Photographers > Tom Aitken
(23) N.408 - Reading a message this dog has just delivered
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > Tom Aitken > (23) N.408 - Reading a message this dog has just delivered |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74549024 |
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| Description | Dog-handler reading a message brought by a messenger dog, in France, during World War I. With his soaking wet messenger beside him, this handler is checking a message that this dog has just carried to him. The message would been scrolled up inside a waterproof container attached to the dog’s collar. It is likely that the kit bag worn on the handler’s chest would have contained the incoming and outgoing messages. After recruitment from Battersea Dogs' Home, trainee messenger dogs were trained for service at The War Dog Training School in Shoeburyness, England. Once their training had been completed, the dogs were posted to kennels at Etaples in France, which was close to the Western Front. The dogs were then posted to kennels just behind the front line, where they joined up with infantry regiments. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. Reading a message this dog has just delivered. He has just swam across a canal to get to his master.'] |
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| Description | Tom Aitken was a newspaper photographer from Glasgow who was assigned in December 1917 as a war photographer along with David McLellan and Armando Consolé. McLellan's work also features in the National Library of Scotland’s Haig Papers. War photographers held a hybrid position during World War I, being part of yet not ultimately responsible to the military. |
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| Description | Photographs by named photographers. |
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| Description | Black-and-white photographs mainly of the Western Front during the First World War. Official British war photographers took many of them for propaganda purposes. Unless otherwise stated, titles are the photographs' original captions. From the papers of Field Marshal (Earl) Haig (1861-1928). The Haig Papers also contain Douglas Haig’s diaries. |
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| Shelfmark | Acc.3155 |
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