My grandfather

My grandfather, Luther served in the great war as a medic.  Growing up he never spoke of his experiences, and my mother was surprised that he was injured.  We have a few items from his service, a gas mask, a few pictures of the company.  The most interesting item is a diary.  The diary provides little detail of what he did, or what he  was thinking.  It is a terse document of when and where he was.  The difficult part of this is the English spelling of french towns.  I was never sure where he was. 

He was in the 82nd Division, and there is a report, written shortly after the war that details when and where the division and many of the units activities.  Using dates from the diary, the division's location was easy to determine.  A map of France narrowed the search for his location.  Most of the towns were found. 

He describes what happened on the days before his injury caused by shrapnel to the wrist as he was trying to evacuate some wounded.  After this, he got lost, spent the night under an apple tree, and found his way back.  There was no mention of a town. He did mention being attached to an infantry company, and the company was mentioned in the division's history on that day as having taken some action.  So I know within a few kilometers of where he was injured.  This is northwest of Verdun 'on the road to St Juvian'.

Other searches turned up the location of the hospital where he was treated, as he referred to the hospital number, and the french field hospital that did the initial triage. There were pictures of the 1000 bed tent hospital where he was treated.
We know that he stayed into 1918 serving at a hospital unit in Bordeaux, before his return to his home in Georgia.

So, after 9 months of planning, mapping, planning, and mapping, My wife Debbie, and my sister Sue are off to see most of the places that he saw 98 years ago.  We will cycle about 450 miles starting in Dijon, and finishing up on that road to St Juvian.