Is it the same tree as in 1944? The story of the killed German under the tree at Villeneuve-Loubet.
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- Опубліковано 21 жов 2024
- The 1st Special Service Force liberated the French village of Villeneuve-Loubet on August 26th 1944, killing at least 14 German soldiers of Reserve Grenadier Bataillon 372 in the process. One killed German was photographed along with at least two different forcemen under a plane tree/ sycamore in the village. Numerous people have commented that the tree seems not to have grown since 1944. This video attempts to respond to the question of wether the tree is the same or not. The killed German in the photo was presumably from the 14th Anti-Tank Company of Reserve Grenadier Regiment 239, considering he is not wearing ammunition pouches and was found near an anti tank gun.
The canadian soldier with a Thompson sub-machine gun on his shoulder is F.K. Robinson, from Vancouver. I would be interested to find his descendents if possible.
Animation by campalore@gmx.de
Crocodile Tear Productions
For more information:
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FSSF - First Special Service Force - World War II - Operation Dragoon - oal history - before and after comparison - First Airborne Task Force - FABTF - French Riviera - mass grave in Villeneuve-Loubet - Reserve Grenadier Bataillon 372 - Reserve Division 148 - militaria - helmet - browning automatic rifle - BAR - 7.62 mm - .30 caliber - exhumation - Albert Poirier de Montréal - Quebec - Canada French canadian troops - platanus - sycamore
-Konrad Blaschitsch / Blašić, 20.1.1926 in Gieshübl Klopce Slov. Bistrica
-Otto Forberger, 12.08.1925 in Kukele Zwittau
-Krafczyk Alois, 7.5.1926, Königshütte
-Josef Krzyzowski, 26.1.1925, Wyrow Kr Pless.
-Josef Lössl, 02.08.1909, Komotau / Raudnitz
-Hubert Pilch, 25.08.1926, Kattowitz
-Anton Kozik 1.1.1926 Kobielitz Pless
-Emil Prachowski / Praszowski 14.9.1919 Radlin Rybnik
-Josef Scholtyssek / Szoltysek 29.5.1926 Bismarckhütte
-Hauptmann Erich Heß 22.2.1901 Breslau
-Max Baron 31.3.1919 Ratibor
-Adolf Tann Tchorz 9.10.1912 Ostrosnitz
-Gerhard Pusch 15.10.1914 Sagan
-Otto Schöps 16.4.1914 Hartliebsdorf
-Norbert Negwer 7.10.1911 Ober-Neuland Neisse
-Hans Stange 10.8.1920 Oberhausen Düsseldorf
-Rudolf Werner 12.3.1914 Leimeritz Sud. Gau
-Siegfried Schön 17.7.1913 Johnsdorf Römerstadt
-Max Grehl 3.8.1912 Cosel
-Rudolf Danjek 30.7.1921 Söhle Neu-Ziethen
-Niedlich Hans 19.5.1893 Neusaltz Freistadt
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I'm a horticulturist from San Diego - we have a related species called the Western Sycamore. I believe you have the right tree. It looks to me like it was coppiced (cut down in size EDIT: pollarded, not coppiced) probably at the time when the road went in, for clearance. That would explain all the branch budding about halfway up, and the apparent change in direction of the trunk. That would be where the tree was cut down. This also may be the reason the tree has not apparently grown much. In fact, it has, but everything above the buds is new, so the growth energy went in a vertical direction. Hope this makes sense.
San Diego has Sycamore Canyon, too! (I worked at Plant House Nursery in El Cajon years ago. Greetings.)
So true. 💔 They had dreams, family, loved ones, felt pain, sorrow, and fear.
I believe it is a whole new (or other) tree. If you look at the google street view from 2008 vs. 2022, the most current view, it is definitely shorter and thinner in size. I just think it happens to be a newer tree that is similar in maturity than as in the old photo. The other tell, is that tree has swung the total opposite way in how it leaned and the branch nub toward the top of the screen, which the old tree never had.
www.google.com/maps/@43.6587937,7.1290472,3a,88.9y,230.93h,83.9t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s9H2Ho2EfOlxkCe4k26FwNw!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D6.0954471626486395%26panoid%3D9H2Ho2EfOlxkCe4k26FwNw%26yaw%3D230.92528465387048!7i16384!8i8192?coh=205410&entry=ttu
You may call it the western sycamore but it's known in Canada as a Maple tree. The leaves are unmistakable They thrive all over Canada, Northern US and many parts of Europe.
@@billhamilton2366 these trees are Platanus acerifolia, and our western native is P. racemosa. My family is from Canada, and so I'm very familiar with your Sugar maple, Acer saccharum. Interestingly, despite having similar palmately lobed leaves, they are in completely different families.🍁
Any pictures of the fallen are sad, regardless of which side. This is someone’s son. A loved one. God have mercy on his soul. R.I.P.
Millions of wasted lives
@@None-zc5vg And it will happen again and again. On the plus-side, the men who go through this kind of hell and survive usually create a better society than what they inherited.
Having sympathy, showing sympathy for that dead German is an insult to the MILLIONS of people murdered by the Germans in the concentration camps and in all the countries the Germans invaded.
Still rings out today. The old men that are supposed leaders argue, while the young men give their lives for them. Not by choice.
Gov's fight, not the villagers.
I am overwhelmed with respect for you and the work that you do. Thanks to you, I have finally begun to understand the real cost of war and about the battles I learned about in History class so many years ago. My grandfather served in the Canadian Black Watch regiment, and now understated why that part of his life was never mentioned. You celebrate life by giving dignity to those that lost it so that we would live in peace. Merci beaucoup.
*We cannot underestimate the stupidity of wars and the bravery of those who fight in them.*
You mean the stupidity of both
The trees the same. Its probably grown to maximum size. Imagine what that tree has seen.
Now deceased Dutch painter and sculpturer Armando's work was for a large part inspired by WW2. He made a series of paintings, he named "Schuldige Landschaft" (Guilty Landscape), exactly about this concept.
Trees dont have eyes
@@PunchtheLion but they do communicate with other trees
Called a "witness tree." There are some at Gettysburg and other battlefields.
@PunchtheLion What have you never been out in the woods at night hallucinating? ? Kids today, l just don't know.
Thank you for reburying the lost soldiers.
Your research is always so thorough.
Link to the video about the German mass grave being discovered in Villeneuve in 2006: ua-cam.com/video/C1nTdO30Pio/v-deo.html
On my channel: "WWII German Mass Grave discovery at Villeneuve-Loubet - Exhumation, identification, causes of death"
Professional Arborist chiming in. The tree in the picture has similar curvature to the trunk as the current tree. You are very right the soil compaction around the root zone and the steep hill wild slow the groth of the tree. Some of the other trees on the road looked like they have heavily pruned too. That can also slow down growth
I believe it is the same tree. I have a similar experience although a much happier one. In 1954 my mother took a photo of my brother and I under a tree in our front yard. We were living in Kentucky at the time. We moved away in 1955 when I was 5 years old. I recently looked up the house on Google maps and the tree is still standing but hadn’t seemed to have grown much. It is a little more gnarled but it is the same tree.
Although we typically demonize the enemy, it's worthy to point out that the dead German was a young man who had a family . They wrote letters home just like other soldiers and carried pictures of loved ones with them. War is such a senseless exercise where others die for the conflicts started by those in power.
The allies were the enemy on there side
@BritainAndirelandunit24agreed
"just a young man (but also
a nazi) who had a family (nazis)..." not
quite just like any other just saying
Yet he was guilty and complicit in the murder of millions of Jews.
@@oralhistories exactly. lest we forget he was a nazi.
I’m so interested in how you get into this! I’m a history freak when it comes to discovering the roots of my family and my fiancés family. I love discovering photos, stories, artifacts, and even visiting the places they would have lived. I’ve decided I should write a book for my future children so that way they can connect with their passed loved ones, as well, and know the history of where they came from.
I feel like there is a deeper meaning to it than just finding cool old antiques. I feel like I’m with those people, learning who they were, and understanding the times. It can bring me to tears. It’s powerful.
How did you get into this? What leads you to these “worm holes” of these soldiers? How are you able to uncover their remains? Is this your full time job or just a hobby? It’s just fascinating what all you’ve uncovered. I know many families and souls have been healed by your work. It’s sad many of the veterans who have served will soon be gone, I wish we had more time to speak to them.
I totally admire the work you do and this channel .
This is fascinating. I wish more history was taught in school these days. The average kid knows nothing, and that is very dangerous. You are doing very valuable work. Instant subscriber here. ❤
For me, same tree, same place ! well done..........I am fan of " WW2 then and now" sequence............. thanks for sharing : )
incredible stuff. thank you so much for posting this. respect to all those involved for re locating the dead soldiers. keep well.
1:12 you can actually use the man’s arm as reference for how wide the tree has grown over the years.
His canteen is also visible, open…and by his head. God damn all wars and what we do to our young people.
" They" do
@billywatts4689 it's a "they" in your country, maybe.
Here, where we have real democracies, the government is an expression of the people, so the people bear shared responsibility for all...
If anyone thinks that WW2 achieved anything, read about the relationship between the international élites before, during and after the war. The post-war show trials dealt mostly w😢ith the small-fry and the fanatics and were careful to give the lightest of sentencing to the people and interests who'd been responsible for the war and who'd profited from it. The Americans wanted to protect their pre-war friends (like those running the I.G. Farben chemicals cartel (now devolved into today's 'Bayer' and 'Monsanto')) and they did so.
@@frankguz55"The people" are just a rubber stamp for what's being done in their name, just as North Korea and China are "people's republics". 'Democracy' is just a rhetorical term
@@None-zc5vg - I hear you, however…Hermann Göring, Rudolf Hess, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Jodl, Erich Raeder, Julius Streicher were neither “Small-Fry” or particularly nutty (they were all fanatics). Probably the most disturbing were those who were complicit and never touched, namely the Catholic Church.
Trees live a lot longer than 80 years so it’s very much likely it’s the same one.
Love those before and now videos and all the work you do in research and finding the fallen. Regardless of which side they fought on. War is cruel.
Wow this is Is incredibly detailed and thorough. Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to come across your channel
The platanes were planted at a time when people travelled on foot or on animal-drawn carts. This protected them from the sun. To make roads safer for motorized traffic, they were not replanted when they died. Often, the row of trees on one side of the road was cut back when the road had to be widened. So it's possible that this tree, or one of the others next to it, was there in 1944.
Hey so like trees have a maximum height due to the hydrostatic pressure limits of their vessels. Tree size is a vrey poor determination of age as there are so many variables. As a self proclaimed tree nerd I can confirm that is definitely the same tree.
The blood that man spilled was taken up by the roots. Weird as it is to say there is a part of that solider in that tree today.
This is a wonderful glimpse through time, I really appreciate you and the work you do.
Zactly, from the biology (I'm a bio major) to "the long view".
War is not healthy for children and other living things.
Honor the dead by keeping the peace.
So it is possible that the tree bends to the other side after 80 years? All trees I watched for the last 30 years kept their bend.
Wow... a tree nerd? That's new...
I believe you!❤
@@GrandTheftChristhere are other factors such as changes in the light intensity and Direction comma and possible subsidence of the ground since it's on the edge of a steep slope. You would not expect to see any change if you watched a tree for 30 years but if you took a picture at the beginning and a picture of the end you would see the difference.
Am I the only one to notice the trunk of the tree in the old photo CLEARLY tilts to the right, while the photo of the recent tree tilts to the left ever so slightly.
Informative and thoughtful video. Thanks for posting.
I pass by this road for more than 20 year now. How interesting is this piece of history. Thanks for your work. 🙏
Please also watch the video about the exhumation of the bodies at Villeneuve, that happened less than one km from this tree
It is quite possible that it is the same tree. The plane tree is pollarded and pollarded trees have greatly reduced thickness growth. This is because the nutrients are used to form a new crown after pollarding instead of growing in thickness.
There are other plan trees just down the street that are huge.
Plane trees can live for more than 2,000 yrs, as this particular tree is situated on an edge, the growth of the roots may be as much as the trunk. Coincidentally the German army used the mottled pattern of that tree as the basis for their Platanenmuster ("plane tree pattern") uniform.
That's the same tree. The trunk curve and placement against the backdrop hill are way too coincidental. They have a long life span too so not crazy or unusual by any means.
@@peterk2455wow I never knew that!!! I work with plane trees as a arborist, Incredible thanks very much for that little piece of historic knowledge!
@@peterk2455I didn't know that.
I just thought Plane Tree Camo was a name for any ole Tree.
I feel like a dunbass but now I know thank You.
So sad. I have relatives on both sides of World Wars I and II.
This reminds me of about twenty years ago when my mother and I were trying to find the exact spot where a photo of my uncle sitting on a motorbike in the early 1950s was taken. It was a place where many Europeans migrated to in Australia after the war. My family migrated there also around the same time but only from the other side of Australia. Everyone co-mingled along a river bank in tents until more permanent accommodation was found.
My mother and I knew we were close because of the rotted clothes lines stumps and I took a photo of where we thought it was. But something was just off and we couldn't put our fingers on it. When I got home I had the idea to reverse the original photo of my uncle on his motorbike and compare it to the one I took that day. It was an exact match. The hard copy sepia photo taken all those years before was a reverse image. Not uncommon in those days.
The weirdest thing though, was the shadows from the trees falling on the ground from the photo I took that day. The more I looked at it the weirder it got and I ended up superimposing one over the other with 50 percent opacity on both. The shadows pretty much mimicked the outline of my uncle with his arms outstretched on the handlebars. I'm not into that kind of thing but it was actually kind of spooky.
On another note, there is a tree out the front of my childhood house that has not grown much, if any, for as long as I've walked the earth. It's a council tree planted long ago and they are up and down our street. The rest (same kind) have flourished yet the one outside our house is stunted. My mother told me she used to prop me against it to take photos because it faced the afternoon son back in the day. I could walk out to it right now and it would look the same as it did when I was one year old...
Another informative video,great work .
The Maritime Alps campaign. My dad's outfit, the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team of the U.S. Army fought there as well. They and the 1st SSF were assigned to proceed up the mountains toward Italy to prevent the Germans from launching a flanking attack on the forces landing in southern France. It was a nasty campaign in places. Dad's unit jumped in.
Later that fall, his unit boarded trains and travelled north to be rested and refit at a camp east of Paris. He was enjoying a game of pinochle one afternoon next to a stove shortly after being de-loused when the radio broke in with news of the Ardennes breakthrough. It was the opening of the Battle of the Bulge. All they had were summer uniforms and thin field jackets, they having turned in their filthy uniforms from the Maritime campaign to be burned. He spent a month living in holes in record cold weather being shot at with artillery and small arms. Finally, the day before they retook St. Vith, he was wounded in the lower leg at the ankle by a shell fragment from a German tank. He nearly lost his foot but was lucky -- the first doctor to see him after he had been stabilized happened to be an orthopedic surgeon who asked if it was OK if he tried to save the foot. "Hell yes doc"! Well... he walked with a slight limp for the rest of his life and always had to have the sole of his left shoe built up a little bit because that leg was a touch shorter than the other one. He died in 1999.
Thanks for posting this. It is a little remembered campaign that was crucial to saving southern and central France from being ravaged by war.
What Company was your dad in, and what was his name. I have researched the 517th quite extensively and also made some videos about them. You should watch my videos:
-Paratrooper kills german soldier and returns wedding photos to his family after 68 years
-Researching the lost helmet of paratrooper Marvin D. Moles
-Haunting "then and now" WWII photos from the southern France Invasion
Lol what a superb, kind, and brutally polite field surgeon. At first I had to chuckle, but then I wondered whether he asked your father if he could try and salvage his foot because he wasn't fully sure he could. Good thing he asked and good thing he tried. Your dad must have been a tough old bird.
@@CrocodileTear Dad was bounced around in several companies but the only roster I was able to track down from the 517th's website was headquarters company listing him. But he spent time in D company too. At a reunion in Wisconsin Dells in 1980(?) a couple of them laughingly and a little enviously related to me that Dad had a nice little scam going where there was confusion about which company he was actually in for a while, so he was able to do a little goldbricking here and there. His name was Henry C. Isaacs. They called him "Hank" or "Brute".
He was one of only three of his original platoon left from Toccoa (yes, he was one of the originals) at the time he was wounded.
@@travis6342 All of those guys were tough old birds, the Canadians too. I don't know what it was about that generation and I was raised by them. I guess you could say that they were realists and knew what hard times really were. And they did not care for organized violence for the most part. Dad grew up during the depression of course, but in Appalachia with 10 brothers and sisters in a little house. He came out of Owsley County Kentucky near Booneville. Dad always thought it was funny about that surgeon too. It was kind of a "gee, what the hell do YOU think doc? der..". But he was forever grateful that this physician was where he was, when he was.
His name is not one that I have come across in my research. Do you have any photos taken of the 517th in southern France?
Did you watch my video about Lt Hensleigh and the German wedding photos?
Thank you for this; "before and after" photos of historic locations just fascinate me. During a recent visit to Gettysburg, PA, I noticed a plaque at a very large tree by a main thoroughfare indicating it as a "witness tree" from the time of the 1863 battle there. Yes, even trees can be special historical objects.
Short and precisely documentary, thanks for sharing. Greetings from Brazil.
RIP to that young man. War is hell💔
Thank you for the update Dr. Gassend. It's sad that the German soldier couldn't be identified. Just out of curiosity, how many of the Germans buried in the mass grave were identified?
He made an entire video talking exactly about your inquiry.
@@Tam0de OK, thanks I’ll check it out.
6 were identified with their ID tags, and 2 are suspected to have been found because they were known to have died in Villeneuve that day. The German government decided to consider these 2 officialy identified as well, making a total of 8. All this is explained in detail in my video "WWII German Mass Grave discovery - Exhumation, identification of bodies, causes of death"
@@CrocodileTear Thank you!
The tree looks different (probably due to some kind of trimming) but the placement of the Ridgeline looks correct.
Very sad photo.
Great video, thank you for creating it.
Amazing. I love being able to literally see history
I've been studying tree growth in before and after pics and videos that I find on YT. It is actually amazing how little a lot of trees will grow ( mainly width ) over a long period of time. I was just analyzing a tree that could be seen in an " I Love Lucy " episode that was across the street from Lucy's actual house. It was filmed in the '50s and it barely looks different now 70 years later.
Absolutely true. With a background in horticulture and arborist studies, there are many factors that will cause a tree to cease growing any further. All plants, grasses, shrubs, trees, etc. have a max maturity size. They will stop at a certain size. Then there's also the environmental constraints kind of like a fish in an aquarium. If for example you have a tree in a planter between a street and a sidewalk, it will stop growing when its roots can no longer extend any further. That will be its max mature size and even though it may live for a hundred years, it will not grow even an inch. It knows how many roots are needed to support its trunk and canopy. Limit the roots limit the tree. Think bonsai trees. :)
I'm always excited to see what you are up to in your adventures.
Your channel is amazing work..Id just like to say Thank you for your efforts and of course you have a nice day also.. ✌️
Your work is so much more than interesting. War is such a great waste of life, terrifying and brutal.
The stories these men are waiting tell is fascinating and they deserve to be heard ❤
Great video - Thank you
Thank you sir.
I always wondered if that was the very same spot. It gives me chills but it's one of thousands of spots that are like it. We walk on sacred ground and not even know it sometimes.😥
I find all your videos so interesting. Thank You.
Thanks for taking a minute to comment
You gentlemen are very respectful, but seeing someone digging furiously on the inside of a helmet near a war grave turns my stomach
Beautiful work. Thank you for sharing these images, information and treasures. I Subscribed.
Maybe the level of the street is higher than in the past, as layers of street asphalts were put ontop of each other, so you might see a part of the tree which is higher up than the part in the old picture, thus why it looks to be thinner than expected: it's a younger bit higher up.
great video cheers from Alaska
Your videos are always interesting.
Wow.... Very very fascinating. Making it real for those of us who weren't around. Sad but good to share this type of history.
This was quite intriguing to me. As a new subscriber, I intend to observe and gain knowledge from a significant number of your videos. I appreciate your willingness to share with theworld, as I am aware that compiling all of this information requires considerable effort.
Thank you. Extremely interesting history. You're brilliant.
Congrats to 100k subs
There is a walnut tree on our property that hasn't visibly grown since I was a very young child. I am 73. It is no more than 12 inches in diameter. Young trees grow very fast to reach the sunlight when they are in competition with other plants, then once it is dominant, the growth slows down greatly.
Amazing research and comparison of locations now and then. So very interesting.
Looking at the 1944 picture, the tree is growing to the left, but in the up to date picture, it is growing to the right.
This is the only anomaly in an otherwise convincing argument.
With the tree being beside a clif, I think it could also have moved with erosion occuring.
Walking in the footsteps of some of those that never finished their journey due to war. Excellent analysis of a now historical event and location. 😉👍
This trees can be cut in shape frequently. The result is that the trunk grows real slow because most energy go's into new branches... that be cut over and over. The knot shows the old wounds.
Thank you, friend, for your great work, i truly appreciate your thoroughness
Hi there, greetings from Belgium.
I'm discovering your channel thanks to this very interesting video.
I subscribe to your explanation about the Platane tree, a specie which tend to slowly vanish from our europeans landscapes as you mentionned.
Nice historical work and nice pronunciation of the french names which is quite rare (and obviously difficult) for english speaking peeps.
Keep on the good work, I'll see more and subscribe immediately.
Kr,
D.
P.S. : ...and sorry for my broken english ;-)
Thank you JL!
Great story- kind of haunting with that connection to WW2.
Fantastic, thank you!
Nicely done, without disrespect. Thank you.
I love you for your investigation...
Great research. Guess that makes this a "witness tree". Fascinating.
This is my new favorite channel. Thank you so much for the work you do bringing these soldiers back to life.
Excellent new subscriber from the UK 🇬🇧
Thank you for the story and info, As a child in the US during WWII, I remember some of the fearful times about cruel governmental powers. I'm 86.
Great bit of detective work there, i wish i had known of the actions in the south of france when i visited there in 2003....i was aware of the operation but i had no idea of the actions....ive just started your book and the map inside the cover is all the places i visited, Menton, Antibes etc etc....having no idea of the WW2 history of the area, cheers Jean-Loup 😊😊😊
It was interesting , thank you so much for your time in doing what you do. God Bless.
Amazing detective skills thank you for the story
Thanks for sharing, that was interesting.
Good job. It is very interesting. It is like holding history responsible. As far as the growth of the tree, there are many factors as why a tree may not grow as anticipated. Number one, the type of the tree. The tree seems to be some kind of hardwood tree which grow very slowly but have very hardwood. the placement of the tree (as you explained), the rain factor and other factors can slow the growth of the tree. I too think that most likely it is the same tree. Job well done.
Definitely the same tree. They of course live a lot longer than we do and grow slower once they're already nearly near full grown.
Thank you for not blurring the picture "to protect our delicate sensibilities"
One can see the same trees that appear in photos taken during the Civil War. They are called witness trees. There are a few on the Gettysburg battlefield at Little Round Top. Many of the trees died after the battle due to basically lead poisoning as a result of all the lead rounds that were shot into them. Veterans of the battle noticed the change decades later.
The only issue I might have, is the tree is crooked to the left in the 1944 photo (just above the white paint). In your photo, it's crooked to the right. Either the 1944 photo was taken from the other side of the tree (which I doubt, because there isn't any space for a road), or the photo got flipped when it was processed? It is the same species of tree, though. However, the mountain in the back would refute that idea.
You are forgetting that the direction of the photo is clearly proven by the mountain in the background
@@CrocodileTear Yes, I edited that in my reply.
There legitimately could have been something pressed against the tree for a few years like a sign or something that made it grow crooked a bit and developing the big knots
Amazing story thank you !
Interesting as always thanks
Remember, trees tell stories.
History relearned thanks for the account and accuracy.
Interesting, thanks for the video
Always interesting, sir!
Speaking to a member of the SSF... That alone is cool af. JTF2 still wear the red arrowhead patch, as does Delta. The video is very cool, making a clear link to the past.
I love these videos, amazing history
A good and solemn piece of work, and history. Thanks for your efforts. I continued to be amazed how the German people allowed Hitler, an Austrian, to come into their country, manipulated politics enough to win it and ultimately led the German army into World War 2 that destroyed Europe, both in lives and properties. But......I understand Hitler skillfully did his evil in stages, step-by-step.
Same tree. It is a little bigger and the curve in it is slightly higher.
Easy way to prove if it's the same tree is use a tree core sample tool and count the annual rings.
Clear
Concise
To dá point!
The tree sustained bullet damage. When plants are damaged, they stop growing upwardly and focus all their energy on repairs
Bonjour, I don't believe it is the same tree because the vertical curved line of the stem from root to shoulder height is inverted between the 1944 and nowaday pictures. Yet, the background skyline against the hill indicates you are extremely near the same position. My best clue would be to find the position of the 3 tall dark thin trees visible in the background of the 1944 picture and align them with the hill. Possibly italian cypress or poplars. The italian cypress have long lifespan, so they could still be present today, but the poplars have much shorter lifespan unfortunatly. Also the ground level of the street has been slightly raised (1 or 2 feet) with the different road works between then and now, so the curve of the plane tree will appear lower at present.
Hope my contribution helps, Good luck.
I tend to agree with you re the difference in the trees. But clearly the unlucky German met his fate within metres of the tree in the video. I say unlucky because the Allied soldiers fired at a group and it appears this man was the only one to be fatally hit. To think if he had stood a little to the left or right of where he was, he may have had another 50 or 60 years of life ahead of him. The cruelty of war. RIP.
Will you be doing anymore digs in the near future?
Very interesting. Thx so much for sharing.
I stayed in Villeneuve-Loubet briefly in 1991. I had no idea that it experienced any combat during WWII.
Great vid...
What that tree has witnessed & absorbed...no wonder it has ceased to grow.
This goes to show that we have no idea what triumphs or tragedies may have taken place in seemingly normal, nondescript locations that we traverse in our everyday lives.
Please watch my video "Time travel back to 1944"
i think it's the same tree. when they develop the place i think they choose to preserve the trees around the area. with a terrain like that, i couldn't imagine cutting the old trees only to replant new ones.