Museum 1944 – Analog Artist Digital World

As the time of the WWII battle approached, there was a briefing among the allies in the entry way to a courtyard across the street from Museum Winter 1944. 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken would have been in charge of handing out similar orders to his platoon of 18 to 50 men. I jotted down a sketch in my pocked sized sketchbook and finished just before the meeting broke up. From my vantage point in the courtyard entry doorway. I could not overhear the plans being put in place. I would make a horrible spy but at least I would get a few decent sketches done.

One of the solders came up to me and looked over my shoulder at the sketch. In English, he complained jokingly that I had only drawn American soldiers with the helmets. That wasn’t true because I drew several fellows with berets. He p0inted out that Scotsmen like himself wore RED berets. I quickly pulled out a red colored pencil and scribbled in some red on a beret. The soldier was quite pleased and bragged to his buddy about how he had affected the art being made.

Army troop trucks started firing up and with a roar they were off to battle. I asked the owner of Museum 1944 how far a hike was it to the battlefield and she invited me to take a ride to the site in her father’s jeep. As we drove to the field, we passed quite a few villagers walking to the battle site. I felt a little guilty since I wasn’t in a uniform, but at least my shirt was drab green which camouflaged me.

The German camp was in a recess in a field with hills on three sides. There were no lookouts on top of those hills. Had there been lookouts, they might have noticed that hundreds of people were gathering on top of the hills surrounding the site. There was one rather large tree which divided the camp in two. On one side, to the East, there was a Red Cross medical area with nurses. I decided to focus on the front end of the camp, with a few scattered tents.

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.