A couple of years ago I did a series of these, mainly individual soldiers from my private collection of postcards, I also did a few of these, now ubiquitously crayoned in, see ’em everywhere type images, so I thought I might as well add my favourites to the website just because I did some too.
Chateau wood, Hooge, 1917, Australian 4th Division field artillery brigade on a duckboard track passing through Chateau Wood, near Hooge in the Ypres salient, 29 October 1917. The leading soldier is Gunner James Fulton and the second soldier is Lieutenant Anthony Devine. The men belong to a battery of the 10th Field Artillery Brigade. Original Photo: Frank Hurley. OOC.
There is a fairly appalling film about Passhendaele, plot and subtexts letting down some good acting. Shame really. Having said that I’m not sure how you make a film which is basically about people slowly drowning under shellfire. I read somewhere that only the chap at the MG survived this particular debacle unharmed, all of the other men in this photo were injured, died or vanished.
Deutsche Soldaten Somme 1916, Original image courtesy Bundesarchiv. A lot of innocence in that face.
Cheshire Regiment in captured trench; a German trench no less. Near the Albert–Bapaume road at Ovillers-la-Boisselle, July 1916 during the Battle of the Somme.