9 Days of living like 1944

[easyrider]

Re-enactments

Re-enactments

Nice pix, nice vehicles. But I have really never understood why people want to re-enact WWII or any other war for that matter. The real thing is very messy. And, looking at the footage from Iraq and Afghanistan, it has become messier than ever.

Anyway, those who like it, enjoy!

 

[David_Manning]

From a purely photographic standpoint (and avoiding any politics), these pictures are surprisingly reminiscent of the shots in my Time/Life volume on WWII. Very cool.

Did you feel like you missed any shots or coverage by not having auto-focus, auto-exposure, etc? I have a feeling if someone in your situation (this re-enactment) had a dSLR, they would have taken 5,000 mostly boring images.

 

[Frontman]

A great thread, I wish I could participate in something like this. I spent some time in the Army myself (much more recently than 1944), and I remember exploring the old WW2 era barracks and an old German POW camp located near Ft McClellan Alabama. Seeing these places always made me wonder what life was like during the war.

My grandfather was a WW2 veteran, though he had been a cavalryman in the US Army for several years before the war started. He joined the cavalry in 1933 at the age of 15 because he wanted to live in the western states and live like the cowboys of old (in 1933 the cavalry still rode horses). He never imagined at the time that he would one day end up fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, be evacuated with MacArthur from the Philippines as the Japanese forces bore down on them, and eventually live for some time in Japan after the war finally ended.

As for myself, I was a paratrooper. I worked as a medic with the 507th PIR (made famous for their jump on St Mere Eglise on D-day) at Ft Benning before spending time with a couple of other units. I hope to get a chance to visit Europe next year.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

Frontman, thanks for sharing your grandfather's history. Depending on where and when you are going to visit Europe, there usually are WW2 living history events throughout the year, though none as long and as big as this. Normandy in June and Bastogne in December are the places to be.
Though I haven't been in Normandy for 3 years now. But I visit Bastogne every year for the Memorial March.



Dralowid, I don't have any close-ups of the butchered FEDs I'm afraid. They were cut up pretty roughly to fit the digital cameras. Lots of open areas for the controls and view-screens, rangefinder sensor. The collapsable section of a 50mm lens would be removed and the lens of the digital camera would poke through the hole in the LTM
base. In a word, they were pretty ugly up close. But from a few yards away they looked convincing.

David, I did miss a few shots, but I managed to correctly anticipate where the action would be on a few occasions. I'm sure those that I did miss were covered by the other photographers.