v20110425
The footprints of history on the ground are in many cases the best memory for the men involved in it. So, this blog has a dual purpose to recall events that never should happen again, besides serving as a tribute to all those who participated in the battles of North Africa. Furthermore, and from the historical point of view, these prints are an element of great archaeological value and great potential for tourism and education.
Since the first time I was in Tunisia, in 2009, I have developed a deep interest in knowing and studying the scenarios of the Second World War in North Africa.
The development and improvement of Google Earth in recent years have allowed me to begin to reconstruct the scenes of the battles of the Second World War that took place in northern Africa. These battles have left an imprint on the ground that remains today, and that comes from the infrastructure built during the course of the war and the effect of the battle itself.
The passage of time has retained some of these tracks still visible, which has been helped by the dry climate and the lack of vegetation of desert and sub-desert areas, along with the absence of intensive human activity on the ground.
Besides these factors, there is another one that comes from the Google Earth’s software application itself and this is high resolution capability of this the program. The increase in image resolution, which is equal to the improvement of photogrammetric sensors and the increased data storage capacity, make it easy to approach a scale that allows the identification of elements shrinking.
In any case, the traces of these battles have to be interpreted in most of the cases, so I apologize in advance for the mistakes I may commit.
The geographical setting on which I intend to work is currently formed by the countries of Tunisia (TUN), Libya (LBY) and Egypt (EGY), although some scenarios may occur in other countries such as Morocco (MAR), Algeria (DZA) and Tchad (TCD).
In subsequent posts I'll upload for those who may be interested, a guide to symbols and their meaning for me. This guide may change with time, depending on the needs that appear to represent the elements on the ground.
My intention is to make these settings available to those who may be interested, as Google Earth KML files, but without any timetable or plan in place. The file name includes the country and the "working" region and the date of the last update.
I appreciate in advance to all those who send information and want to help with this work, this will be possible via email from the blog page. The information received will be included as far as possible; authors will be mentioned unless they indicate the desire to remain anonymous.
The blog format appears to be the most comfortable for those, like me, that have no knowledge of the creation of web pages. The KML files download can be made from a Google "site" which name is the same as this blog (Google Earth Scenarios for WW2 in North Africa)
As anyone reading this post can understand I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize in advance for any linguistic errors that can be done. Thanks to friends and the Internet translation technologies I hope to offer the information in passable English.
Learn, teach and enjoy.
Fuerza, esfuerzo y fortaleza
