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Cycling to find my grandfather's battlefields
A grandson guides his grandfather down from heaven and follows an old soldier's 1917 photographic trail through the wheat fields of northern France
Our Story
Alton Crockett Hawkes 1917
As the snowstorms spun through Massachusetts, in my warm cozy office, I pored over more than a hundred photographs that resurrected a story never told. Veterans tend to discard horrific war memories in peace time, so it’s not surprising my grandfather did the same. Now retired and myself a grandfather, I realized this photo album in front of me had awakened and revitalized an old soldier and it was my responsibility not to let him go.
He left behind a treasure trove of documented history of not only blood soaked battlefields, unrecognizable rubble of French towns and poor dead horses who got on the wrong side of an artillery shell but also the touching and sweet interaction with French civilians in the chaos of war. Now the best part: he labeled every photo with location and date and I thought, “what do these places look like now?”. I had to find out! It then became very evident…follow his exact footsteps and retake the very same photograph from the very same place my Grandfather stood 105 years ago. The results are simultaneously thought-provoking, heart-wrenching, and uplifting.
Brett Clinton Hawkes 2022
Grampy in Paris
All by bicycle and no English
My journey of 600 miles on a bicycle following Grampy’s path best simulated a soldier's environment of always being outdoors, without the nagging anxiety of war. I wanted to feel the heat and cold. I wanted to work for every mile and finally I wanted to relate to the local French people.
As I knocked on French doors and questioned people sitting in cafes on the location of his photos, my cycling clothing usually initiated “bon courage”. Unquestionably, the local French people were the highlight of my journey and formed friendships that will last the rest of my life. While this started as a retiree’s lark it, ended as an emotional reconnection to a wonderful human being and the understanding of a forgotten era of unquestioned self-sacrifice.
Grampy gas mask
Alton Crockett Hawkes awarded "Croix de Guerre" for distinguished bravery in Cantigny, France
Grampy's Croix de Guerre June 1918
Cantigny, France
In Cantigny June 2022, a 100 meters from where Grampy was wounded
Images from 1917 and 2022
Chateau de Tilloloy 1918
Bonvillers Cemetery 1918
Temporary Burial 1st Division soldiers Bonvillers, France
Chateau de Tilloloy 2022
Bonviller's Cemetery 2022
Soldiers Transferred to Romagne 1919
Bonvillers, France
The people of France then and now
"Jean Pierre, reveille-toi, il y a un Americain en velo, son grandpere etait a Warmaise pendant la premiere guerre."
Annie Niquet
"Jean Pierre, wake up, there is an American on a bicycle, his grandfather was in Warmaise during the first war."
"Cette periode de l'histoire, 1914-1918 qui a fait rentrer le monde dans l'epoque modern en exterminante la meilleure part de sa juenesse."
Jean Pierre Niquet
"This period of history, 1914-1918 which brought the world back into the modern era by exterminating the better part of its youth."
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Jean Pierre's barn showing me where Grampy smoked cigarettes
Grampy's French friends, Versailles
M. and Mme Lionville, Demanges
The mayor of Abainville and me
What am I doing? My goal is to teach.
To reach audiences, who may not be inclined to the academic approach of history. I apply a personal side to WW1 mixing solid factual war history with humor, emotion, pitfalls, and the French interaction of a personal 600-mile cycling journey. You’ll see the transition of chaotic war-torn northern France and compare it to bucolic present day. What are the lessons learned? In the house where Grampy planned the battle of Cantigny are now families with children outside blowing soap bubbles. It’s how one generation survives to the next. We manage to persist. We will always persist. The proof is in the storytelling and this is one of those stories.
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