Fantastic research coincidence....

[Chris Boonzaier]

Something fantastic happened last month. I put up an Article about a member of the 4th Zouaves who won a Croix de Guerre for a heroic defense in the Vaux-Chapitre forest/Souville in August 1916 as well as some German documents for the action.

Then... I posted Photos of 2 random graves of men killed in the action. 2 Graves of 2 amongst hundreds of thousand of men killed during the battle of Verdun.

One of the men died at the age of 22, leaving no wife and no children behind.

Jean Lemieux wrote in "La Lune Rouge"...

"Life is like a huge furnace. When we leave there is just a pile of ashes, photos, memories, a farce that two generations later means nothing. A white stone on a hill next to the church."

I don't know what the chances are of a nephew of a man killed almost 100 years finding a randomly chosen photo on a website are... but I am pretty sure that they are very, very minimal.

Please take a look at this....

http://www.kaiserscross.com/40056/134143.html

[Danny70]

Chris,

That is absolutely incredible.

It feels good to know that Paul Julien Grousseau has not been forgotten after all the years like so many others.

To see his face and read a little about him is a fitting and poignant end to your article.

Regards - Danny

Edited April 11, 2010 by Danny70

[gerardkenny]

That is pretty amazing. I think completely random & unexpected things like that can really show the bright side of the internet.