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Photos of World War One

 

 

These photographs are press release photos from Tyne Tees Television's acclaimed six-week drama-documentary series Voices of War, which was broadcast in 1988.

 

(Click on the photo to see a larger image)

  

  

Ronald Morton, a rifleman of the London Rifle Brigade, stands with his parents outside Victoria Station, before setting off for France at the end of his leave in June 1915.   All their faces betray what they were feeling at the time.

  

The three Maw brothers served in different units, but their parents were still very worried that they would never see any of them again.

  

The men of 10 Platoon, 'A' Company of the 6th Battalion South Staffordshire regiment, in the trenches at Armentieres in 1915.

  

A typical scene in the Front Line.

  

Cameronian officer Robin Morley negotiates a flooded trench at Bois Grenier in January 1915, after the pumps provided by the Royal Engineers had failed to persuade 'French water to run uphill'/

  

The stern looks on the faces of these men of the 8th Border regiment is perhaps because they face great danger.   Their job is to destroy enemy opposition at either end of a trench section so that prisoners can be taken back across No Man's Land for interrogation.   Note the Mills grenade in the hand of the soldier on the right.

  

An 18-pounder of the Royal Field Artillery in action near Houplines in december 1914.   The gunner on the left is setting the fuse on the nose cap of the shell.

  

A group of VAD Ambulance drivers with a British Red Cross St John's Ambulance at Lady Murray hospital, Le Treport on the Channel Coast in France, 1916.

Things were very similar for the Germans.   Here, a group of German soldiers relax in a dug-out, read the newspapers and letters from home.

  

  

  

The following photos are not from the First World War, but are photographs of re-enactments during the TV series itself.   How valid are they as images of the first World War?

  

  

The actor Jerome Green re-enacts a scene of a young soldier reading a letter from home during a lull in the fighting on the Western Front.

Three actors, Don McBride, Peter McGowan and Brian Hogg discuss, in episode 5, dreams they have experienced during the night, during a re-enacted night-scene set in a front-line trench.