Postcards

[gordon92]

10 hours ago, SHJ said:

 

CEF probably the 11th Battalion and maybe the 4th Infantry Brigade.  Young, muddy and not very happy.

 

9 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

Perhaps Salisbury Plain, around Larkhill, where the first contingent of the CEF suffered greatly from heavy rainfall and newly constructed camps during their initial Winter in Britain.

It surprises me though that they have no insignia, and seem to still be wearing leather belts from indigenous Oliver equipment, so maybe it’s not Britain at all.  There are some CEF experts who post here regularly that may know.

 

Afternote:  I  only just noticed the studio marking bottom left that shows the location was “Durrington” (which was a camp near Larkhill) so my initial thoughts were correct.  See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/militaryandfamilyhistory.blog/2014/10/25/the-first-canadian-contingent-on-salisbury-plain/amp/

For general background see: http://www.wiltshireatwar.org.uk/story/how-military-camps-saved-some-wiltshire-villages-from-extinction/

After the Canadians left for France the Australians arrived to take their place and endured similar conditions.

 

Most CEF battalions did not receive battalion insignia until very late 1914 and into 1915.  The badges were generally ordered from British firms such as JR Gaunt.  The absence of insignia is consistent with the early days of the 1st contingent on Salisbury plain.  Some battalions that were mostly recruited from a single local Militia regiment did carry that insignia to England.  The 11th Battalion looks like it was composed of men from 5 different militia regiments. Perhaps, some of these furnished their men with regimental insignia and some not before their arrival at Valcartier.  There was significant variation between Militia regiments on the kit they provided.

[FROGSMILE]

Thank you Mike, your explanation makes the situation that prevailed entirely understandable.

Edited 6 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[Daniel Cox]

Hi All,

 

Here is a photographic postcard from my family history collection, of Australian Army Medical Corps Officers. Including women from The Australian Army Nursing Service, with Brigadier General Ernest Townshend Wallack. As captured by Rex Hazlewood, aboard HMAT Shropshire (A9) during May 1917.

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel.

 

 

[Daniel Cox]

Hi All,

 

Here is a another photographic postcard from my family history collection, of Comabtant Officers attached to reinforcement units, with Brigadier General Ernest Townshend Wallack. As captured by Rex Hazlewood, aboard HMAT Shropshire (A9) during May 1917.

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel.

 

 

[Daniel Cox]

Hi All,

 

Here is the last group portrait photographic postcard, from my family history collection that I have. As captured by Rex Hazlewood, aboard HMAT Shropshire (A9) during May 1917.

 

In this instance it is showing Officers and Sergeants of February reinforcements of New South Wales Field Artillery. Including my great-grandfather Sergeant George Telford Bell (back row 2nd from right). Who went on to serve in the 26th Battery, 7th Field Artillery Brigade and later the Australian Veterinary Hospital Calais.

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel.

 

 

[SHJ]

19 hours ago, FROGSMILE said:

They have the look of a Service Battalion going by the mixed age groups and absence of Territorial shoulder titles.  Notice how the men stood down from duty have put on their shoes, canvas, PT as relaxed footwear, a common habit.  The Mrs Mop appears to be dressed in the music hall style of a Chimney Sweep.  Super photo, thank you for posting it.

 

Thanks for the observation about them having recently stood down.  I noticed they were ahem, somewhat ragged in appearance (especially when compared to the magnificently spick and span Australians in the images above).  There's the trouser turn-ups (large and small)

 

and the white socks

 

and then the chap with no time for laces (but wristwatch)

 

A good game on these more relaxed images is cigarette or pipe?  I think fags wins over pipes 6 to 5 on this one and having recently stood down they probably deserve it.

[FROGSMILE]

Yes they have the typical appearance of citizen-soldiers of the war raised Service Battalions.  Although adopting many of the military mores instilled in them by their instructors, who were often elderly veterans in the early days, they did also to an extent develop their own character quite different to the regular and Territorial battalions.  However, as the war went on and the effects of conscription began to be felt, the Army took on more of an universal temperament and personality characterised by the hard slog that the war had become.

Edited 7 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[FROGSMILE]

4 hours ago, Daniel Cox said:

Hi All,

 

Here is a another photographic postcard from my family history collection, of Comabtant Officers attached to reinforcement units, with Brigadier General Ernest Townshend Wallack. As captured by Rex Hazlewood, aboard HMAT Shropshire (A9) during May 1917.

 

Cheers,

 

Daniel.

 

 

 

I was especially interested to see that a number of the Australian officers seated on the deck of HMAT Shropshire in this photo are wearing the distinctive, Royal Flying Corps pattern, so-called maternity jacket.  Not something I’ve seen very many times before.

Edited 7 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[munce]

I was surprised to see several men wearing maternity jackets with AIF insignia - I was under the impression that only RFC officers wore these, and that officers from other regiments attached to RFC would continue to wear their own uniforms. Was that style of jacket worn by any other unit?

Sorry Frogsmile, our replies crossed in the ether!

 

[FROGSMILE]

15 minutes ago, munce said:

I was surprised to see several men wearing maternity jackets with AIF insignia - I was under the impression that only RFC officers wore these, and that officers from other regiments attached to RFC would continue to wear their own uniforms. Was that style of jacket worn by any other unit?

Sorry Frogsmile, our replies crossed in the ether!

 

The maternity style jacket was for those officers on the permanent cadre of the RFC, although they could also wear standard SD jackets in addition (for practical reasons, as they had often transferred across from other units). Those officers on attachment wore their own regimental dress until such time as they applied for and were accepted into the permanent cadre of the RFC (that formed the core of army aviation).  Some officers completed their tours and returned to their parent regiments.  As for the Australians that we see, the Australian Commonwealth Force developed its own, discrete aviation corps, and I’m guessing that they too, initially at least perhaps, stipulated the maternity jacket.  This was considered a practical choice in the early period of military aviation, as buttons were seen as a potential hazard if they became snagged on the bracing wires that were such a feature of early biplanes.

Edited 7 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[Toby Brayley]

Unsent PC, Royal Engineers line Laying team.

 

[FROGSMILE]

A very interesting photo Toby.  It’s intriguing to see just the first four men seemingly equipped with rifles, and that they are slung, presumably because rifle buckets were not issued.  I know that RA gun detachments were issued with a token number of rifles, perhaps the RE line layers were similar.

Edited 7 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[SHJ]

I wonder if they trained the RE in the process of linking up the various sites.  I’ll must get around to reading the history of the RE that I bought...  Are those alfresco dining areas in the background?  A few bicycles propped up against the building too...  Does the presence of bicycles indicate a cycling corp or were they used by certain staff to get about?

[Moonraker]

On 06/01/2021 at 12:31, SHJ said:

 

CEF probably the 11th Battalion and maybe the 4th Infantry Brigade.  Young, muddy and not very happy.

Perhaps they were lined up to shoot the German who was taking their photograph?   Rosener was of German nationality, and not until November 1915 was he charged with being an enemy alien and as such having four cameras without the permission of the registration officer. He had started a photographic business locally in 1913 and when applying for a trading pass to visit local camps had claimed to be a Dane. His pass was withdrawn in August 1914 but he had continued to take photographs at local camps. He admitted to the court that he was a German and said he had tried several times to enlist in the British Army. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.

 

Edited 7 January , 2021 by Moonraker

[Moonraker]

On 06/01/2021 at 13:27, FROGSMILE said:

Perhaps Salisbury Plain, around Larkhill, where the first contingent of the CEF suffered greatly from heavy rainfall and newly constructed camps during their initial Winter in Britain.

It surprises me though that they have no insignia, and seem to still be wearing leather belts from indigenous Oliver equipment, so maybe it’s not Britain at all.  There are some CEF experts who post here regularly that may know.

 

Afternote:  I  only just noticed the studio marking bottom left that shows the location was “Durrington” (which was a camp near Larkhill) so my initial thoughts were correct.  See: https://www.google.com/amp/s/militaryandfamilyhistory.blog/2014/10/25/the-first-canadian-contingent-on-salisbury-plain/amp/

For general background see: http://www.wiltshireatwar.org.uk/story/how-military-camps-saved-some-wiltshire-villages-from-extinction/

After the Canadians left for France the Australians arrived to take their place and endured similar conditions.

 

Though it had been condemned after the Boer War and hated by its wearers, the Oliver harness had been issued to all but five battalions of the First Contingent. Its pouches held only 80 rounds instead of the 150 of its British equivalent, there was no pack and it cut men under the arms and chin; large brass buckles also made it even more uncomfortable to wear. The Canadian's CO,  General Alderson had to obtain an issue of the British 1908 pattern harness for seven battalions. In 1915  Sam Hughes, Canada's Minister of Militia and Defence,  authorized $700,000 to be spent on re-building the Oliver harness, to give business to Canadian manufacturers and out of arrogance. Canadian soldiers were sent overseas with it until 1917.

 

Nearly all the First Contingent left for France in February 1915 and Australians did not arrive on Salisbury Plain until mid-1916. When an Australian officer visited the Plain in October 1914 he found nothing yet had been done to build huts for a convoy of troops on its way from Australia and New Zealand. An army doctor reported that to 'house Australian troops in tents in mid-winter on this windswept area after [a] long voyage in troopships passing through tropics and sub-tropics would be criminal'. Representations to Lord Kitchener resulted in the troops heading for England being diverted to Egypt and then to Gallipoli, where their casualties suggest they would have been better off on Salisbury Plain.

 

[SHJ]

14 hours ago, Moonraker said:

Perhaps they were lined up to shoot the German who was taking their photograph?

Ha!  That's fascinating about Rosener. Thanks for the information Moonraker.  I don't suppose there are any books or collections of his photos?  I look forward to learning more about him. Plus, it looks like it should be possible to pinpoint the time the photo was taken a little more since he would have been too busy breaking rocks into pebbles from a certain time. I have three other photos of the CEF in Salisbury at this time, two are unmarked but one is by H C Rickards.  It's an avenue of research I hadn't really thought of...

 

<searches for G Rosener in britishnewspaperpaperarchive>... 

 

Court extract Central Somerset Gazette Nov 26 1915: "He had applied for his pass in the name of A. Rosener, on another occasion he signed himself G. Rosener, but on his marriage certificate he was described as Fritz Rosener, and this rather confirmed what he had now admitted that he was a German"  

 

[FROGSMILE]

30 minutes ago, SHJ said:

Ha!  That's fascinating about Rosener. Thanks for the information Moonraker.  I don't suppose there are any books or collections of his photos?  I look forward to learning more about him. Plus, it looks like it should be possible to pinpoint the time the photo was taken a little more since he would have been too busy breaking rocks into pebbles from a certain time. I have three other photos of the CEF in Salisbury at this time, two are unmarked but one is by H C Rickards.  It's an avenue of research I hadn't really thought of...

 

<searches for G Rosener in britishnewspaperpaperarchive>... 

 

Court extract Central Somerset Gazette Nov 26 1915: "He had applied for his pass in the name of A. Rosener, on another occasion he signed himself G. Rosener, but on his marriage certificate he was described as Fritz Rosener, and this rather confirmed what he had now admitted that he was a German"  

 

I feel rather sorry for him personally.  There doesn’t seem to have been any evidence that he was a spy and the poor chap seemed to have simply been trying to make a living in the circumstances that life threw at him.  He appears to have embraced British life and I can’t blame him for wanting to avoid incarceration as an alien.  I think the natural human instinct of most of us would be to do the same.  It just goes to show how oppressive the powers of the state can be when used against an isolated group, no matter how justified it may have seemed at the time. 

Edited 8 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[FROGSMILE]

15 hours ago, Moonraker said:

Though it had been condemned after the Boer War and hated by its wearers, the Oliver harness had been issued to all but five battalions of the First Contingent. Its pouches held only 80 rounds instead of the 150 of its British equivalent, there was no pack and it cut men under the arms and chin; large brass buckles also made it even more uncomfortable to wear. The Canadian's CO,  General Alderson had to obtain an issue of the British 1908 pattern harness for seven battalions. In 1915  Sam Hughes, Canada's Minister of Militia and Defence,  authorized $700,000 to be spent on re-building the Oliver harness, to give business to Canadian manufacturers and out of arrogance. Canadian soldiers were sent overseas with it until 1917.

 

Nearly all the First Contingent left for France in February 1915 and Australians did not arrive on Salisbury Plain until mid-1916. When an Australian officer visited the Plain in October 1914 he found nothing yet had been done to build huts for a convoy of troops on its way from Australia and New Zealand. An army doctor reported that to 'house Australian troops in tents in mid-winter on this windswept area after [a] long voyage in troopships passing through tropics and sub-tropics would be criminal'. Representations to Lord Kitchener resulted in the troops heading for England being diverted to Egypt and then to Gallipoli, where their casualties suggest they would have been better off on Salisbury Plain.

 

Thank you for that very interesting detail Moonraker.  Although I was entirely aware of the interval between the Canadians’ departure and the Australians’ arrival it had slipped my mind entirely that the first trooping of Australians was diverted to Gallipoli with the consequences that we now know so well.  It’s quite extraordinary to think that Salisbury Plain and it’s perceived readiness (or lack of in this case) could have had such an effect on the course of history at that strategic, and nation building level.  I shall never look at those chalky plains around Larkhill in quite the same way ever again.

Edited 8 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[Daniel Cox]

1 hour ago, FROGSMILE said:

I feel rather sorry for him personally.

 

So do I and I concur his behaviour was hardly surprising, and highly likely to have not been nefarious either. That said the blunt instrument  which punished him, did sometimes find the those that were a real threat.

 

Pus thank-you @Moonrakerfor the story about him.

[SHJ]

On 08/01/2021 at 12:29, Daniel Cox said:

 

So do I and I concur his behaviour was hardly surprising, and highly likely to have not been nefarious either

Pus thank-you @Moonrakerfor the story about him.

Agreed. I was hoping to find something in the papers that exonerated him or showed that the family survived OK but I can't see anything yet beyond that one article where he admitted guilty to not registering as a German and having illegal cameras (he'd been caught taking photo's and told not to).  I can see why he was reprimanded so badly - he was told he COULD take pictures of soldiers but only in his studio but he returned to the sites a few times and was eventually caught red-handed.

Edited 22 January , 2021 by SHJ

[Moonraker]

In the early months of the war there was a lot of hysteria and paranoia about "spies" and aliens (the attacks on shops in Britain with German names are well known), and there were other cases of photographers getting into trouble  in army camps. At Codford Camp, a Frome printer was arrested for taking photographs without permission in October 1914. The civil authorities discharged the man, who was allowed to keep his camera but had his film confiscated. (Nevertheless I have postcards showing the 13th Cheshire there a few weeks later, taken by Davies of New Ferry who, I suspect, accompanied the party of local dignitaries who visited the camp.)

 

I have a dozen cards published by Rosener, nearly all of small groups of soldiers outside huts on the contiguous Lark Hill and Durrington sites. His most impressive work that I've seen is not a postcard but this

Around December 1914 the authorities clamped down on photography of and at military establishments (luckily for me not before a great many pictures had been taken of the Canadians on the Plain). I think that on Salisbury Plain the restrictions were particularly severe because of its concentration of camps and all of it being seen as a military area. Yet in 1917 a series of 16 cards was  published showing aircraft and buildings at RFC Yatesbury, to the north. (I've never seen wartime postcard photographs of RFC Netheravon, Upavon, Old Sarum etc.)

[FROGSMILE]

On 07/01/2021 at 12:12, munce said:

I was surprised to see several men wearing maternity jackets with AIF insignia - I was under the impression that only RFC officers wore these, and that officers from other regiments attached to RFC would continue to wear their own uniforms. Was that style of jacket worn by any other unit?

Sorry Frogsmile, our replies crossed in the ether!

 

 

Your final sentence has me thinking, after noticing only today the rather glaring absence of any Wings badges, or indeed any other type of aviation related insignia.  The buttoned tabs on the cuffs are also unfamiliar and not usually seen on the RFC type maternity  jacket.  This has made me wonder if the young officers are indeed fledglings yet to learn to fly, or if they are from some Australian Lancer regiment that adopted a plastron-fronted, drab khaki jacket, as a nod towards their heritage.  Are there any SMEs on Australian uniform who can comment?

Edited 8 January , 2021 by FROGSMILE

[SHJ]

44 minutes ago, Moonraker said:

I have a dozen cards published by Rosener, nearly all of small groups of soldiers outside huts on the contiguous Lark Hill and Durrington sites.

Oh I'd love to see those.  Are they in a Gallery?  There's just a chance (small I know - but there you are) that my Great Grand Uncle and/or his chums will be in them - the photo postcards I have inherited are the ones taken by Rosener and others and then sold directly to the troops. They are all Canadian and the same men appear in the images I have.

[Daniel Cox]

33 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

This has made me wonder if the young officers are indeed fledglings yet to learn to fly, or if they are from some Australian Lancer regiment that adopted a plastron-fronted, drab khaki jacket, as a nod towards their heritage.  Are there any SMEs on Australian uniform who can comment?

 

The Nominal Roll for The Australian Flying Corps October 1916, to October 197, Reinforcements, and Nos. 1 and 2 Special Drafts. Identifies 7 AFC Officers, plus more AFC Other Ranks as being aboard HMAT Shropshire A9 during May 1917.

 

Of which at least six of those officers and perhaps seven of them, in that postcard are six or all of the seven named below.

 

Edward Barlow

Rupert Henry Lea Caton

Jack Riverstone Faviell

Garnsey Henry Mead StClair Potts

Leslie Moore Sampson

Vincent George Moxey Sheppard

Jack Henry Weingarth

 

Edited 8 January , 2021 by Daniel Cox

[SHJ]

29 minutes ago, FROGSMILE said:

Your final sentence has me thinking, after noticing only today the rather glaring absence of any Wings badges, or indeed any other type of aviation related insignia.  The buttoned tabs on the cuffs are also unfamiliar and not usually seen on the RFC type maternity  jacket.  This has made me wonder if the young officers are indeed fledglings yet to learn to fly, or if they are from some Australian Lancer regiment that adopted a plastron-fronted, drab khaki jacket, as a nod towards their heritage.  

 

I was thinking the same but when I squint at the cap badges... RFC?