New TV program on WW1 "as viewed from above"

[ArtistsRifles]

This report comes from the Daily Telegraph - there is a new documentary being shown on BBC1 on the 7th November entitled "The First World War From Above"".

 

See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325536/Aerial-photo-shows-Passchendaele-obliteration-World-War-I.html

Razed to the ground: Incredible aerial photo shows obliteration of Passchendaele during World War I

 

 

By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 1:38 PM on 1st November 2010

 

 

The first shows a typical village - the second a barren landscape more reminiscent of the Moon's surface.

These two aerial photographs show the horrific toll of World War I on Passchendaele, north-east of Ypres in Belgium.

Incredibly, they were taken just a year apart - the first in 1916 before the bloody battle and the second in 1917 once the village had been seized by the Allies.

Picturesque: Passchendaele in 1916, a year before it was blasted beyond recognition by the bloody battle which raged between July and November 1917

 

 

Wasteland: Taken in 1917 by the Royal Flying Corps, only the original curve in the road once at the heart of the village is visible in the photograph

 

 

 

The 1916 image shows a typical village with a church, houses lining the roads and pretty fields spread out in a patchwork.

But the second picture shows a wasteland, with no houses or buildings left. Only the original curve in the road once at the heart of the village is visible.

More than 2,000 lives were lost a day on the notorious battlefield between July and November 1917 - a total of around a quarter of a million Allied soldiers.

The pictures were taken by the Royal Flying Corps, who helped give their chiefs a view of the battlefield through aerial photos.

They were taken from a two-seater biplane at around 12,000ft.

 

 

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The Lochnagar Crater, white area at top of left picture, was a deep hole caused by the detonation of a huge underground mine in July 1916, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme

 

 

 

 

The images have just been found in a collection of 140,000 negatives at the Imperial War Museum.

They are due to feature in a BBC documentary, The First World War from Above, which is being broadcast on November 7.

 

Historian Nigel Steel told The Times: 'When the battle reaches the top of the Passchendaele Ridge then washes over it, it becomes something almost inconceivable.

 

'You can still see the route of the roads, the remains of the church but everything else is obliterated.'

 

Equipment check: The troops line up with their cameras for an inventory. The images were taken from a two-seater biplane at around 12,000ft

 

 

 

Maintenance: The troops clean their photography equipment ahead of their next foray over enemy lines

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1325536/Aerial-photo-shows-Passchendaele-obliteration-World-War-I.html#ixzz144TN7RWn

 

[Rick W]

Thanks for the nod on that one Neil, looks interesting.:tup::

[N.O.S.]

Those first two photos are something else, it helps to convey the enormity of the destruction.

[Tony B]

I was at a show and a lady brought in an album. She was kind enough to let me photgraph them.

[Rick W]

What sort of shows do you go to with ladies in them Tony? The mind boggles...:dancinggirls:

[Tony B]

A Gentleman never tells!! :-X:cool2:

[Degsy]

A Gentleman never tells!! :-X:cool2:

 

True.........but he was asking you:n00b::rotfl:

[Tunnel_Rat]

Thanks for the heads up Neil

[Great War truck]

That looks great. A cracking picture of the truck. A US AS Heavy Aviation. A rare beast. I wonder how Oliviers restoration of one is getting on.