WWI Somme Portrait Photographs

Morlar

This may be of interest to some here - several hundred glass plate portrait photos from the area of the Somme ;

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/eu...ar-1688443.html

Within a few months – or days, most probably – many of the soldiers were dead. The "somewhere in France" where these pictures were taken was a village called Warloy-Baillon in the département of the Somme. Ten miles to the east was the front line from which the British Army launched the most murderous battle of that, or any, war, which lasted from 1 July to late November 1916 and killed an estimated 1,000,000 British empire, French and German soldiers.

More than 90 years later, at least 400 glass photographic plates preserving the images were found in the loft of a barn at Warloy-Baillon and cast out as rubbish. In recent months, the plates, some in perfect condition, some badly damaged, have been lovingly assembled and their images printed, scanned and digitally restored by two Frenchmen.


You can check out the photos here :

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/eu...ml?action=Popup

Some of them are outstanding and would make a great 'colourisation project' for someone somewhere !!

arnhem44

What a facinating story.Wouldn't it be great if someone could identfy a relative in those photos,the part about the really tall soldier reminds me of something I'm reading at the moment,Richard Van Emden's book called A soldiers War,theres one diary entry about a tall soldier who had a pain in his back from bending down as he walked along his trench,he got fed up with this so he would walk along the trench standing straight in full view of the Germans,the Germans never shot him as its belived that they thought it was a dummy being carried along the Bitish trench to draw out German snipers and reveal there own positions

Morlar

Thats a brilliant story - I love those anecdotes like that.