>>27730067My pick would be one of the many battles for Ieper.
My grand parents live on the edges of Zonnebeke which was front terrain during the war.
The entire community was flattened, a hill moved about 15 meters from the constant pounding it got from the heavy guns.
The soil still contains traces of various gases that they used.
Various farm machinery is still lost every year due to un exploded shells being hit. Heck two years ago a few poles died on a construction site because they didn't know not to handle old munitions roughly.
But now some personal touches. When they dough the foundation for my great grand fathers house they found 4 stiffes, or at least parts of them. When they dough the foundation for my grand parents home they found 2. And during the construction of my aunts house they still found and upper arm and hand.
My dad made money as a kid collecting various metal bits like shrapnel and selling it to the iron monger. He hused to collect several kilos a day in the late 60ies. He played in woods some times finding human remains brought up by the roots and frost. His school was evacuated when a shell exploded a few blocks away, it was a mustardgass dud.
I can't even start to dream off what the poor sods fighting there must have gone trough.
But every time I visit my grand parents I take a long look from their front door, look down in a little valley where thousands died and the actions they died in aren't even named. Not even worth mentioning in the dispatches of the great battles. All to get to where my grandmothers comfy chair is.
heck I can't even drive to their home without passing at least two military cemetaries.
