Our World War II tour is officially over!  We drove (or I should say Charlie drove) 4,256 km or 2,644 miles through France, Belgium, The Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria and into the Czech Republic.  Our travels pretty much followed the 803rd except when they went north in Germany to eliminate the Ruhr pocket in April of 1945.

We, of course, did much more than visit World War II sites.  For Charlie and I it was just good to be in the same area and see the beautiful countryside, farms and villages we knew he had been in.  And even though he was fighting an  intense war, we're sure he looked around at those farms with black rich soil and friendly welcoming locals in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg and felt some sense of pride and satisfaction being in the American liberating army.   We so wish we had been more intent on questioning Dad about his war experiences.  He was a quiet man and hardly ever talked about the war, but we think now that he would have answered questions with great detail had we just asked.

For the most part we stayed off the main roads, although we did travel on the autobahn through parts of Germany but did not stay in the left lane very much--our little Ford C Max couldn't compete with the luxury cars!

The 803rd was involved in occupation duty in southern Bavaria from the end of the war until Dad departed for home on 6 November 1945 arriving on 16 November and being discharged  from Fort Gordon, GA on 20 November.