MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO—David Passmore of the University of Toronto, Mississauga, and his colleagues surveyed key World War II battlegrounds in Europe from June 1944 through February 1945. They focused on parts of northwestern France; the Ardennes forests of Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany; the Hürtgenwald and Reichswald forests of western Germany; and the woodlands of the Arnhem region of the Netherlands. The team found evidence of bomb craters, foxholes, trenches, and German logistics depots. “These things [could] illuminate war diaries and accounts of battlefield history, and provide a far more accurate impression of where troops were fighting, how they were fighting, and so on," Passmore told Live Science. He and his team are now investigating what the Allies knew about those German depots. The archaeological evidence may allow Passmore to determine how successful the Allied bombings were. For more on the study of battlefields of this era, see "Archaeology of World War II."
