Epic Trip Part 1 of 3

Pill Box outside of Jebsheim, France. Originally part of the Maginot Line but became part of the German defensive ring around the town of Jebsheim.

The Mill near Jebsheim and location of fierce fighting in late January 1944, many men from the free French and American 63rd division lost their lives taking this location.

Memorial to Peace outside of Jebsheim at the Mill.

Memorial near the summit of hill 216 outside of Colmar, France. Germany can be seen on the horizon and the Rhine valley below.

Isenheim Altarpiece, Unterlinden Museum, Colmar France

Cathedral, Colmar France

Colmar with Bartholdi statue (man who created the Statue of Liberty)

Colmar at night with its half timbered houses and canal.

Little Venice, Comar France

Alasatian Dancers, Colmar

I have to deviate my usual topics of large cameras and photography that involves drysuits for the next week or so. Just over a year ago I experienced the best decision of my life and married my fiance Holly after almost 6 years of being together. Just a typical story of boy meets girl in Antarctica, moves to Alaska opens a photography business.......well maybe not typical but what can you do. We decided to add another chapter to our standard relationship and take an epic journey to France to celebrate our one year anniversary. This leads us to section 1 of our journey around the country that helped spawn the birth of our great nation. We flew from Anchorage, Alaska to Frankfurt, Germany then took trains to the small town of Colmar, France. This gem of a town largely escaped WWII intact but the towns around it suffered greatly and this is what brought us here.

Colmar held a place of legend for everyone in my family; for our family patriarch Les Hayes had become Sgt. Hayes in this fabled place of brutality and suffering. I grew up on the stories of what life was like for a young man in 1944 France when tasked with ending the German reign. It was not the Alsace that my wife and I enjoyed, but yet it was. This land has changed hands numerous times in the last 100 hundred years and the memorials testify to those young men lost in the last two great wars. For all the horror this land has seen it is one of most beautiful spots on earth I have ever been to. It was hard to reconcile my grandfather's stories of bloodshed and sacrifice in January of 1944 with the land that was before us. The pill boxes that exacted a heavy toll and the high ground that was fought for inch by frozen inch was still there but yet not. The memorials stand tall to those that sacrificed so much, and I guess that people today enjoy freedom is testimony enough to what was fought for. A free French flag flies high and proud over Alsace and the fabled 63rd division logo still resides on those hallowed grounds.

My grandfather told me a story of his time in combat in Jebsheim that will always remain with me and I feel it should be passed on. He was part of a scouting party of 11 men sent in to reconnoiter the village and report on enemy activity. They approached the town from one of the low lying areas around it through some frozen swamp with cover of grass and reeds. They were crawling along in the snow when the man in front of him stopped abruptly. Les (my grandfather) hit him in the boot and said "Hey we gotta move or someone is going to spot us" and received no response. He crawled up next to him and saw he was shot between the eyes. Upon seeing this he crawled to the next man in line and was likewise dead from a head wound, and the man in front of him. My grandfather quickly crawled back to find the next 5 men behind him in line were killed by a sniper. Out of 11 men 3 were still alive including Les, and no one had heard a shot or seen anything. He made the call to run back to the American lines and abort the recon mission. Upon getting back to the American lines he reported what happened and was asked where he thought the sniper might be, he scanned the area in front of their position and decided that the only spot was a hay mound above where they had been. Artillery was called in on the position and after the barrage another scouting party was sent out. Les went out again to check his call, he was right, the sniper had been in the hay mound. Later that day he took off his ruck sack and found seven bullet holes in his wool blanket that was between his back and his rucksack. Within one inch of his body he had been missed when those around him had been killed. He had many more stories but this one sticks with me constantly, he even went on to win the bronze star for participating in the rescue of three wounded GI's that were between the German and American lines. Why he lived and those in his party didn't is nothing that can be answered.

We must never forget what was required of ordinary men and women to overcome evil. Thank you to the men of the 63rd division and every Allied force and Resistance fighter the world over.