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Remembered Today:

East Africa. A Stiff Bit of Fighting on the Ngura Hillsides


KONDOA

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Oh Really !!

This photograph is relatively common and until today I never really took much notice as it is a staged photograph.

However, the tirle took my eye whilst browing Ebay so I had a closer look.

Well I have been to the Nguru Mountains and this looks nothing like this, so where was this phtograph taken?

My guess is that it is in South Africa. It looks like a walled camp or prison and possibly an explosives magazine or similar in the foreground.

Any ideas ?

Roop

post-3925-0-05266300-1447873129_thumb.jp

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  • 11 months later...

Roop

 

I don´t saw this Interesting photo before. I am sure you know the difference between Nguru- and Uluguru-Mountains,

otherwise I would suggest this could be a southern Hill behind Morogoro. But as you described; you know the Nguru

Mountains. So you must know the Mission Stations in the Nguru-Mountains. (In German at that time: Kaguru Berge)

 

 

For me it seems to me that all four photos part of a series and showed the same scene from different perspectives.

 

'Our gallant infantry charging the German positions on a Balkan hillside'. Unlikely, noting the tropical uniform.

I have seen this view located in East Africa which seems much more likely.

2w4bvdj.jpg

 

 

'A stiff bit of fighting on the Ngura hillsides, East Africa'.

ao2xqw.jpg

 

 

'Scouts cautiously feeling for the enemy through trackless and impenetrable jungles of East Africa'.

2p181.jpg

Source: http://www.worldofstereoviews.com/wwpage6.htm

 

 

Here is a fourth photo from the same scene:

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/WW1-Stereoview-Last-Drop-Of-Water-To-Dying-Comrade-East-Africa-Realistic-Travels-/142165138661?hash=item2119b3dce5:g:~M8AAOSwdzVXrMX-

 

 

If we will find the real recording location we know if your photo is from East Africa, the Balkans or South Africa.

 

The construction type of the apparent building in the background could be certainly in GEA at that time when we

compare this with your photos from 2009 with the Boma in Handeni. I know that the formally district office / Boma

in Morogoro looked others and I am not be aware if the old Turiani (east of Nguru) have had a Boma.

https://www.gaiagps.com/map/node/5762666/?lat=-6.1499&lon=37.6000&zoom=13&layer=openhikingmapHD#%3Flat=-8.9332&lon=31.7409&zoom=15

http://www.flickriver.com/places/Tanzania/Morogoro/Turiani/recent/

 

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  • 1 month later...

Holger, sorry for the slow response, I have been travelling Holgar. I have tried to identify the location and certainly Morogoro is a candidate but feel these pictures are from early in the campaign. Handeni doesn't fit, nor Arusha, Moshi I cannot decide as my knowledge is scant of that town but the boma is up the hill. Other locations, don't know.

 

Roop

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  • 4 years later...

I know this is an ancient thread, I too have generally drawn a blank over these.

 

However I now think that this could be one of the 're-cycled' pre war Indian photos when Girdwood was a guest of the 4th Worcestershire Regiment. So I am now looking for possible Indian locations!

 

Interestingly many of the 'poses' in this particular group echo those found in the Underwood and Underwood, Boer War stereoviews that he would have been selling as a student.

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They're ludicrously bunched up in mass formation, aren’t they ?

 

Imagine charging the enemy like that 1914-18  !

 

Phil

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21 hours ago, Stereoview Paul said:

I know this is an ancient thread, I too have generally drawn a blank over these.

 

However I now think that this could be one of the 're-cycled' pre war Indian photos when Girdwood was a guest of the 4th Worcestershire Regiment. So I am now looking for possible Indian locations!

The image is, as Holger pointed out many years ago, one of a number of scenes of the same subject matter but from various different perspectives and, if the captions are to be believed, from a number of different campaigns...  These few cards in the series seem to be variously described as East Africa, the Balkans and the Dardanelles and it's questionable if it's actually any of these locations.  From my own opinion I suspect it's likely to be a South African location but where is anybody's guess at the moment.

 

Steve

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