Battle Trenches

[paulseamus]

A CD, supplied with a recently purchased book on the WW1 History of the Australian 28th Battalion, contained these interesting pictures of Aussie Infantry fixing bayonets to their No.1 Lee Enfields and then going over the top. The second photograph is labelled Zonnebeke, which is located in Belgium.

Whilst their shoulder patches indicate that they were from another Battalion and the photographs are probably staged, I believe that they are interesting enough to share.

Paul

Information

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[Stevo]

They all look pretty relaxed, don't they?

[Kirk]

The artillery fire in the background looks real enough. Perhaps they are in a reserve trench some disatnce behind the front. They must consider it safe enough to expose themselves as both the photographer & another soldier seen walking about on upper left side of the picture are above the trench.

[Stevo]

The ground bursts in the second pic look added in.

[Paul S.]

The things I notice are:
a. the bloke facing towards the rear of the trench in the foreground is looking at the bloke standing above ground in the upper left corner of the first picture.
b. the photographer is obviously above ground in both pictures and has moved for the second photo.
c. there is visible smoke (shellburst?) in the distant background and what appears to be structures on the skyline of the first photo. All that is obscured by smoke, real or added, in the second photo.
d. the one visible shoulder flash is a vertically aligned 2 colour rectangle. 5th Div AIF had vertically aligned shoulder flashes.

My suspicion is that these are actually 5DIV troops in a rear training area performing a scripted manoeuvre.

[RobD]

I reckon this is an exercise - there is no barbed wire in evidence...

[browningautorifle]

I reckon this is an exercise

I guess so, no harm in that. But there's clearly two pics here. Joined up at the right edge of the second photo. Not even the same area. No matter, these guys undoubtably did their duty eventually...

[Mk VII]

No wire, firebays, parapet or parados, it's probably a communication trench. Of course it might the jumping off point for some advance laterally. Photographer's perspective looks dangerous.

[Norton1]

Way too clean to be actual.

[Gav]

These are part of a series taken by a well known Australian war photographer named Frank Hurley. He is renowned for producing actual colour photos during the 1st war.

He was known to use composite negatives to produce some of his work.

He also worked along side CEW Bean the historian and was very much to be found 'at the front' but was on record as being frustrated at the photographic equipment and techology and it's inability to truly capture the scene 'as it happened', hence some use of combined plates.

I have a book of his work titled 'Hurley at war' covering his work on the western front with the AIF and in the middle east with the Australian Light Horse Regiments.