September 1944. The german army was in full retreat and Romania just left the axis and joined the allies with the soviets. Near Iernut, the germans were well entranched on a fortified hill that oversees the valley of the river Mures, near the village of Oarba de Mureş.

This is the place where the largest and bloodiest battle for the romanian army took place.

The assault was ordered on september 16th and for 20 days, until october 6th, romanian regiments attacked repeatedly, some times several times a day, taking a bridgehead across the river, then going uphill, taking, retreating, attacking again for the already infamous hill 495 (height), with the heaviest of losses.

Aproximately 11 000 officers and soldiers died. Old folks from Oarba tell how the river Mureş was red with the blood of the dead and dying.

"From Luduş to Iernut / Three divisions we have lost ... " says a song, promptly forbidden by the new communiste authorities after 1945, the song telling about Rodion Malinovski's lust for revenge for all the battles he had lost as commander of the second ukranian front the years before, when the romanian army was part of the axis forces invading the Soviet Union. Such shame could only be washed by blood, and sent the now allied Romanian Army on a frontal assault of the hills that could've been easily taken by surrounding. The Romanian Army, already weakend, had artillery from 1897 that had seen service in WWI as well, against the best and most modern weaponry of the Wehrmacht.

Many years after the war, this was a place of pilgrimage, mostly for the relatives of those who lost their lives here.

A monument was built in 1950 in the center of the cemetery where in 1944 over 3500 romanian soldiers were burried, of which only 1169 were identified to this day. The monument commemorates the battle and those who lost their lives.

Each year, on the 9th of may, people come and pay respects to those who have fallen in battle.

WARNING: BEWARE OF WASPS !!!

zntargvp, sbejneq bs gur oerrpu, haqre oneery

magnetic, forward of the breech, under barrel