just behind their front line. The German soldiers at Verdun came to refer to the place as "Old Uncle Douaumont". Recapture The French Second Army made a first attempt to recapture the fort in late May 1916. They occupied the western end of the fort for 36 hours but were dislodged after suffering heavy losses, mostly from German artillery and trench mortars nearby. The Germans stubbornly held onto the fort, as it provided shelter for troops and served as first aid station and supply dump. French artillery continued to shell the fort, turning the area into a pockmarked moonscape, traces of which are still visible. On 8 May 1916, an unattended cooking fire had detonated grenades and flamethrower fuel, which detonated an ammunition cache. Apparently some of the soldiers tried to heat coffee using flamethrower fuel, which proved to be too flammable and spread to shells which were without caution placed right next to such environments. A firestorm ripped through the fort, killing hundreds of soldiers instantly, including the 12th Grenadiers regimental staff. Some of the 1,800 wounded and soot-blackened survivors attempting to escape from the inferno were mistaken for French colonial infantry and were fired upon by their comrades; 679 German soldiers perished in this fire. Their remains were gathered inside the fort at the time and placed into a casemate which was walled off. The site is underground, inside the fort and has long been an official German war grave. A commemorative plaque in German and a cross stand at the foot of the grave's sealing wall, which is open to visitors. A French offensive involving three infantry divisions began on 24 October 1916, to recapture the fort. This took place on the same day and was carried out by the elite Régiment d'infanterie-chars de marine (At that time designated the Régiment d'infanterie coloniale du Maroc, R.I.C.M (Regiment of Colonial Infantry of Morocco)). Douaumont had been pounded for days by two super heavy long-range French railway guns named "Alsace" and "Lorraine", emplaced at Baleycourt, south-west of Verdun. Douaumont had become untenable under their fire and was in the process of being evacuated when it was recaptured. Millions of smaller shells had been fired at the fort since its capture by the Germans to little avail and tens of thousands of men had died in attempts to recapture it. Gallery See also Fort Vaux Zone rouge (First World War)