Rhodes5 in Deutschland: Bastogne. Belgium

When you live so close to such beautiful countries, sometimes it is hard to decide where you want to go. It is especially hard for us now with school schedules (and time constraints). While most people would not put Bastogne, Belgium on the top of their Christmas travel wish list (certainly skiing in the Alps or basking in the sun in Southern Italy sounds a bit more fun), I felt it would be a huge disservice to not experience and visit some of the famous World War 2 Historical sights while living over here. We decided to go to Bastogne, Belgium for the 70th anniversary of "The Battle of the Bulge." The Battle of the Bulge was the last big German offensive of the War, as they tried to surprise the Allied forces in the Ardennes Forest on the Western Front. If you know the series "The Band of Brothers" - this is one of the places they fought. 70 years ago, during this battle - the soldiers fought in snow, and for us it was quite fitting to be visiting when there was lots of snow too. You can't even imagine how horrible it must have been for those guys. The battle began on Dec. 16, 1944, and lasted until Jan. 25, 1945. It was the largest Battle (and one of the bloodiest) for the U.S. in World War 2, and over 19,000 American Soldiers lost their lives here. Many are buried in the cemetery in Lorraine, France. Over 15,000 German Soldiers were killed there as well. Unbelievably humbling. It was a huge win for the Allied forces and the people of Bastogne will forever be grateful to the Americans. It was really amazing to be there and ponder what happened in this little region 70 years earlier. There is an incredible brand new War Museum too (which I will post more about on the next page). Unbelievable to think that throughout the world, more than 50 million people were killed during World War 2. Definitely important History, not to be forgotten.

The drive was slow going, but you really could imagine the soldiers having to go by foot in the area...

...and of course lots of villages in the area....

yes - the roads were not the greatest :-) I don't know French, but I recognized the word "Risque" :-)

"All roads lead to Bastogne"

There is a vistors center in the center of Bastogne - and lots of tanks still around...

I think as a 14 year old boy - Camden was especially interested...

A statue Bust of General Mcauliffe - When the Germans asked if the Allies want to surrender, he so famously replied with the words - "NUTS" (meaning - you are nuts, if you think we are going to surrender)

And in the town square is a restaurant called - Le Nut's - after Mcauliffe's famous quote :-)

You can imagine that the town probably looked similar to this 70 years ago - not much has changed in 70 years...

I wonder what role this tower played back then?

There is a beautiful Memorial that was recently built... You can climb to the top.

On the sides of the monument, it lists all 50 states of America -which is funny, because a couple of the states didn't even exist during the war :-)

Here - you can see South Carolina...

Camden at the top - scraping off the monument that shows the foot path of the different units...

Looking over the battle fields (on a clear day, you can see for miles, but this fog and snow was much more similar to the what the soldiers would have had to experience..