Richard Rubin: writer
Photos: Things
A display case in Gilles Lagin's Belleau Wood Museum in Marigny-en-Orxois, France. The case contains American artifacts from the Battle of Belleau Wood in June, 1918, including a boot, a helmet, tobacco tins, first aid kits, razors and cutlery. Lagin has collected thousands of such artifacts over the past few decades. His museum is open to the public by appointment.
A section of tree trunk from the Villers Cotterets Forest in France; on July 17, 1918, an unknown US Marine carved the USMC symbol and the date upon its trunk. It now stands in Gilles Lagin's Belleau Wood Museum. When asked how he got it, M. Lagin just smiled and said it wasn't easy.
An unexploded shell, believed to be German, that surfaced in a freshly-plowed field outside Romagne, France one morning in 2009, more than nine decades after it had been fired. (The author had to be restrained from picking it up.) Nearby were bullets, cartridges, and a uniform button -- all German. These kinds of things surface every time fields are plowed in this part of France.
The grave of noted journalist and poet Joyce Kilmer in the Oise-Aisne American Military Cemetary, France. A sergeant in the 165th Infantry Regiment, 42nd ("Rainbow") Division, Kilmer was killed by a German sniper on July 30, 1918. He was 31 years old, and had already contracted to write a memoir upon his return.
More to come soon...