Caption:  The above U.S. Army Signal Corps photo serves as the dust jacket cover for Mitchell Yockelson’s recent book:  “Forty-Seven Days:  How Pershing’s Warriors came of age to Defeat the German Army in World War 1.”  The picture is captioned Varennes.  However, the street-scape in the “now” photo does not line up at all with the “then” photo.  Nevertheless, the webmaster is quite certain that the Google earth “now” photo is the right location for three reasons:  1) The angle of the hill and curve of the road, 2) the presence of the narrow gauge railroad track (which the webmaster can verify on a period German map), and 3) the direction the troops are heading–north.  The road is the D-946 and the 28th and 35th Division troops would have been advancing from Boureuilles in the south on the D-946.

Any reader having more information on the re-building of Varennes is encouraged to share it on this website.

Location:  The D-946 in Varennes-en-Argonne; west of the Aire River.

Source of Then Photo:  National Archives via Mitchell Yockelson.

Source of Now Photo:  Google Earth