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Adobe Express, the quick and easy create anything up. Passiondale with tree bursts, Ernest Hemingway.

To sum it up, we were finding the cold, the wet underfoot, the snow, the tops of the trees,

the 88s with their shrapnel, and let us not forget the Germans.

These were the worst conditions I ever had a fight under, Private Robert Bradichich.

As the snow melted during the day, many bodies of GIs and Germans were exposed.

They were among the wreck tanks,

half-tracked jeeps, and abandoned artillery. In an air-byte gulch, one G.I. was evidently blown off his

bulldozer when the blade hit a landmine. As it warmed up during the day, his body had that

terrible, sweet, sickening smell of rotting flesh. There was a site that brought tears to our eyes. The partially melted snow on the

bodies of over 100 GIs. It appeared to us that they had been attacking up an incline toward German

tank positions, which had supporting automatic weapons positions on each side. Evidently, a major had been

leading the assault because his body was close to the front of the others. Why he had ordered a direct assault on such a dug-in position will probably never be known. Some of the bodies were sprawling and faced away from the German positions, possibly indicating they were trying to save themselves when machine guns cut them down. There were no dead German bodies and evidence. All the dead GIs were dressed in OD uniforms with newly issued,

unfated green field jackets. Many steel helmets have been knocked off. Dressed as they were

as an indication to us that they were inexperienced green troops. Private Ed Loughlin,

82nd Airborne Division. And he's viewing there the aftermath of probably the call trail,

some of the worst fighting that happened on Herckin.

...