France with Lewis Michaels, a colleague from work .\u00a0 Lewis served as my tour guide and interpreter in France and arranged for us to visit Verdun .\u00a0 I was completely unprepared for what I saw there .\u00a0 The Battle of Verdun lasted from February 21, 1916 to December 1916 .\u00a0 During that time 26,000,000 bombs were dropped on the area, and at the end of the battle, 300,000 French and German soldiers were missing.<\/p>\n

\"Graves<\/a><\/p>\n

Steve\u00c2\u00a0in the Douaumont Cemetery
\nPhotograph copyright 2001 by Lewis Michaels, used with permission<\/em><\/p>\n

Much of the area is maintained as a memorial to the battle .\u00a0 Craters where the bombs fell are still in evidence .\u00a0 Unexploded shells are still found in the woods surrounding the area .\u00a0 The Douaumont Ossuary and Cemetery<\/a> was constructed as the final resting place of those French and German soldiers killed in the battle, with the remains of those who could not be identified\u00c2\u00a0interred in the Ossuary.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a><\/p>\n

The Douaumont Ossuary
\nPhotograph copyright 2001 by Lewis Michaels, used with permission<\/em><\/p>\n

Tomorrow:\u00a0 Searching for John Jwanauski in the Ellis Island Records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

John Jwanauski served in the U.S. Army in World War I .\u00a0 He was stationed in the G\u00e9rardmer Sector, Vosges, France and\u00c2\u00a0was deployed\u00c2\u00a0in the Meuse Argonne Offensive, the battle that led to Germany’s signing of the Armistice on November 11, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-journal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pyBfX-7r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}