Crealde Christmas Party

Posted on by Thor

Returning from Europe, I was hoping to re-establish my courses at Crealde School of Art in Winter Park. The problem is that Crealde published a printed course brochure and submissions for the courses happened while I was away. My Urban Sketching Course was not in the printed brochure, so I would need to wait until the next brochure was printed. I filled out a revised course description last week to try and generate interest in the art of sketching on location. Instead of focusing on Urban Sketching, I decided to re frame the course focus more about Travel Sketching. My course will be offered again in the summer and fall.

At the Crealde Christmas Party, I got to meet the new Crealde Executive Director & CEO Emily Bourmas-Fry. She was wearing an adorable set of deer antlers. She was warm and inviting and made me feel right at home again. Jim Hobart the Crealde Photography Program Manager has been talking to me about mounting an exhibit of my series of WWII sketches that follow my father 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken through Europe in 1945. It has been 80 years since Germany surrendered to end WWII and I sketched every city where my father’s C-Company was encamped and fought in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany.

Towards the end of the series I started adding black and white paintings based on historic photos on top of my location sketches which show what the area looked like in 1945. I now have to go back over all the sketches I posted while I was traveling in Europe to add these black and white historical visual notes. Since history is repeating, I sometimes let modern history morph into the history of the 1945 atrocities. I plan to show the paintings by framing them in white shadow box frames and then having the black and white historical paintings elevated on the glass to show some parallax and separation of past and present.

In sketching the artists mingling, I noticed David Cumbie, the Sculpture Garden Curator & Sculpture Program Manager. I sketched at one of his welding workshops once and when I think of an artist who is completely committed to forwarding the Crealde art cause, I think of him. My course is offered on Sunday mornings and when I used to walk to my classroom, I always noticed David hard at work in the sculpture studio.

For over 3 months I have not interacted with people since I could not understand what they were saying. In some ways that is liberating. I would just assume they were complimenting my sketch, and I would say, Merci, Bedankt, Dank Je or Danke, My American roommate had suggested that I would meet the love of my life in Europe (Eat, Pray, Love style) but that was impossible since I could not understand any thread of conversation. I did not know any French, Flemish or Dutch. I was happy that my limited German was partly understood for the final months of the trip. One German female artist did invite me to her studio, but when we discussed meeting again, I had misunderstood what she said, and I went to the wrong place.

American party small talk therefore was not something I was prepared for at this Christmas party. I talked to a few people about the project I am working on, but when I discussed the German Stalag Forced labor camp that my father’s C-Company helped liberate, I could see people’s eyes glaze over. It seems discussing war atrocities tends to be a party conversation killer. I listened to one conversation, but it was all about commuting times and I lost interest and walked away. I wasn’t interested in loosening my inhibitions with drink, so after I sampled the food and desserts. I drifted off and made my way back to the home studio where I could settle in for a quiet night to write and sketch.

Back to the States

Posted on by Thor

The temperatures in Paris France were dropping fast. Even with gloves on, my sketches were getting a bit shaky.  I had to leave my hotel near the Eiffel Tower very early to meet my Uber driver for a ride to the airport. I had success navigating Paris with the Metro and considered taking it to the airport, but the maps were not super clear on which stop I needed at the end of the line. I also was concerned about possible wait times as I switched trains at several stations. I’m glad I took Uber because it gave me a chance to look at the landscape as we drove out of the city.

I was rather sad to leave Europe because I knew I would be returning to strip malls and a fascist government. I documented an World War from 80 years ago but war was most certainly likely to break out again. The American president considered himself a war time president during the worst of the pandemic. He will only truly feel masculine when he is using the military against Americans and against nations of his choosing.

I thought I was documenting the worst possible fascist regime by sketching WWII sites my father passed through and liberated in Germany, but Germany learned its lessons from America which has always been racist and had no problem putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps at the start of WWII. Germans put people who were not Aryan enough into concentration camps. America is now following suit by randomly picking up people off the streets who do not look American enough. Children are being used as  bait to seize and imprison parents in the detention centers.

It started to snow as we drove towards the Charles de Gaulle Airport. It was the first now I had seen in my three months sketching the movements through Europe of the 75th Infantry Division. I am sure my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken had visited Paris on leave from Camp Cleveland which he helped run. My father left Europe on about August 1, 1945, on a boat to America. He had been in Europe for 1 year, 3 months and 18 days. I originally wanted to stay in Europe sketching for the same duration, but the Schengen rule only allowed me 3 months to complete my sketch project. I had to rush through the 70 or so cities in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany at a much faster pace with my tiny French rental car.

You can tell a lot about a country by how people drive. Driving in Paris was of course hectic, but country driving was a delight. Belgium and the Netherlands both felt relaxed. Trucks drove below the speed limit, and all the other drivers were very polite. When I drove the speed limit, I would always find myself passing most of the traffic. Germany on the other hand is much like America in that all the drivers seem to be in a furious rush to get to the next stop light. Germans tail gate even closer than Americans do. They would rather drive though you than around. I had no desire to have a German officer stop me for driving too fast so I stuck to the speed limit. I started singing a little jingle every time there was a German on my butt. Every German I met who saw my rental car always commented on the French license plate. It looks just like a German license plate but with a tiny F instead of a tiny G. It might have been a mistake to drive the whole trip in a French car.

I also have a baseball cap that has the American 75th Infantry logo on it. In France people love the Americans for their help liberating their country from German occupation. The cap helped me fit in with WWII reenactors and others who appreciate the accomplishments of the greatest generation during WWII. People in Belgium and the Netherlands also appreciated seeing the emblem from 80 years ago. When I crossed the Rhine River into Germany, I stopped wearing the 75th Infantry Division hat, replacing it with a simple black cap.

At the time of my flight back to America the government had been shut down and air traffic controllers were not being paid. I was almost certain that flight would be delayed. I had no choice, my 3 months in Europe were up. Other than the exhausting wait going through customs the flights ran on schedule. All 6 of the sketchbooks I had filled were in my backpack along with multiple books about Stalag VI-A the POW camp that the 75th Infantry Division helped liberate. I am still translating the German book about Stalag VI-A too learn all about the camp which would have opened my father’s eyes to the horrors of how people are treated as subhuman and starved to death for the sake of a fascist Aryan ideal. I have no doubt that what he witnessed would have molded his world view for the rest of his life. If he were still alive, I would have so many questions.

Russian Memorial Hocklingerweg Hemer, Germany

Posted on by Thor

In the final months of World War II, the area around Islerohn Germany saw the surrender of German forces to the American troops. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken with his C-Company in the 75th Infantry Division, moved into Hemer to help liberate Stalag VI-A, one of Germany’s largest POW camps.

The Americans of the 75th Infantry Division distributed U.S. Military rations to the starving prisoners. Approximately 22,000 men were found at the camp with 9000 of those in the camp “hospital”. Patients suffered from Tuberculosis, Dysentery, Malnutrition, and Typhus fever. Inmates were from the Soviet Union, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Yugoslavia, Romania, Great Britain, Canada and America. American War photographer Joseph D. Karr was on the scene documenting the struggle to keep men alive. Despite being offered food rations, many men were just too far gone. Over 100 men (mostly Soviets) kept dying every day. Soviets were given half or less of the rations that other nationalities were given and over the week before liberation there was no food distributed in the camp since the cooks and guards had retreated East away from the advancing American troops.

Two cemeteries were established for the mass graves for all the men who were dying. The exact number of men who died is hard to calculate. Some researchers think 24,000 men lie in the two cemeteries. Others think that number is too high, while others think that number may be far higher, based on the rising numbers of inmates who died at the end of the war. The goal of commemorating is to never forget. Future generations need to know what man is willing to do in the name of an ideology and how quickly a society is willing to throw away basic moral principles.

Early in the war, the first men who died were buried in a forest near the Stalag. The dead were buried in simple wooden coffins. Most of these men were French (166) and Polish (42). By 1945 there were 335 graves. War graves agreements after the war, insisted that the bodies be returned to home countries. The remaining graves were then moved to the two cemeteries dedicated to the Stalag dead in Hemer.

The numbers of Soviet dead kept growing exponentially. They had been through the hell of war, capture, forced stays in the front-line Stalags followed by excruciatingly long cold train rides into the Reich where they were immediately put into forced labor details. Additional land had to be acquired from a Protestant parish for the hundreds of men who were dying each week. The bodies were carried on a horse drawn carriage on the shortest route up the hills and winding roads to the cemetery. Long excavated trenches had been dug, and the bodies were unceremoniously thrown into the pit. People walking down the street, or passing by train could see the grisly scene. There was no secrecy to the mass murder taking place.

By the end of 1943 all the rows had been filled with bodies. The capacity of the cemetery was exhausted. More than 3,500 Soviet prisoners were buried in 16 mass graves in about 15 months. Since men were buried with bodies stacked on top of one another, about 3 men deep, it became impossible to figure out who was buried where. At first there were distinct rows with metal plates to delineate the rows, but over time the landscape was flattened and a featureless lawn with a few birch trees remains. The metal plates had been discarded or lost.

A small concrete monument had been built by Soviet inmates after the liberation of the camp, but it was replaced by a memorial stone designed by Menden Germany sculptor, Walter Voss. It was dedicated on the Sunday of the Dead, in 1967. The stone says: Rest. Soviet Citizens who died in the years 1941-1945 far from home. The number of deceased, at 3000, was the credible number at the time when the stone was carved. As of 2021, 3,513 of the Soviet prisoners could be named. The exact number may never be known.

Witten Germany: Zeche Nachtigal

Posted on by Thor

After my failed attempt to sketch remnants of a Forced Labor Camp in Witten-Annen Germany, I decided to sketch the Zeche Nachtigal which is now a museum. I figured that the forced laborers who were not working in the Annen Steelworks Factory building weapons, would be at Nachtigal. Nachtigal means nightingale which is a bird known for or its powerful, complex, and beautiful song, which is often heard at night.

I sketched the historic twin engine winding machine. It is roughly the same size as the steam engine used previously in operation starting in 1871. It was used to hoist coal from the Hercules shaft. As the shaft was deepened a stronger winding machine was needed. In 1892 the coal mine shut down due to flooding. The machinery was sold off and soon the site became a brick works. By 1897 the brickwork’s produced up to eleven million bricks annually for the construction of industrial facilities and houses. The history of the brickwork’s jumped from 1897 to 1983. There is no mention of what happened at the brickwork’s during WWII, but it is safe to say the business would have been booming in war time.

Forced laborers were extensively used in German brick factories during WWII, particularly to produce building materials for Nazi construction projects. Concentration camp prisoners and millions of civilians from occupied territories were exploited by German industry to support the war effort, including the production of bricks. With over 200 forced labor camps in Witten it seems very likely that the forced labor would have been used in the Nachtigal brick factory. With the Ruhr area being constantly bombed by the allies there would have been a need of bricks to repair damaged buildings. Young eastern European men were obliged to join the German workforce, but both men and women were forcefully abducted from the streets.

Camp barracks in industrial centers varied in size, but most have been described by former forced laborers as poorly constructed, surrounded with barbed wire, and heavily guarded. The barracks were typically equipped with one small stove, a limited number of washrooms and toilets, mattresses filled with sawdust to make crude beds, and few blankets. Eastern Europeans working in factories, like the brickwork’s, received one cup of coffee or tea, 200-300 grams of bread, and one or two cups of watery cabbage soup per day. These rations, however, largely depended on what food was available, and as the war continued, food rations often decreased.

A sub-camp of the Buchenwald concentration camp was established in Witten on September 16, 1944, utilizing an existing barrack complex built in 1942 near the Dortmund-Witten railway line. The initial transport from Buchenwald Concentration Camp brought 700 male prisoners, primarily political detainees aged 16 to 63 from the Soviet Union, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Belgium, and Germany, with about one-third of a subsequent group of 50 arrivals in February 1945 being Polish Jews. These prisoners, housed in wooden barracks with double bunks and minimal facilities, performed grueling 12-hour shifts in Hall 7 of the Steelworks foundry, operating furnaces and machines to produce steel components for naval armor and aircraft, under constant threat of violence from SS guards and kapos.

A Kapo was a Nazi concentration camp prisoner—often a criminal or political prisoner—assigned by the SS to supervise forced labor or carry out administrative tasks, acting as a collaborator in exchange for privileges. They were hated by fellow inmates for their brutality and held authority over them, often enjoying better food and conditions.

The camp, secured by barbed wire and watchtowers, operated until late March 1945, with prisoner numbers fluctuating to around 600 by evacuation due to deaths, escapes, and returns to the main camp; the SS received four Reichsmarks daily per prisoner from the factory.

Conditions in the sub-camp were dire, marked by undernourishment, exposure to cold, disease, and brutal oversight by SS, leading to frequent accidents and illnesses like pulmonary infections. By late March 1945, at least 16 prisoners had died from exhaustion and related causes, with nine Soviet inmates secretly executed by transfer to Buchenwald’s crematorium and over 60 sick individuals returned to the main camp, of whom at least 14 perished shortly after.

On the night of March 29, 1945, the SS evacuated the remaining approximately 600 prisoners on a death march northeast toward Lippstadt Germany, to the west of Dortmund-Witten, during which an unknown number were killed; the survivors were abandoned on April 1 and liberated by advancing U.S. forces, with some succumbing to their ordeals in the following days. Post-liberation investigations in the 1960s and 1970s examined SS crimes at the site but resulted in no convictions. Most Germans kept silent about the crime of forced labor or completely denied it.

Holocaust survivor Irene Weiss put it this way, “The most dangerous animal on earth is man. A man can turn into animal in no time. All he needs is permission. As soon as permission is given from government, it accelerates. Even a hint of permission that it is OK to attack this group or exclude this group, or shame that group. It’s happening, it never stopped.”

April 9-10, 1945: Dortmund-Oespel Germany

Posted on by Thor

It started to rain as I sketched. Rain drop blasts littered the surface of the sketch. I could not protect the page. I closed the sketchbook and sat as it rained, thinking it might stop. I was sheltered in a rain jacket. I finally gave up and put the sketchbook away. After walking half way out of the cemetery, the rain stopped. I went back to my spot and sketched again quickly. I managed to cover the page before another wave of rain started. As I was leaving, I noticed a headstone for Fritz and Gerta Torspecken. My last name is Thorspecken and in America that is quite unique. With just one letter missing, I thought these might be long lost relatives. I know that my original ancestor, Dr. Elias Julius Thorspecken emigrated to America in 1830 or so to build a new life. He served his new country as a doctor during the Civil War. Arolsen Germany the city that Augustus left, is just 142 miles due west. This headstone left me thinking that I might have deep roots in this area of Germany.

Oespel is a district in Western Dortmund Germany. The attack by the 75th Infantry Division continued through April 9-10, 1945 with the 2nd Battalion advancing south to capture Oespel and Dorney Germany with light enemy opposition to their regimental objective which was ultimately the Ruhr River.

Searching the Arolen archives online, I found 225 Forced Laborers listed as being in Dortnund-Oespel. The first was named Marta Albert born Butschgau. She was 55 years old in 1945 and was born in Belgium. I was left wondering if she survived the war and returned to Belgium.

The Oespel coal mine was in operation in 1945 and this is possibly where Marta would have been forced to work. The mine had up to one thousand nine hundred and twenty workers in the underground shafts and in the sorting area. The Oespel coal mine was one of four mines in the village of Oespel.

Stalag VI-D POW camp was in Dortmund Germany. Over 70,000 prisoners-of-war were imprisoned here in World War II.  The camp was closed in March of 1945, one month before my father’s unit was fighting to take Dortmund. Prisoners in the camp were primarily from Poland, Belgium, France, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Italy. The POWs were forced to perform labor in armaments and industrial plants, in mines and in private and municipal enterprises under inhumane conditions. Several thousand of the POWs died from chronic illness, malnutrition and Allied bomb attacks. There were no air raid shelters for the POWs.

From September 1, 1939, Oespel suffered from Allied bombing raids, direct casualties, and soldiers killed in action during World War II.

On June 4, 1941 there was a low-level air raid that claimed ten lives. Residents sought refuge in the air-raid shelter at the Oespel 3 mine. Forced laborers were not granted shelter in the mines although they were forced to work there.

On March 23, 1944, an American B-17 bomber with a crew of ten, was shot down by an anti-aircraft gun stationed at Dorney Germany. The plane crashed on the spoil heap of the Oespel 3 mine and landed in two gardens in Heuerlingsweg Germany, just south or Oespel.

On December 1 and 12, 1944, the Protestant church, parsonage, community center, and the school were severely damaged in air raids.

On April 10, 1945, after a heavy artillery duel, American troops, including the 75th Infantry Division captured Oespel and Kley and looted valuables. My father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken was leading C-Company during the capture of Oespel Germany and the surrounding area.

On April 13, 1945, with the end of World War II close at hand, the Allies began efforts to repatriate foreign forced laborers from the coal mines. Once liberated, forced laborers became known as displaced persons. Rebuilding lives torn apart by war was a task above an beyond what any soldier could accomplish.

On June 7, 1945, the Americans withdraw from Oespel Germany. The British took over the occupation, and Oespel citizens were transferred to Allied prisoner-of-war camps.

April 12, 1945: Mahnmal Bittermark Massacre

Posted on by Thor

As Allied troops along with my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken who was leading C-Company of the 1st Battalion of the 75th Infantry Division, were attacking Dortmund Germany and moving south, the German Gestapo were looking to hide atrocities before they retreated.

The Gestapo marched 300 people into the Bittermark Forest which is just to the south of Dortmund. They were members of the resistance and forced laborers from France, Belgium the Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Poland and the Soviet Union.
The killings ended on April 12, 1945, one day before, the area was liberated on 13th April.

The Mahnmal Bittermark Memorial in Dortmund, Germany, was designed by German sculptor Karel Niestrath (1896–1971), with the memorial ensemble completed in 1960.

Hundreds of thousands of forced laborers were exploited in the armament factories and coal mines around the Ruhr River during the Second Word War. An estimated 30,000 forced laborers were deployed in Dortmund during the Second World War. They were accommodated in about 300 camps, one of those being a branch of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Forced labor was no secret, it was a public crime. During World War II, forced laborers were exploited on almost every building site and farm, in every factory, mine and even in private households in Germany. Every German had to decide how to behave towards forced laborers. Every German citizen would see the forced laborers being sent to work under armed guard. A few showed a bit of humanity, but most showed the coldness and disdain of a supposed higher race. How people responded to the laborers showed something not only about the individual but also about the influence and attractiveness of National Socialist ideology and practice.

Forced laborers made up 40% of the workforce mining in the Ruhr Region. Russian prisoners of war and slave labor from the east made up a majority of the forced labor force after 1942. Hard work and meager food rations drained the strength of the men. Physical violence was a daily occurrence. Cold and bad hygienic conditions were further accompanying aspects so that diseases like tuberculosis spread in many camps.

In March of 2012, Dortmund City Council. Lord Mayor Ullrich Sierau said: “The knowledge of the Nazi crimes is a precondition for fighting the ideology of the extreme right. The fight against right-wing extremism is at the top of our urban agenda.”

47th Annual Winter Park Christmas Concert

Posted on by Thor

 

After getting back to the United States from Europe, I started sketching events that returned a feeling of normalcy. I have sketched the Winter Park Christmas Concert multiple times before and returned despite the 30 mile drive to get there. It was dark by the time I got to Winter Park and traffic seemed insane. I took back roads to get to the city hall since I had always found a parking spot there in the past. I started loosing hope of finding a parking spot, the closer I got.

When I found the lot, it was jam packed but I drove up and down the aisles anyway. At the end of the last aisle, there was a single parking spot. I shouted for joy. It was devine providence. I quickly packed up my art bag and walked down Park Avenue towards Central Park where I could hear musicians warming up in the bandshell.

The park was also packed with people in lawn chairs chatting with neighbors. There was no way I would get a sketch of the stage. I decided to sit close to the back of the crowd and draw the Tiffany Windows from the Morse Museum, that were on display. There were four Tiffany windows that stood among the crowd like the monolith from 2001 a Space Odyssey. The windows were surrounded by police tape and each had a docent standing guard. The illuminated windows faced the stage. I thought that it would have made more sense for the to face out towards the audience. Maybe the glow would have interfered with the audience seeing the tiny performers on the stage in the distance.

I set up my artist stool which had served me so well in Europe and leaned back against a utility box facing back looking at the stained glass windows. I start each sketch by writing the date in the lower right hand corner of the sketch. I dug into my pockets for my iPhone. I couldn’t find it. Bloody hell. I use the phone for navigation and have just recently started mounting it above the steering wheel. In Europe, I forgot the phone a couple of times. I developed the habit of taking a photo of where ai parked the car which helped as I searched for the car and it guaranteed I had my phone in hand. Here in Winter Park, I didn’t think to shoot a photo of my magnificent parking spot.

I must have left the phone back in the car. I decided I had to hike back. As I approached my car someone was slowly driving behind me. He rolled down his window and asked if zi was leaving. I apologized and said no. The phone case also held all my credit cards. The last thing ai needed was for someone to walk by and see the glow of the phone along with all the credit cards on display. I got back to the car sweaty. The phone was not over the driving wheel. I tore my art bag apart again looking for it. Could it have fallen out of my pocket between the car and the concert? I started throwing items in the back seat.

Where the hell was it? I flipped both indoor light on and searched under the seats. Ultimately I found the phone lying under my art bag in the passenger seat. Why on earth dit I put it there? In the distance I could hear the introductions starting for the concert. I needed to get back.I rushed back to the park. A family h ad set up where I had sat previously. I sat right behind them to get a similar angle to the sketch I had started which had a square in the lower right hand corner for a date. I filled in the date and started sketching.

The couple seated in the foreground of my sketch were waiting for friends to arrive. When their friends arrived everyone stood and talked throughout the rest of the concert. This scene played out throughout the crowded fields. Few people came for the concert. They came for conversation. In France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany I got used to ignoring the din of conversations in crowded spaces. It was easy since I didn’t understand a word of what was being said. This concert was similar with constant conversation and a hint of Christmas music in the background.

When Silent Night was being performed on stage, I decided that was my cue to consider the sketch complete and head back to the car. With so many people rushing to leave Winter Park, I wanted to be on the road before that back up. I missed the crush of cars and drive 30 miles back to Lake County.

For a sketch like this, I usually arrive early and sketch while there is still light. This time that wasn’t an option. I can only reassure myself that this isn’t the worst drawing I ever did.

Poker

Posted on by admin

There were moments of levity and even leisure between military engagements. This sketch was done in Gingelom Belgium after the Americans had won the battle re-enactment. This isn’t a location that 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken would have been at. I went to see Museum Winter 44 to get more of an overview of what happened in Belgium during the war. The museum is close to where the Battle of the Bulge happened. The 75th Infantry was in that battle but Arthur arrived in Europe after those dates.

The helmet on the table held the bets for the cards that had been dealt. This moment felt the most like history was coming alive. War isn’t always about big explosions and heroic deeds. It is more often about passing the time and waiting for what may come next.

This is the courtyard at Museum Winter 44. It had started to rain. The poker players were under a giant Coke umbrella, but I wasn’t. The sketch is covered with tiny explosions from the rain hitting the watercolor. Most rain I had experienced in Belgium was sporadic and light, never fully committed to a downpour, so I kept sketching. I would just lean over the sketch while I worked.

It  had been a long day of sketching and I was famished. After the game of poker was over and my sketch was complete, I ordered some spaghetti and pulled up to the table. I couldn’t follow all the Dutch conversations, but several  soldiers were kind enough to speak to me in English. One wanted to know all about the 75th Infantry. He was looking for a bit of information I had not provided. I finally realized he wanted to know that the 75th infantry was part of the 290th Infantry Division. It turns out he collects books about American Infantry divisions and he had several history books that took him years to find. This reminded me that I have the broad strokes of where the 75th Infantry went during WWII but for the specifics of actual battles I have very little information. I have several written memoirs from 1st Lieutenants from the 75th Infantry, but those PDF documents are on a laptop that died in the Netherlands. I think I will be doing much more research once this sketch journey is complete.

My main goal is to get a feel for each place as I sketch. That goal I feel I am accomplishing. Sometimes pure luck or providence steps in and I find I am sketching the exact same place that a 75th Infantry war photographer took a photo of. I can never be sure that any location I sketch is exactly where 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken might have been. Troops were usually spread out along a wide front.  But I am getting to know each town, city and village by walking the streets. The damage and devastation is gone but the spirit of the place remains.

Belgium Battlefield

Posted on by Thor

In Gingelom Belgium, lt was quiet in the German encampment. There was activity in the Red Cross medic’s tent so someone must have been injured previously. A rather large crowd had gathered around the rim of the valley where the German encampment lay. I sat on the edge of the hillside and started sketching the encampment before the battle started. A single American vehicle had been captured at the northern edge of the camp. It was obvious that the Americans were outnumbered and they put their hands up and surrendered before there were any fatalities.

Ater this small victory the camp settled into a short lull. Then there was a rumble of engines that could be heard. The allied troops arrived from a dirt road that lead to the camp from the west. I am assuming it was west based on the directions of the shadows I put in my sketch. The first American scouting party was overwhelmed by the Germans and they raised their hands and were captured. After that squirmish  things grew quiet for a moment. Then the roar of the rest of the Allied troops could be heard as they rolled over the hills surrounding and into the camp. Americans lay on the ground to fire at the enemy, or hid behind a German motorcycle. A vintage American WWII aircraft buzzed the field, dropping an orange plume of smoke. There wasn’t enough smoke to hide the movements of the Americans but it added to the confusion. It started to rain which added to the challenge of getting a watercolor sketch done.

The Allies then flanked the tents to the south and moved towards the makeshift hospital. They searched every tent to be sure each area was clear as they passed through. The Americans (and Scott’s)  far outnumbered the Germans and they were able to clear the camp. After the victory. All the Allies lines up in a row, presumably for their final orders.

This was a fairly small reenactment and I don’t believe there were any fatalities, although I didn’t have a good line of sight for half of the German camp because of a large tree. Having a vintage American WWII aircraft buzz the battle field was an unexpected surprise. “Angels on our shoulders.”

So, would 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken been in a similar battle scenario? It seems that most of the fighting in The Ruhr Pocket of Germany involved going from building to building in tight urban combat. There would have been the constant threat of enemy sniper fire. For many of the battles Arthur Thorspecken’s C-Company platoon was working along with the 8th Armored group, “Thundering Herd”.. Having a tank roll into camp would certainly intimidate an enemy infantry if they did not have similar large armaments. It was discovered however that tanks do not do so well fighting in the tight quarters of an urban city. There just isn’t room to maneuver. The infantry does better fighting in tight house to house scenarios, according to the 75th infantry’s 1st Lieutenant Richard (Dick) Sasin.

Winter 1944

Posted on by Thor

While I was in Belgium, I took a slight detour off or the 75th Infantry WWII route to go to a museum dedicated to relics from the Battle of the Bulge. The 75th Infantry had served in the Battle of the Bulge but that was in the Winter of 1944, almost a year before my father 1st lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken got to Europe.

The  Museum Winter 1944 is in Gingelom Belgium. When I drove into the little rural town I was a bit annoyed because the road leading to the museum was closed. I drove around the block and found a church to park next to. Then I hiked the rest of the way to the museum. As I got closer, it started to feel like a Twilight Zone episode. A nurse walked by but her outfit didn’t feel modern.

The I rounded the corner and found a phalanx of American soldiers standing around and chatting near a Sherman tank. I wasn’t expecting this. The sketchbook immediately came out of my art bag. There were dozens of vintage American WWII vehicles parked in the street. Before I started sketching I walked up to the solders and asked what was going on. Thankfully one spoke in broken English. He explained that there was going to be a battle in a couple of hours. The Germans had a camp set up an camp outside of town in a field and the Americans were planning an attack.

Though I wanted to go in the museum, it would have to wait, since history was coming alive right in front of me. I did go into the museum after the battle was over. I loved that there was an artists watercolor kit which is almost identical to what I use.

One vehicle had a loud speaker that was playing tunes from the 1940s. Once in a while a solder would look over my shoulder as I was documenting the scene and say “zeer” or “leuk.” I repeated the one phrase I had learned best in Belgium which is “bedankt.” Which means thank you, in Dutch. Some solders also spoke in French, but I didn’t pick up any loud boisterous American slang being thrown around.

As I was finishing up this sketch, all the American Army trucks fired up their engines and they drove off. I was told they were parading the vehicles around the town. When they were gone, I walked up to the one vehicle that did not drive off, which was the Sherman Tank. An American flag fluttered above the tank harkening back to a time when the Stars and Stripes truly represented well ingrained patriotic ideals.