ALSACE VOSGES - Moosch Nécropole Nationale

We depart from the Hirzstein via the D 5 bis, and we join the D 431, the Route des Crêtes, northward.

From the Crypt of the Col du Silberloch at the foot of the Hartmannswillerkopf, ...

... to the Col Amic. At the Col Amic we go left, and south-westward.

Via the D 13 bVI, the "Willer" road, and Willer-sur-Thur we drive to the village of Moosch.

At the north-eastern outskirts of Moosch, in the Rue du Cimétière Militaire, lies the Moosch Nécropole Nationale. Two 3D satellite views; first the village of Moosch, next a zoom-in view at the Cemetery.

The Moosch Nécropole Nationale contains 594 graves, mainly of “Blue Devils” of the Chasseurs Alpins, and some Infantrists like “Red Devils” of the 152e R.I.. There are also some graves of Chasseurs à Pied. The cemetery also contains the grave of an American ambulance car driver and a French nurse.

Rather remarkable; in contrary to other French war cemeteries this cemetery knows no “ossuaire” or mass grave.

The number of officers, buried here, is relatively high. All these officers and soldiers have been killed in 1915 and 1916, nearby on heights along the front between Metzeral in the north and Thann in the south, like the Hilsenfirst, the Sudelkopf, and the Hartmannswillerkopf.

A grave of a Chasseur Alpin of the 5e B.C.A., fallen on 13 September 1915.

The grave of a Captain of the 51e Bataillon Chasseurs à Pied, killed during the 1915 Christmas Battles in the Hartmannswillerkopf front sector.

Two graves, next to each other, both of Captains of the 15e Bataillon Chasseurs à Pied.

On 16 September 1915 both Captains died instantly, when "a grenade fell into the bunker of the Capitaine (Jeanperrin), Commander of the 3rd Coy, killing simultaneously 2 other officers and injuring a fourth" .

The next grave is of the "Commandant", Major, of the 5e B.C.P., Commandant Charles Colardelle.

The grave of another high officer, the commander of the 6e Brigade de Chasseurs Alpins, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Boussat, fallen on 17 December 1915.

During the preparations for the offensive of 21 December 1915, the Christmas Battles for the possession of the summit of the Hartmannswillerkopf, the 6e Brigade de Chasseurs Alpins lost their commander, Lt. Col. Boussat, on 17 december 1915.

While he was on a reconnaissance mission, Lt. Col. Boussat was hit "on the southern slopes of the Hartmannswillerkopf (trench called "Electric Trench"), observing the terrain of the attack of the Brigade".

The grave of the Capitaine of the 15e B.C. à Pied, Paul Amic, killed on the first day of the Christmas Battles.

"COL AMIC
IN MEMORY OF PAUL AMIC 1889 - 1915
CAPTAIN OF THE 15th BATALLION OF CHASSEURS
KNIGHT IN THE LEGION OF HONOUR
CROSS OF WAR
DIED FOR FRANCE AT THE HEAD OF HIS COMPANY
DURING THE ATTACK AT THE HARTMANNSWILLERKOPF
OF 21 DECEMBER 1915

WHEN I DIE MY FRIENDS OF HOPE AND MISERY
YOU WILL BURY ME NEAR THE FRONT IN THE SOIL
UNDER THE CROSS OF FIR WOOD NEAR THE BURNED CHURCH TOWER
BUT GUARD ME AND THE SOIL WHERE I WILL BE FALLEN

PAUL AMIC MOOSCH 1915"

This Red Devil private of the 152e R.I. was killed on the second day of the Christmas Battles for the Hartmannswillerkopf.

We climb the stairs on the right until the second row, left of the staircase to grave 485.

Here we find the grave of Général Marcel Serret, Commander of the 66e Division 'd Infanterie.

General Serret died at 6 January 1916, but before this event happened, he was severely wounded on 29 December 1915.

On 29 December 1915 General Serret inspected his troops in the combat sector at a southern slope of the Hartmannswillerkopf. In the afternoon he visited by car Camp Duvernet and Camp Renié. From Camp Renié the General walked the distance to the Command Post of Col. Goybet of the 81me B.I. near the brook of the Silberlochrunz.

During his walk the Germans bombarded this area "with 50 shells per minute".

After his conversation with Col. Goybet General Serret left the Command Post under polite protests of his officers requesting him to wait for a while, until the bombardment eased down.

General Serret refused this offer to stay any longer and left the Command Post of Col. Goybet. A few moments later, while walking his way back to his car at Camp Renié, General Serret was hit by a German shell fragment in his right leg. 

This is a contemporary photo of the location at the southern slope of the Hartmannswillerkopf, where the General was wounded. Further on this page, in another frame, I will give some more details about this location.

During the night the right leg of the General developed a serious infection.

The next day a military surgeon, 2nd. Major Tavernier, amputated 2/3 of the upper half of the General’s right leg.

Soeur Ignace and Général Serret

On 4 January 1916, Soeur Ignace accompanied a wounded teacher nun on her way back to her school. At 15.00 hrs. Soeur Ignace was hit by artillery fire just outside the hospital building, near the village church, and died on the spot.

After the amputation of his leg the condition of General Serret had been deteriorating seriously. The surgeon even meditated a second operation, but it was already too late.

Photo's in this frame: Courtesy of 2009 © René Kappert - The Netherlands. Thanks, René! - Maps in this frame: Courtesy of © Verlag Les Amis du Hartmannsweilerkopf Deutschland.

We pass the grave of a Chasseur Alpin of the 5e B.C.A., fallen on 23 December 1915

This Chasseur of the 15e B.C. à Pied and this soldier of the 152e R.I. were killed at 24 December 1915.

A sober memorial for the Chasseurs with their typical hunting horn emblem.

From this memorial a view north-westward over the village of Moosch.

Teleview at a remarkable grave, marked by two different flags. We descend to this grave for a better view.

It is the only grave here of a foreigner, the remarkable grave of the American ambulance driver, ...

The American Field Service was founded in 1915 by A. Piatt Andrew, an economics professor at Harvard University and a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. Begun as a service of volunteer ambulance drivers in 1914, nowadays the AFS has evolved into an international youth exchange organization.

When the war broke out in 1914, and when the United States of America were still neutral, the American Colony of Paris organized an "ambulance", again; the French term for a temporary military hospital. The "American Ambulance" of 1914 took over the premises of the unfinished Lycée Pasteur in the suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine, and it was run by the nearby American Hospital of Paris.

In the fall of 1914, when the war front moved away from Paris, the American Ambulance set up an outpost in Juilly and sent out detached units of volunteer drivers to serve informally with the British and Belgian armies in the north.

The volunteer drivers of 1914 found themselves behind the wheels of motorized, and not horse-driven, vehicles: Ford Model-Ts, purchased from the nearby Ford plant in Levallois-Perret.

Section 3 of the American Ambulance Field Service was organised in Paris in April 1915. It was first send for a trial to the VII Armée, where it was assigned to duty "in re-conquered France". The section was quartered at Saint- Maurice-sur-Moselle, Mollau and Moosch. The section served 25 km. of front between Metzeral and Thann, including the sector of the Hartmannswillerkopf.

Sources: “History of the American Field Service 1914-1917” and Wikipedia.

After this intermezzo about the American Ambulance Field Service, I explain some more about the fate of Richard Hall.

The next American Ambulance driver to pass, found him by the roadside halfway up the mountain: “His face was calm and his hands still in position to grasp the wheel. A shell had struck his car and killed him instantly, painlessly. A chance shell in a thousand had struck him at his post, in the morning of his youth.”

During his funeral service Richard Hall was posthumously decorated with the “Croix de Guerre”.