YD Pilgrimage

The Project

In August 2019 and July 2021, our team visited multiple historic WWI pilgrimage sites in France, both above and below ground, to digitally capture and archive the thousands of names etched on cave walls by the Yankee Division soldiers themselves, and memorialized at important sites like the Belleau Church and Aisne-Marne American Cemetery. Currently, this virtual pilgrimage platform has over 70 ultra-high-resolution spherical panoramas across five different historic sites from the Western Front. These interactive panoramas can be explored in 360 degrees from your web browser on computers, phones, and VR devices like Google Cardboard and the Oculus. In addition, using LiDAR scans and photogrammetry technology, high-resolution 3D data has also been captured at each site for digital preservation and future virtual pilgrimage experiences.

Behind the imagery, the virtual pilgrimage is also scaffolded by a digital archive of the soldiers who are memorialized on wall panels within the Belleau Church. We are working to link data for every soldier on the wall panels with information such as service records, photos, newspaper articles, letters, etc. The site has been developed so that anyone with a Google account can privately login and utilize annotation tools to add data, make personal notes, and curate their own pilgrimages which can be saved for later reference and educational purposes. Start exploring the virtual pilgrimage here, sign-in with any Google account from the top left menu button, and then try out the annotation button on the bottom navigation bar to learn more. We welcome contributions from professional and citizen historians, genealogists, teachers, and any other interested contributors. Please contact us at the email below if you would like to provide additional archival data.

Contact

Email: ydpilgrimage@gmail.com

Contributors

Prof. Heather Warfield, Project Director

Mr. Keith Heyward, Media Director

Prof. Kelly Goff

Brig. Gen. Leonid Kondratiuk (Ret.)

Capt. Jonathan Bratten

Prof. Marc LeBlanc

Mr. Fabien Lamontre

Lt. Col. Benoit Fief

Mr. Gilles Lagin

Mr. Gilles Chauwin

Mr. Emmanuel LeBoulanger

Mr. Bertrand Queniez

Mr. and Ms. Jean-Marc Poletz

Mr. and Ms. Jean-Francois Aubry

Mr. Patrick Lejeune

Supporters

This project was made possible with support from New Hampshire Humanities, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn more at www.nhhumanities.org.

The project is also supported by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through a State Historic Records Advisory Board (SHRAB) Veterans’ Heritage Grant

We also want to thank:

The American Battle Monuments Commission for the generous staff support at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery.

Yankee Division Veterans Association

The Massachusetts Archives/Mr. Keith Vezeau

New Hampshire National Guard

Activities for 2022-2023

• Link archival data with all names on wall panels
• Develop a digital space for visitors to leave a message for/about a soldier
• Develop curated experiences for users to learn about specific events
  and people of the YD related to WWI
• Develop a comprehensive bibliography
• Add mini-lectures from various experts related to the virtual sites, the YD, and WWI
• Develop easy-to-use tools to search database of names and etchings