re: #36 Shiplord Kirel

Speaking of Verdun, the thing that made it so hellish, and an icon of horror and inhumanity, is the small size of the battle area, only about 6.2 square kilometers. You can easily see the whole thing from the small rise where the Ossuary of Douamont was built to hold the remains of the dead after the war. Something over half a million German and French soldiers were killed in that tiny area in the space of a few months. The vast majority were never identified. Since the area was a giant cemetery, and useless for any other purpose, the French government planted it with trees and allowed it to return to nature. The French Forest Service manages it. To this day its rangers find human bones in the forest literally every couple of days on average. They are taken to the ossuary, examined, and placed in one of its numerous crypts.

I did not spend much time in France but I have to say over the last summer I was shockingly impressed by what a great job they have done preserving some of the war related history sites (Utah and Omaha beach) granted the fact that Normandy is also one of the poorest regions in France may have played a part of it, wich I guess makes it an unhappy coincidence.

Either way, the place was well enough preserved that I shit you not I could recognize some of it just from having played Company of Heroes.