Project Team M2ID – EXPEDITION 2021

Late on Sunday evening, our project team returned home from our Expedition to Belgium and Germany where we documented 14 battlefields of the 2nd Infantry Division from December 1944 to February 1945. Despite the fact that our Expedition was badly affected by the breakdown of the rented car and we did not manage to visit all the places on our list, we still took over 1,000 photos and tens of minutes of video recordings, which we have been trying to edit in recent days.

We were amazed to meet with so many wonderful people in Germany and Belgium who are interested in the 2nd Infantry Division! And also after more than three years of cooperation we managed to meet in person with an amazing group of our Dutch colleagues and friends led by Arjan Messemaker and Martijn Van Puffelen. On Saturday we visited together and documented for example the fighting sites of the 2nd ID at famous “Heartbreak Crossroads”, Rocherath Barracken, Krinkelt-Rocherath, Büllingen, Lausdell and also the defensive positions of Companies I, K, L and M, 23rd Infantry Regiment in the Krinkelt Forest.

Together we laid the wreaths and lit the candles at the monuments of the 2nd Infantry Division and the 99th Infantry Division in Krinkelt-Rocherath, and we also left at the monument the photos of the 2nd ID´s men who took part in the Battle of the Twin Villages.

You can look forward to our upcoming posts where we are going to present the photos from our Expedition and also the new stories of the 2nd ID´s veterans that we managed to collect. Stay with us!

Special thanks to our new friends from Feuerwehr Hellenthal, to Frederik Schrick from Bronsfeld, Arjan Messemaker, Martijn Van Puffelen and their great friends as well as the members of our Reenactment Group KVH Tommy & Yankee z.s. Plzeň and all the families of the 2nd ID´s veterans for their kind support and help! THANK YOU!