In other words, it has been almost 80 years since the end of World War II, and those who have experienced that period of history have slowly withered...
As the years go by, the traces of war are slowly disappearing, disappearing as if nothing had happened... However, after looking at the following set of comparative photos of the battlefield through the past and the present, you will find that in fact, there are traces of it everywhere under our feet...
U.S. soldiers landing on Utah Beach, Normandy, 1944, Utah Beach was one of the five main Allied landings and the beach with the smoothest Allied attack and minimal losses in the Normandy landings, with a total casualty of only 197 casualties.
To the north of the beach, one can see a house with a red roof, which was once an orientation point for the landing force and still exists.
On Omaha Beach, the German prisoners of war who were escorted out of the fortifications, this scene is very similar to the scene in "Saving Private Ryan", it can be said that the movie is quite restored!
Surprisingly, after 80 years, the remains of the German Atlantic defense line can still be seen here.
In Germany, north of Frankfurt, hundreds of German prisoners of war were advancing on the highway, and at this time, a Sherman tank of the American army was passing by.
After all these years, the road is still the same road, but the trees around it have grown taller and more numerous.
In September 1944, during the Battle of Aachen, a U.S. machine-gun crew armed with an M1919 Browning fought against the Nazi Wehrmacht on the streets of Aachen, Germany.
The building behind it is a local courthouse, so it has been relatively well preserved, and the iron gates all look like the same...
In April 1945, on Brett Strasse in Lemgo, Germany, two captured German soldiers, who did not look very old, should not be adults...
According to the characteristics of Europeans and Americans, the age on the right is estimated to be in his early 10s, very immature, no wonder the American GIs don't give Genhuazi a shock...
In 1944, a German soldier was surrendering to American paratroopers, but it looked like he was posing for a photo, and the American soldier was still holding a cigarette in his mouth...
I'm doing my best to perform with you...... For the vanquished, it is a lucky thing to be alive. Of course, there is also a possibility that after the photo was taken, the German soldier was killed...
Looking at it from another angle, it is more likely that it is posing, and the American soldier next to him: Is it time for me to shoot it!
PS: This set of photos is the E company in the 101st Airborne Division, because of the broadcast of "Band of Brothers", so there are still many people running here to check in and cosplay...
In April 1945, during the Battle of the Rhine, a soldier was lying on the ground and shooting at a distant explosion in the town square of Jürzen, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Ironically, the shelter building behind him was a peace memorial to commemorate the First World War...
In 1944, in the Normandy region of France, an American GI was "squatting in the grass" at the crossroads, after 80 years, it is surprising that the environment here has changed little!
The big trees in the back yard have become taller and more prosperous, and they can be regarded as witnesses of history!
In 1944, in Normandy, France, in a small village called Dangy (Manche), two American soldiers in camouflage crouched behind a low fence, and it looked as if German troops were hidden in the courtyard.
It is really not easy for these buildings in this village to survive the war and survive to this day, to say the least, for 100 years!
During the Battle of Iwo Jima, the U.S. troops were shelling Mt. Origa on the beach, although the mountain was only 160 meters high, but it made the U.S. troops suffer greatly!
Kuribayashi Tadamichi led 20,000 or 30,000 remnants of his army to build a tight fortification on this extinct volcano, full of tunnels, tunnels and machine gun nests... Anyway, it's almost hollowing out the mountain!
Let's experience the perspective of the Japanese soldiers at that time, the beach below the mountain is full of American landing ships, of course, this does not include the battleships in charge of washing the ground with naval guns in the far sea...
The casualty ratio between the U.S. and Japanese forces was about 1.23:1, and the U.S. army, which had the advantage of sea and air, suffered more battle losses than the Japanese army, which was a miracle for the locust army in the waning mountains.
The Stalingrad Tractor Plant, a legendary presence in the Great Patriotic War of the USSR, produced not only civilian tractors, but also military equipment such as T-34 tanks during the war.
This is one of the fiercest battlefields of the battle, and at the most tense moments, the workers of the Stalingrad Tractor Factory, driving tanks that have just been built from the assembly line, go straight to meet the German army!
In the Battle of Stalingrad, the two sides fought fiercely over every house, and even every room.
On October 14, 1942, in the interval of artillery support, the soldiers of the German 305th Infantry Division who had taken a short rest revealed uneasiness and exhaustion in their eyes...
On August 23, 1942, the Germans launched their first assault on the railway station, one of the most important strategic targets in Stalingrad.
On the same day, Soviet war correspondent Emmanuel Evzerikhin took one of the most famous photographs of World War II: a children's round dance at the Barmaley Fountain.
It is a miraculously intact statue where children play in front of the ruined city square, in stark contrast to the ruins...
In the movie "Soldiers in the City", the legendary Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev was lying in this fountain, using the cover of artillery to kill a dozen German officers in the distance.
The barn, one of the other iconic locations of the Battle of Starigrad, was fought over by the Germans and the Soviet Red Army over this strategic point.
After being supported by a platoon of Sea Soul shirts, the defenders barely got about 50 people, relying on two old Maxim machine guns and two anti-tank rifles, to withstand more than a dozen German attacks!
The Soviet army relied on only a few dozen people to withstand the attack of 3 German divisions for 8 days! At that time, both Hitler and Paulus had negotiated, and after taking Stalingrad, they would use this barn to design medals. It's just that wishful thinking was played too early...
After the battle, these barns were partially preserved or rebuilt as a symbol of the memory of the war, and became important historical sites to commemorate the turning point of the battle.
In July 1937, the Japanese army attacked Lugou Bridge in Wanping County, a suburb of Beiping, on the grounds that a non-existent "missing Japanese soldier" was the pretext of a non-existent "missing Japanese soldier".
An inch of mountains and rivers, an inch of blood, every inch of land you walked under your feet, more than 80 years ago, maybe someone threw their heads and spilled blood without hesitation...
On July 7, 1937, the Japanese army launched the Lugou Bridge Incident, and after capturing Wanping, a group of Japanese soldiers were celebrating in front of the Lugou Xiaoyue Monument.
The four characters of Lugou Xiaoyue are Qianlong's imperial book, and there is his inscription poem on the back, but it is estimated that he should not have expected that this place would be occupied by Xiao Dongyang in one or two hundred years...
At the east gate of Wanping City next to the Lugou Bridge, you can clearly see the traces of guns and cannons on the city wall, which is also the most direct evidence of the Japanese invasion of China, and it also reads "Building a New Order in East Asia".
It is important to know that this castle tower was demolished in 1958 for transportation, and what we see now is the new castle building that was rebuilt in 1984.
In 1937, the Battle of Songhu, location: Sixing Warehouse, before the battle of the "Eight Hundred Heroes" began, Chinese soldiers were exercising.
The Chinese troops on the Songhu battlefield were comparable to the Japanese army in terms of individual equipment, but the German armament division, known as the elite of the people, was almost wiped out in the Battle of Songhu.
In December 1937, the Zhonghua Gate of Nanjing, full of devastation, the Japanese army entered the city of Nanjing and began the tragic Nanjing Massacre.
It's a little ironic that there used to be a bean chariot with thin skin and big stuffing in front of the Chinese gate, and now there are many Japanese cars with thin skin and big stuffing...
In the autumn of 1937, the Great Wall of Jianling was inserted in Laiyuan, Hebei Province, the command post of a front-line combat unit of the Eighth Route Army, and the Great Wall stretched in the distance.
After less than 90 years, because the tourism value is not high, lack of maintenance, the Great Wall in the distance is almost only the base, and there is little left of the enemy platform and the city tower...
Luo Wenyu Great Wall, in 1933, Song Zheyuan's 29th Army troops who were heavily defended on the Xifeng Pass, the battle of Xifengkou was extremely fierce, and the 29th Army fought hand-to-hand with the enemy with a broadsword to smash the enemy's plan to occupy the Great Wall within two days.
Although the Great Wall has slowly disappeared due to various factors, the sons and daughters of China have also built a new Great Wall spiritually!
In September 1940, after the battle of Dongtuanbao, the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army who cheered the victory on the Great Wall, the battle was extremely tragic, the Japanese army also used poison gas, and 212 officers and soldiers of the Eighth Route were killed, of which only 3 were named...
This beacon tower has since been known as the Cheer Tower, but with the erosion of time and wind and rain, these relics that have witnessed the blood and tears of the Chinese nation are really a little less glance...
Many years later, perhaps we can only feel that history in photos and videos...