Buy U. 8. War Sayings Bonds and Stamps NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE JULY. 1945 War's Wake in the Rhineland With 29 Tlustrations and Map THOMAS R. HENRY Potomac, River of Destiny With 15 Illustrations and Map ALBERT W, ATWOOD George Washington's Historic River i8 Natural Color Photographs WILLARD R, CULVER ROBERT F. SISSON This Was Austria 8 THustrations To Market in Guatemala 19 Natural Color Photographs GILES GREVILLE HEALEY CHARLES 8. PINEO Yank Meets Native With 24 Ilustrations WANDA BURNETT Thirty-two Pages of Illustrations in Color PUBLISHED BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY l WASHINGTON, D.C. Ma] assets, oS pa aaVor. L. CXXVIIL, Nov WASHINGTON Jury, 1945 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE SEAVER, toe WT RATION, GRAM NOTH: WARWINRTOAL WT EMGTICANG GOpWISUT SSS War's Wake in the Rhineland By Tuomas R. Hexky Washinulon Keewing Star Cortespondent, Fist U.S. Army E castled Rhine Valley of song and Jegend, of Heine's Lareleé ancl Wasrner’s Ber Ring des Nibelungen, today is a desolate land of rubble piles which yesterday were great cities, of highway’ strewn with the Doodstained, rain-seaked debris of fleeing armies, of scared and sullen people whose brief opium dream of world empire has burst like a land mine under a tank: Such cities as Aachen, Diiren, Cologne, and Roblena essentially have ceased to exist (map; page 4), They must be rebuilt almost entirely to be habitable await, for today Large areas, Incliding their principal business and residential sections, are flattened deserts of stone ‘and plaster strewn with tags, waste- Fragments of furniture. When- it blows, these ruins are veiled in clouds of dust, In the cold spring rains they present a picture of dire and dreary desolation, Often. in western Europe's troubled history conquering armies have marched, both est wand and westward, over the low, spruce: covered Eifel and Hunsriick mountains and the flat, black, dismal Cologne plain, bringing, with them tragedy and destruction.* But the effects have been relatively mild in the past, for no hostile troops hitherto had crossed the area since the start of the Machine Age. with its ever more terrible weapons of annihilation The Rhineland escaped very lightly. fi the inst war, It was not entered by the Allies until after the armistice, and the military. occupa- tion of the country was exceptionally mild ‘There was no devastation, Contacts between the Rhinelanders and American, British, and ‘French ‘soldiers were, on the whole, friendly. * See “Map af Germany’ andl Te Approaches," 10- colar munplement with the July, 144, isue af the Nationat Guogearine MAuarINE, and pago 7 About the only inconvenience suffered by the: hatives was that of providing billets in| their homes for the accupation forces, Soldiers fell in love with the land. It is one of the minst beautiful countries on earth, especially in spring with orchards in bloom, vineyards turning green on terraced ‘hills and river banks, and forests whose great trees are in almost perfectly without any undergrowth, ‘They cathedral aisles, ‘They are filled with: the organ tones of falling waters. The sunshine through the high branches falling on the leafy floor is like light throtigh stained-glass wine dows. Almost every American soldier who spent a few months there has felt a nnstalgic longing sooner or Tater to go. bark War Plays Tricks of 2 Tornada But far different is the picture today from Wehing the soldier of 1918 would remember. fe gecatest war tornade in all history. has swept the kand ‘War, in fact, plays all the queer tricks of a tornado. It literally wipes one. town from the face of the earth, while the town five miles away escapes nearly untouched, T have just been through the greater part of the Rhineland campaign with the United States’ First Atmy, to which fell the job of conquering the greater part of this area and establishing the first bridgehead across the Rhine which eliminated Germany's last good natural ling of defense. During the past three years of war 1 have seer) many bomb- and shell-ruined cities. There was a constantly rising curve of de~ struction. We used to look with horror on the devasta- tion of the great French naval base of BizerteThe National Geographic Magazine An Ann perturbed chill in the A Marshal Sir Be eantike horizon js due to censor id LCVP wre May the Tun nal 1943, Day But while p i through town after town y it Ww American and in the Rhir in the last few weeks, we British medium remarked, over and aver again, ‘This is almost When troops Info as bad as St..." Sometimes, because of th finalls ed the there was hardly a ¢ iny weather, it looked even wr house left and only citi remained, We wonde: a could have stayed alive: under the bomb to the nsit ich the ruined bloc give le eyinle The Army: move that the destruct! habitabi ‘ot that the Allied Armies followed any destruction, held artillery $10 their own disadvantag their better judgment Bombardie re startin which, if possit am to Sicily and found f Bizerte was relati ns of ruin i the har Id not be hit Rhinclunders wildered onto Fr and the devastation “But war is war, Id in turn compared to that sisted—oiten foolishly and hopele ns in Normandy. The worst struction was the only alternative to losing example was the once lovely and prosperous lives of Allied soldiers in clearing the way to market town and fai ter, St, Li, the Rhine. Here was a was little shor The Allied s ulverized. Tt was It was dust, recognize the Rhine ably for all time it will remain were a rather pleasin ratiating folk. 2 example of how thore ow the troops passing through get only looks ands of ton of sullen hatred from the people on the side walks, of 1918-19 would hardly nders today, Then thes