BATTLE PHOTOGRAPHY.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 225, 10 November 1916, Page 1 (Supplement)

BATTLE PHOTOGRAPHY.

HOW OFFICIAL PICTURES ARE TAKEN. (By W. BEACH THOMAS, in London " Daily Mail.") No one compares with tlie fighting soldier. Ho endures daily enough dangers and difficulties to pad out the annals of a thousand other lives Those who take their bit of risk from time to time or at wholesome intervals and feel perhaps a certain glow at the memory of singing bullet-; or bursting shells ro cracking grenades should own to a .sort of shame at their own excitement or pride in these stirring experiences. Aft?*- all their best thrills were no more than soldiers' commonplaces. With so much preface I may he allowed to express some admiration for those almost-sohiiers who spend days not in fighting, but in taking pictures of those who fight. They run . soldier s risk, if not daily at any rate once a week; and on occasion the risk is very great indeed. Sometimes this is the fault as well as the virtue of the photographer. 1 remember very distinctly the preparations made for taking a photograph of the destruction of a German blockhouse. An officer turned his ingenuity, learnt in shooting big game'in India, to the work of finding and organising a hiding place for the photographer. A loophole was punctured at night in the front parapet, which was perhaps 100 yards from the target. This hole was then carefully blocked so as to be invisible; and the photographer installed behind it was ordered not to open it till after the first heavy shell was fired and the enemy were taking shelter. But photographers, in my experience, are not made quite like other people. No danger looms so large n their nature as the danger of missing a good photograph. So it was with tho artist on this occasion. A nervous terror possessed him that the first shell from the 9.2 would do tho deed and render further shots unnecessary. His photographer's nature gave him no alternative, una fie opened the loophole at once. Of course, the enemy saw, and, of course, turned tho guns on the spot. Happily our 0.2. was punctual. The photographer was forgotten in bigger things and hj: got an excellent picture of the dissolution of the blockhouse, «rnich shot up in dust and ashes under the stimulus of the eighth shell. Often on such occasions the nervousness of the photographer's iwork has been increased by the complete clearance of the trench. There is always tho danger of a mine or sheh kicking back, so for a short period in certain circumstances the front trench may be cleared. But the soldier's withdrawal Is occasion for the photographer's advance. To miss taking the explosion of a big mine, such as that of the Hawthorn Redoubt on July Ist, would be as serious as a soldier's failure to take a strong place. It was while holding such a trench alone that the garrison of two photographers had one of their two machines crippled. A fragment of a high-explosive shell cut th' 3 leg f the clean off. One of the most disagreeable facts or the war for photographers and some others is the enemy's unpleasant habit of sniping with artillery, even heavy artillery. I have myself seen ti shell pitched within ten yards of two observers who had exposed themselves on a lull-top in Flanders. At least as good shooting was made at a camera shown above the parapet in the neighbourhood of Hebuterne. Possibly the Germans thought they had discovered some new mortar or infernal machine. At any rate, they began almost at once to "snipe" with their 5.9. The excellence of the shooting suggests that the spot had been already "registered." The first shell fell just in front. It was followed by another within a few yards, and the third hit the parapet just as tho two were packing up their apparatus. Like wise men they fell on their faces at the first sound of the whistle; but even a recumbent position has its dangers. One of them was covered up with mud and needed his friend's help to get clear: but it may Ikj understood that the whole manoeuvre did not take long. The times for "trcnch-sprui'mg.' on such occasions are for those ,»vho have no obligation to stay remarkably good. Evervone becomes an athlete and a gymnast—that is if he does not prefer to he a. limpet. I mako this exception because on one occasion an invaluable camera was lost for some forty-eight hours. An officer who was harnessing and directing the enterprise of the pi < tograpliers gave one spare machine to an orderly. °As they approached their destination the enemy's shrapnel bursts were observed to be coming nearer and nearer, and a change of direction was counselled. The need was urgent and oft thev went: but to the consternation ot the'party the man witli the extra camera had' vanished. When the storm was over he was sought this way and that in vain: and the rest were forced at last to return without him. rears for bis safetv and at least as great fears for the safety of the camera were expressed but both returned two da'*s later It seems that the orderly had observed the approach of the shrapnel early in the proceedings and retired to the decent obscurity of a dug-out. For mvsolf, I have met the official photographers in many places. There is nothing in or behind the lines that crapes Tiieir ministrations. Indeed, one is inclined t„ f.cl that the future history ot tin war should be photographs as to a good half of its contents. Bur the most vivid picture I haw is ot a buoyant figure, equipped, of course, with shrapnel helmet and gas made, picking Ins way between German prisoners and our wounded in the neighbourhood of Mninettz. He was. 1 think, on the track of captured guns in the wood, but on his wav was busy with prisoners. He bad a 'great wav with primers, riis refusal to speak Go-man impressed them and did not -eeni to interfere with the crisp clarity of his instructions, which were obeyed to the letter. \ll the official photography, kme-

matogiaph or other, is done by men who fly about with extreme activity from one part of the front to the other. One of them has been up in aeroplanes over the enemy lines and all of them have endured almost the worst thing in war, a trench under heavy bombardment, besides, of course, the common danger of "whistling Perries" and other far-flung shells. Between them they have accumulated such a series ot pictures of war as should leave no one tho chance of remaining unpatriotic enough not to know what the war '..-> like.

The best compliments to thair work I have heard in those excellent Expeditionary Force canteens whidi do a brisk trade in postcard photographs as well as in creature comfort; These photographs have certainly brought the war home to many men who work behind the lines in France, indeed to home who work in the far the range is large and the pictures real. The bulk of the work is, of course, rather busy than dangerous. There is "an Army behind an Army," and the life of both needs record. It is getting a record beyond comparison in other wars. I can imagine some historian ot the twenty-first century coupling in his list of great historians, shall I say? Thucydides, Gibbon. Napier, and—the official photographer.