The following day saw us meeting up with another local historian, Phillipe Sugg, a quiet, modest man dedicated to keeping alive the history of the 79th Division; he would be our guide for the wooded countryside that was the fox-holed home to many in the 315th Infantry Regiment during its drive to Strasbourg. With a large collection of American and German artifacts uncovered by local farmers, Phillipe would lead us into Parroy Forest with its opposing French and German First World War trenches still discernible in the dappled light that filtered through the trees.

Stopping in a quiet forest cutting, our party were led into one section of the forest where the foxholes of the 79th Division had been dug all those years before and the memories once again came bubbling up. 'Doc' and Les, tickled that the holes were still clearly evident, began rooting about in dug-outs in the hope of finding evidence of their earlier occupation.

Unable to imagine how such a shallow hole could very provide adequate protection Earl Hammontree explained that whilst a ground shell was one that burst up, it was the tree- burst, the explosion up in the forest canopy, that did the real damage: "We GIs all feared the tree burst because it rained steel down on everyone. We were initially ordered to dig trenches to protects us from it, but we didn't, then a tree burst exploded above us and took the face of a young GI nearby and we dug like hell!"

'Doc' took up the theme:

With images of life-or-death struggles in the Forest of Parroy in my head, Les and 'Doc' gave us all a good idea of life in a fox-hole when they gamely clambered down into these earlier holes. Then Ruby 'Mama' Whitley lightened the seriousness of the moment by giving us an even better idea of other uses a fox-hole could be put to as she ordered 'Doc' to move over and got in beside him! A lovely moment of fun nearly 60 years after these ditches were used for other more deadly purposes.

Emerging from another part of the wood, Phillipe appeared with evidence of American activity in this sector, a damaged water-can once used to hold coolant for a heavy machine-gun, whilst Ann Louise held up a rather spectacular piece of curled spike, synonymous with the fields of barbed wire seen dotting no-man's land on the Western Front between 1914 and 1918.

A most welcome lunch with our French hosts in a little local French inn followed, with a chance for some of the more athletic members of the party to try their hands at pub skittles. Then we were on our way to the splendor of Strasbourg, past the First World War memorial at Bathelémont lès Bauzemont commemorating the first three American 'doughboys' killed in the Great War. Almost bypassed, this simple stone carried the names of Corporal J.B. Gresham from Evansville, Private T.F. Enright from Pittsburgh and Private M.D. May from Glidden, all killed on November 3rd 1917.