Gathering across the miles: Henri-Chapelle

I saw the other day that my claims to take pictures at Henri-Chapelle had expired. This spurred me on to actually get out of my funk of the last week or so, and get to "work". The weather forecast for Monday was nice, so I dressed accordingly, brought 2 bottles of water and some snacks and made sure my tank was full, because between navigation on my phone, it's understanding of backroads (most of the time it sends me the scenic route aka over hell and high water), and my patience with either is not conducive to short trips, even if the inital trip should only take 30 minutes :-) but I digress.....

As always, the peacefull quiet was welcome and after just sitting for a little bit, and being told that the parking lot was for visitors only, I figured I better hop to it. The first part went swimmingly. Section C, E and F got done pretty quickly. There weren't very many in those sections :-) Section H was were the fun started.... For some reason, my camera's battery went empty in no time (and I had forgotten my powerbank) I ran the car for a bit, but thought that was kindof silly, so I switched to my old little Panasonic. It's was giving me problems (after 10 short years!) and that's why Mike bought me the current one about 4 years ago, but I figured I could try..... Well, I went thru 3 batteries on it, and the last one gave up right after the last picture I needed, and before I could get a nice shot of Section F.

When I got home, I realized that all the pictures taken with the little one, were no good. I knew the sensor was going out, giving some really wonky effects on pictures, which made me giggle most of the time, but I hadn't been aware that it didn't focus right, so instead of seeing a little bit of the markers around the main one, they were all blurry, so I retook those today.

Monday I had seen flowers at the graves of 2 brothers, buried side by side, and I hoped they would be still there, as the cenotaph mentioned the sad line at the bottom of the marker that the boys are buried in foreign soil, as if that meant they were forgotten....

I know that in Margraten, all the graves have been adopted and there is a sizeable waitinglist, but a lot of the families transfer the adoption to their children. I was there a couple of years ago, and this grandfather was telling his grandson all about the soldier they were there to see, how to make sure the grass around the base of the cross was clear, and to wipe down the marker if needed. He went on to tell the story of how the cemetery came to be, and why it was important to remember and care for "their" American. The little boy was paying attention, and told his grandpa very earnestly that, yes, he would take care of their soldier, just like greatgrandpa, grandpa, and his dad had done. It gave me chills, and I had to walk away before I just went over there and hugged the both of them. (The Dutch are not into hugs from strangers, so it was better that way)

Having been going to Henri Chapelle more frequently the last year or so, I noticed that the policy for leaving flowers is a little more relaxed, and you can see flowers at various gravesites throughout the year, not just around Memorial Day. It is very nice to see, and I would like to find a way to let families know that their kin is not forgotten by the people they helped liberate, and their sacrifice is not going unappreciated, so if I see that there are flowers at a marker, I take a picture and post it to their memorial, even if there is already one there.

I got all but 6 of the Unknown markers photographed, and I have about 5 to sort out, because in Section H, as in Section G the markers on the end of the rows are all unknown, so if you look down, that's all you see. It's a staggering sight.