Photographers > Tom Aitken
(43) N.450 - Effect of a high explosive shell on the ground alongside a road
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| First World War 'Official Photographs' > Photographers > Tom Aitken > (43) N.450 - Effect of a high explosive shell on the ground alongside a road |
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| Permanent URL | https://digital.nls.uk/74549066 |
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| Description | Almost as if a meteor had smashed into the earth, this image shows two British soldiers surveying the damage following the explosion of a large shell. The soldier standing in the bomb crater helps to give a good idea of the crater’s depth. Deep craters such as this one, combined with endless rows of dead and branchless trees, helped to give the front line its surreal atmosphere of otherworldliness that veterans of the conflict often described. Giant bomb craters such as this one were caused by heavy artillery. When the bloody stalemate of the trench system became apparent, the field commanders asked for more long-range field guns. Some of the heavy howitzers fired shells weighing over 900kg for distances of up to 18 kilometres. However, the army also specified that these heavy guns must be light enough to be pulled over muddy and rough terrain. [Original reads: 'OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN ON THE BRITISH WESTERN FRONT IN FRANCE. The effect of a high explosive shell on the ground alongside a road.'] |
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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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