WW1 Military Motors - 1916 set x 50 cards

[Scalyback]

Barges are much more larger than I imagined. Always wondered how the system worked based on my naive thinking of a barge based on UK sizes.

LF. Does the motorcyclist have the blue/white signals arm band below the cpl tape?

[centurion]

Barges are much more larger than I imagined. Always wondered how the system worked based on my naive thinking of a barge based on UK sizes.

I think you may be mixing Narrow Boats with Barges. Most of the UK canal system is designed for narrow boats, the European systems for barges. Britain suffered from being a pioneer in the canal age (and similarly with loading gauges on the railways).

[Scalyback]

I think you may be mixing Narrow Boats with Barges. Most of the UK canal system is designed for narrow boats, the European systems for barges

I'm a landlubber through and through, you are correct I believed them one and the same thing. Still amazed at the size and organizational skills involved with the barges. A more comfortable option over road!

[centurion]

Barges were used primarily for patients with abdominal injuries as.although slower than trains, they were much smoother. This was the reason for only travelling in daylight - less chance of banging the barge when passing through narrower sections such as under bridges. On British barge convoys a cook was carried with special training to provide an appropriate diet for patients with stomach problems (no doubt French ones did the same).

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Barges are much more larger than I imagined. Always wondered how the system worked based on my naive thinking of a barge based on UK sizes.

LF. Does the motorcyclist have the blue/white signals arm band below the cpl tape?

Scalyback,

I too was surprised how large the barges were, and from the interior photograph they appear to have been solidly built.

With regard to the carrier pigeon motorcyclists photo, the soldier in the middle is wearing the arm band as is the one on the right, I cannot make out for sure if the soldier on the right has the armband ?

Regards,

LF

[Scalyback]

Can't make out the third chap but the central chap is white and blue signals armband. White is uppermost, with the darker blue below. My money is on RE signal company troops.

[centurion]

[johnboy]

A converted London Bus. White arm bands again?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Those troops assigned to work with the military's carrier pigeons are Signalers, and are wearing the blue and white armband of the Signal Services.

LF

[johnboy]

Cheers LF.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Here we see a unit of Signalers from the 145th Brigade, 48th ( South Midland ) Division with their carrier pigeons, all soldiers wearing the blue and white Signalers armband.

Also, note the array of service belts.

LF

C/o. S. Chambers - Uniforms and Equipment of the British Army in WW1

[johnboy]

Is there any reason for for them being on lefy or right arm or both arms?

[centurion]

The men in my post have a bi colour arm band. The motor bike pigeon baskets contained 2 pigeons those in the last post are one bird baskets.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Is there any reason for for them being on lefy or right arm or both arms?

johnboy,

From the majority of photographs, the Signaler's arm band is worn on the right arm, however, in your post # 408, we see a Signaler wearing the arm band on both arms, and in the attached photograph of a Royal Engineers Signaler, we again see the Signaler's arm band being worn on both arms.

Perhaps, there is a reason for the single/double arm band or is it just choice ?

I am sure someone will know the answer.

Regards,

LF

C/o - J. Bodsworth's British Uniforms of the Great War

[Lancashire Fusilier]

johnboy,

Update - I just read that the Signaler's arm band was supposed to be worn on both arms, as shown in the above studio portrait photograph of the RE Signaler. However, in the field, things were different, and either due to the constant shortage of kit supplies, or just because it was that much easier, it appears to have evolved that only wearing the single arm band on the right arm became the norm.

Regards,

LF

[johnboy]

I thought one in post 408 was wearing only one, on his left arm, but after looking again it is probably one is hidden and he actually has one on each arm.

Posts crossed.

Thanks.

[johnboy]

The Rolls Royce of pigeon lofts!

Pigeon leaving a tank.

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Mobile X-Ray Vans, one with the canopy extended over the apparatus, and one with its canopy still closed.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Illustrating the many dangers to military ambulances and their crews, in this photograph we see an American ambulance, which for safety reasons was driving at night with the vehicle's lights switched off, and went off the road.

Also, note what appears to be the stretcher handles protruding from a compartment on the side of the ambulance which contains the stretcher.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

One of the most poignant paintings of WW1.

" A side on view of a line of soldiers being led along a duckboard by a medical orderly. Their eyes are bandaged as a result of exposure to gas and each man holds on to the shoulder of the man in front. One of the line has his leg raised in an exaggerated posture as though walking up a step, and another veers out of the line with his back to the viewer. There is another line of temporarily blinded soldiers in the background, one soldier leaning over vomiting onto the ground. More gas-affected men lie in the foreground, one of them drinking from a water-bottle. The crowd of wounded soldiers continues on the far side of the duckboard, and the tent ropes of a dressing station are visible in the right of the composition. A football match is being played in the background, lit by the evening sun."

" The scene is the aftermath of a mustard gas attack on the Western Front in August 1918 as witnessed by the artist. Mustard gas was an indiscriminate weapon causing widespread injury and burns, as well as affecting the eyes. The painting gives clues about the management of the victims, their relative lack of protective clothing, the impact and extent of the gas attack as well as its routine nature – the football match goes on regardless. The canvas is lightly painted with great skill. Sargent draws the viewer into the tactile relationships between the blinded men. There is a suggestion of redemption as the men are led off to the medical tents, but the overall impression is of loss and suffering, emphasised by the expressions of the men standing in line. In sharp contrast to the victims, the football players are physically and visually co- ordinated and have full kit. Sargent travelled to France with artist, Henry Tonks in July 1918. Tonks describes the context for this work in a letter to Alfred Yockney on 19 March 1920: 'After tea we heard that on the Doullens Road at the Corps dressing station at le Bac-du-sud there were a good many gassed cases, so we went there. The dressing station was situated on the road and consisted of a number of huts and a few tents. Gassed cases kept coming in, lead along in parties of about six just as Sargent has depicted them, by an orderly. They sat or lay down on the grass, there must have been several hundred, evidently suffering a great deal, chiefly I fancy from their eyes which were covered up by a piece of lint... Sargent was very struck by the scene and immediately made a lot of notes.' Sargent was commissioned by the British Government to contribute the central painting for a Hall of Remembrance for World War One. He was given the theme of 'Anglo-American co-operation' but was unable to find suitable subject matter and chose this scene instead. ' The further forward one goes', he wrote 'the more scattered and meagre everything is. The nearer to danger, the fewer and more hidden the men - the more dramatic the situation the more it becomes and empty landscape. The Ministry of Information expects an epic - and how can one do an epic without masses of men? "

Ministry of Information commission, 1918

Artist - John S. Sargent Aug 1918

C/o IWM - © Crown Copyright: IWM

The reality.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

The aftermath of a German gas attack on the American 82nd-89th Divisions at Royaumeix on Aug 8, 1918, the resulting enormous numbers of casualties overwhelmed the facilities of the U.S. 326th Field Hospital, and patients had to be laid out and cared for on the hospital's grounds.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Here is the link to an excellent article on the different types of chemicals and gases used in WW1, and their effects.

http://www.vlib.us/medical/gaswar/gas.htm

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

An American Military Ambulance, similar to that which ran off the road as shown in post # 419.

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Photographs of an actual German gas attack as seen from the air, it clearly shows the extent and density of the toxic and in many cases deadly gas clouds.

LF

[centurion]

Looks odd. Whatever it is it is cylinder released but it isn't forming concentrations and there are men very very close behind it - indeed some are actually just ahead of the point of release. Not what you'd expect if these are "deadly gas clouds" How do you know what the density is and if it is deadly - have you identified what gas this is?