Photos WW1 British, Commonwealth & US Forces

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Canadian Corps. infantrymen clean up and prepare food in a trench that shows signs of heavy fighting. Saskatchewan Military Museum

Shrapnel bursts over a reserve trench in Canadian lines during the Battle of the Somme

 

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Gas-masked men of the British Machine Gun Corps with a Vickers machine gun during the first Battle of the Somme

Men of the 3rd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers manning a trench in Salonika.

 

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Officers of 12th Royal Irish Rifles wading through mud in a trench at Essigny, France

Officers of the Royal Engineers in a communication trench.

 

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The wounded are dressed in a trench during the Courcelette operation of the Battle of the Somme, France, on 15 September 1916.

A ration party of the Royal Irish Rifles in a communication trench during the Battle of the Somme. The date is believed to be 1 July 1916, the first day on the Somme, and the unit is possibly the 1st Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles (25th Brigade, 8th Division)

 

[BravoZulu]

Infantry from the 2nd Battalion, Auckland Regiment, New Zealand Division in the Switch Line near Flers, taken some time in September 1916, after the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.

Captain Leslie Morshead in a trench at Lone Pine after the battle, looking at Australian and Ottoman dead on the parapet.

 

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Guy Drummond with his comrades in the trenches at Passchendaele in 1914.
The son of Sir George Alexander Drummond, a wealthy industrialist and financier based in Montreal, Guy Drummond was widely recognized as one of the most promising young Canadians. A peacetime officer in the Canadian Militia when the First World War broke out in August 1914, Guy quickly volunteered to sail with the first Canadian contingent For a member of one of Canada’s wealthiest families who only recently married, to voluntarily serve his country, Guy Drummond was quickly upheld as the exemplification of Canadian patriotism. Even more so later in England, when Guy voluntarily chose to revert to a lower rank, from captain to lieutenant, so that he could continue immediately to the Western Front with the First Canadian Division.
The First Canadian Division was first sent to the Ypres Salient, a bulge in the trench lines extending eastward around the Belgium town of Ypres. It was a cruel fate that the Ypres Salient had been chosen by the Germans as the place to test their newest weapon: poison gas. On the morning of April 22nd, 1915, the Germans opened cylinders of chlorine gas across from a French Algerian Division based in the Ypres Salient. Clouds of greenish-yellow smoke quickly overwhelmed the Algerians, who were unaware of the gas’ suffocating effects until it was overtop of them. The Algerians withdrew in a panic, opening a threatening gap in the line that the Germans could exploit to outflank the adjacent First Canadian Division, and possible seize the Ypres Salient.
Lieutenant Guy Drummond was serving as second-in-command of an infantry company in the 13th “Black Watch” Battalion. As the 13th Battalion was entrenched adjacent to the Algerians, on the extreme flank of the Canadian Division, it was the first Canadian unit to engage the German advance. As he was bilingual, Lieutenant Drummond appealed to the retreating Algerians and his heroism encouraged many to stand their ground. The Black Watch put up a heroic defence against the German advance, but was overwhelmed. Guy Drummond, along with dozens more from his company, perished in battle. The First Canadian Division managed to halt the German advance, even in the face of further gas attacks, but at extreme cost. Total Canadian casualties were approximately 6,000 men, one thousand of which were killed in action.

 

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Draining Trenches. 22nd Infantry Battalion (French Canadian). July 1916.

Australian ambulance workers near Bernafay, transporting men suffering from trench foot to hospital

 

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Stretcher bearers in the mud, Passchendaele, August 1917.

 

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Captain Leslie Morshead in a trench at Lone Pine after the battle, looking at Australian and Ottoman dead on the parapet.

Captain Morshead did okay, started off as a digger, ended up commanding an Infantry Battalion, got a DSO and 5 MIDs in France, then on to much bigger things in WW2, like kicking Rommel's arse and giving the Japanese a flogging on Borneo.

 

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He also got a half paved half dirt track named after him in my War Service Settlement home town. One of the few unpaved roads in the place. Waller, Truscott, Collins, Derrick, Vasey and Bennett all pipped him for the fully sealed roads...

 

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He also got a half paved half dirt track named after him in my War Service Settlement home town. One of the few unpaved roads in the place. Waller, Truscott, Collins, Derrick, Vasey and Bennett all pipped him for the fully sealed roads...

Bennett? They gave bloody Bennett a paved road?

 

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There were quite a few 8 Division ex POWs in the initial mob of soldier settlers too. From what I've read they weren't overly bitter that he escaped, I think many of them probably thought he'd be of more use in the game than sitting in a VIP prison camp. Although Blamey went and put him in a back water and he was out of the Army before the war finished in the end.

 

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Don't get me started on Blamey old mate, he was past his prime by the start of WW2. IMO he was MacArthurs lickspittle, ruined many a good officer and interfered disastrously again and again in operational decisions better left to the man on the spot

 

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Men of 2nd/6th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment - 1915

 

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Comrades watch as a soldier gets some sleep, Thievpal, France,

 

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HMS Queen Mary explodes during the Battle of Jutland

HMS Invincible is destroyed in the Battle of Jutland

HMS Indefatigable sinks during the Battle of Jutland

 

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Pvt. Michael J. O`Rourke (right), 7th Canadian Infantry Battalion, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his sustained life-saving efforts and courage while under fire serving as a stretcher-bearer from August 15th to 17th, 1917 during the fighting for Hill 70, near Lens.

 

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An Australian Soldier wading through the mud in the Trenches of France - December 1916

 

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A British soldier from the Machine Gun Corps in a sheepskin coat kisses a French farm girl under some mistletoe, Hesdin, France, December 1917

 

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A stripped down Model T Ford from Number 4 Group, 1st Light Car Patrol, Australian Imperial Force, used as a raiding unit during WW1 in modern day Syrian regions. It is armed with a pintle mounted Lewis gun and has been very heavily stripped down almost into a buggy type set-up for the desert conditions it was operating in. Due to the small size of the unit and how personalised the vehicles were many were named.

As an example another vehicle from the unit was 'Gentle' which in comparison to this stripped Ford Model T was an up-armoured Daimler with 50 horsepower compared to this vehicle's 20 horsepower. At least 12 vehicles were operated by the unit between 1916 and 1918, with names including Anzac, Billzac, Osatal, Silent Sue, Imshi, Bung and Gentle.

Despite the small size of the unit, they seemed rather successful in the desert during WW1, and were one of the inspirations for the later Long Range Desert Group / Long Range Desert Patrol LRDG of WW2, and some of the trails, maps and data gathered by 1st LCP was used by the LRDG decades later.