I know it's been a while since last I blogged and I know I need to get caught back up on it, but for now I think I will skip all my other trips I've taken in the last SIX MONTHS because this one trip is far more important than any others.
My mother's grandfather, Grandpa Silas E. Norton, was a young soldier during WWII. He served in an army battalion that fought against the German military in the mid-1940s. It just so happened that he was sent to fight in Eastern France about an hour from where my parents live. I would like to say that my Grandpa Silas was the man who told me stories of his fighting and how cold and hungry he must have been at times but he wasn't. He died when he wasn't yet even 25 while in France.
While living in Germany I've often been told that I need to venture to France to see if I couldn't find the place where he lost his life just for the sake of saying that there is such a place. For a long time I didn't know where to begin looking. Eastern France doesn't exactly narrow it down...
A couple years ago one of my great-aunts and uncles had finished compiling a book of Grandpa Silas' life; this book included the time he spent in the army and letters from many of his comrades. After we received this book we started looking up places, tracking down the battalion he was in and trying to find EXACTLY where it was they said his last fight was.
In this book there is a letter from one of the cooks stationed with his battalion who talked about seeing the death of my grandfather. It was through him that we decided we'd make our way to Hatten, France, and see if we couldn't at least get an idea of what he might have gone through.
After googl-ing these places and not finding much on the battles that took place there or the rogue bomb that killed my great-grandpa I wasn't hoping to find much. I thought we might just drive into France, get a pastry or loaf of bread, take a few pictures and be home before the sunset. It seems to me that the trips you don't expect to find much are the trips you are always taken aback with.
I don't want to ramble too much more but to share the experience with family members who have not yet or may never get to see this place where so many lost so much. There were NUMEROUS pictures taken and very little to be said about it.
Right after we saw the first sign for Hatten we saw this on the side of the road. Ok, we were excited. Here was a memorial with an old US Army tank facing towards Germany.
Next thing I knew dad was pulling out the American flag...
Mom and Grandma in Hatten, France. As we pulled into this village we saw a sign talking about a military memorial. Though we weren't sure what it was we went ahead and pulled in. What we found was a gold mine of history.
The Cart of Remembrance has a HUGE history and it can be read about below.
THE CART OF REMEMBRANCE
The cart displayed under this structure has a most interesting story: Emile HEIMLICH (1906-1990) tells: "In December 1944, our region was still occupied by the German Army. Most Alstatians had been drafted into the Wehrmact. On 9 December, all remaining men but a few were inducted into the "Volkssturm" (German Home Guard) and they left Hatten.
At the time, I was on the right bank of the Rhine River where I had driven families of refugees in my carriage.
When I came back to Hatten, the situation was confused. The Americans had already reached Haguenau and they entered Hatten on 13 December. Therefore I decided to stay at home and I spent Christmas and New Year's Day there.
And thus I became an eyewitness of the battle which started, as you know, on 9 January and lasted until 20 January.
During the night of 20 January the Americans evacuated the basements and took their wounded with them. On the 21st the fighting was over.
The next day, a kind of truck fitted with a dozer blade pushed its way through the rubble down the main street in order to clear it.
I got Frederic Rohrbacher's cart, yoked two oxen and, with the help of Frederic Heintz, Georges Rothaas, Frederic Fleick, and a few other young men, we began loading the dead. 30-35 GIs made up the first cartload.
When a German Ortsgruppenleiter (Political leader of about 3000 households) passing through the village saw what we were doing, he put me in charge of the operation for the whole place and ordered me to watch over the wrecked houses in order to prevent looting. He promised to give me 2 Reichsmark and I am still waiting!
Supervised by Georges Kraemer, two single men, Gustave and Emile Mathern, occasionally helped by Frederic Goestmann and Louis Ehresmann, had begun to dig a mass grave at the end of the present cemetery, on the left-hand side. That's where I would deliver the dead several times a day.
Another mass grave was dug for the German soldiers. We must have collected 500 American and German soldiers altogether. They had been killed during the three last days of the battle.
The operation lasted about six weeks and then it was March. I was often alone to handle the bodies... Later on, the inhabitants would report bodies in backyards, gardens... and we would go and pick them up. It lasted until the summer.
Most of civilian casualties were buried in a mass grave which is still there to this day. A memorial visible from the road has been erected over it.
After the war the Rohrbachers used the cart when they worked in the fields, then they stored it in a barn.
Threatened with destruction, the cart was given by the Rohrbachers to Francois Fenninger, the Mayor of Hatten, who put it in the town garage where it was safe.
Restored by the members of the Association, this silent withness of the January 1945 battle has been on display since April 2001.
Personal notes from the Church Minister Paul Birckel.
Re the transportation of the bodies: I can still remember the cart and its gruesome load: the lines of corpses stacked up like wood piles, ready to be driven to the cemetery.
Willheim Fleck, my father-in-law, also helped dig the mass grave where both his grandkids and his son-in-law Georges Metz were buried without caskets, just like the other victims.
When in July 1945, we harvested at the place-name "Shnatgaessel", about a hundred yards from the cemetery, I found the badly decomposed body of a soldier inside a knocked out tank. Whether he was American or German, I couldn't tell.
An old tank used during the war.
An old poster telling people to watch what they say. I was surprised at how much they still had at this place.
In many of the letters back and forth during his final weeks Grandpa Silas talks about having to travel through a field to the front from Rittershofen where they were staying at night. Perhaps this is that very field...
Checkpoint Charlie... or an example of it.
The entrance to the old prisoner camp that we found out used to be here.
The old Bunker, we walked through it where it had a lot of staged manequins and old memorabilia. I was also amazed with the amount of information they had on the 48 BN 14 AD. These people in this village seem to be rather grateful for the fight they endured before they were pulled out.
Grandma Norton signing the book of visitors.
Yes, we know the day is wrong, but the fact is that we finally found the place where Grandpa Silas gave his life so others may live.
Found on the way out, this sign reads:
In memory of the fierce and bitter tank battle which raged from January 9 through 20, 1945, in the twin communities of Hatten and Rittershoffen. The tanks of the 14th Armored Division, supported by infantry units from the 42nd and 79th Divisions were opposed to those of the 21st Panzer Division and of the 25th Panzergrenadier Division, supported by the parachutists of teh 7th Fallschirmjager Division and the infantry of the 47th Volksgrenadier Division. The merciless duel, later comparted to the famous battle of Stalingrad, was the climax of the Operation Nordwind, Hitler's last offensive on the western front.
It soon turned into house-to-house fighting in the center of both villages where every house, every room, every basement changed hands several times. Hidden in the basements or in the Maginot Line barracks, without any food, water or wood, the civilians paid a heavy toll: 83 dead in Hatten, 21 in Rittershoffen, hundreds of wounded, people whose flesh and spirit were scarred forever.
Short of men and ammunition, the Americans abandoned the salient during the night of January 20 and withdrew to the Moder river. The survivors came out of the cellars and discovered their village more than 90% destroyed. Both villages were liberated without fight, on March 19 (Operation Undertone).
It was a great trip. A trip I wish everyone could take once. It's great to see that a part of our family history is still around and we can still reflect on it.
I hope others find this as interesting as I did.
Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Well, now you know.
Mom and Grandma in Hatten, France. As we pulled into this village we saw a sign talking about a military memorial. Though we weren't sure what it was we went ahead and pulled in. What we found was a gold mine of history. 
