Centennial of the 1918 Armistice

[AeroDillo MkII]

Over the weekend one of my favorite venues down in College Station hosted a World War I Centennial memorial and reenactment. In addition to the museum's French 75, Nash Quad artillery tractor, and probably the best-restored operable FT-17 light tank in the western hemisphere, the Museum of the American GI allowed the use of their small-scale trench network as the site of a brief set-piece show battle.

The battle ended at 11:00 with the ringing of bells. After which, unplanned, the belligerents emerged from their trenches to meet in no-man's-land.

Considering we had lousy weather, competing events across the state, a marginal reenactor turnout atop the usual vagaries of century-old military equipment it went off without a hitch.

I attended as a photographer in period civil attire. Depending on interest I may throw up some of the better pictures. But for now I'll leave it with these three. The first two are mine. The third was shot by a local photographer taking pictures from the Allied side.

The Imperials


The Doughboys


The Aftermath (not my picture)

[n11pilot]

Really great photos, Dillo! The reenactors did a great job of duplicating the look of the era. Well done!

[The Oracle]

Dillo,

I love seeing your pictures. I admit that the Great War is an interest of mine, but I do not have near the historical knowledge I would like to have.

Thank you for posting this

[AeroDillo MkII]

Rather than soak up the boss-man's bandwidth, I'll throw this out here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127483678 ... 5587069458

This is the complete album - all 175 images in glorious Technicolor. If you run across one of particular interest, post it here and I'll tell you whatever I remember about it. But be warned...I've slept since then.

[n11pilot]

Great photos, Dillo! I have to say that I like seeing the Renault 17 tank in full color. While my Grandfather didn't serve on them he saw quite a few "Over there". In his opinion, bearing in mind that he was a trained auto mechanic before the war, more were knocked out by bad fan belts than enemy fire. He was particular about his machines.