True Face of The Great War !

Douglas Jr. · 10-07-2005, 07:46 PM

Last ones for tonight!

Douglas.

102first_hussars · 10-08-2005, 12:41 AM

Oh my God.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · 10-08-2005, 05:53 AM

Man that is horrible those pictures. I have seen some grousome stuff in my service but nothing like that.

evangilder · 10-08-2005, 07:57 AM

War is hell. It's kind of strange, but I am kind of numb to pictures like that. After things I saw during the "war on drugs" in Central and South America, nothing seems shocking anymore. The messed up thing is that I know they should shock me.

trackend · 10-08-2005, 08:13 AM

I am not keen on images like this although it is improtant everyone gets a little taster of what war at least looks like but of course the viewer is remote from them as they are images and not 4 feet in front of their faces
with the associated smells. I used to get upset if I thought too deeply on who the guys where and their families ect, nowdays if someone is killed at work the normal method of most of the staff for emotional defence is to turn it in to banter and make daft remarks which I dislike intensley and usually end up in rows over.(perhaps that is my method of handling it).

plan_D · 10-08-2005, 08:20 AM

The images don't bother me. But that's just because I'm insane and shouldn't be let out into society.

trackend · 10-08-2005, 08:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plan_D

The images don't bother me. But that's just because I'm insane and shouldn't be let out into society.

I must confess D your picture does tend to confirm your own findings.

evangilder · 10-08-2005, 08:34 AM

You make a good point Lee. They are just photos of terrible events. It is a small piece of a larger picture that includes smells. It might be more shocking if it were in color also. But I do think that people should see the grim realities of war to know the truth, non-Hollywood style.

plan_D · 10-08-2005, 08:41 AM

I have seen someone die before in a car crash. But ...I didn't really smell him rotting ...see the British ambulance service isn't that bad! But that didn't bother me either.

evangilder · 10-08-2005, 09:00 AM

I saw some things that bother me to this day to think about that I still can't talk about. Fortunately, those are not normal everyday occurences.

Erich · 10-08-2005, 06:12 PM

there is something about burnt bodies that...........well I cannot describe it really. the smell of war never goes away. even today a whiff of something takes me back. imagine picking up a corpse that nearly melts off your hands. How the "scrub" detachment can do this type of stuff is hard to fully realize but as Eric said you just grow knumb to it. No movie/video/dvd can really come close to reproducing these horror's, thank God !

v/r E ~

Nonskimmer · 10-08-2005, 06:26 PM

I haven't been in combat (knock on wood) so I've never seen the casualties of battle, but I have seen death. Some of it quite grizzly too. Nothing can prepare you for it, and it's something you don't forget. As much as you'd like to.

evangilder · 10-08-2005, 06:51 PM

Erich, certain smells can trigger a memory immediately. Burnt corpses are the absolute worst, the sight and the smell is enough to make the strongest stomach turn. I remember some of the graves registration guys and I can tell you that it is a job that I just couldn't do.

Glider · 10-08-2005, 07:02 PM

I think its always the unknown. I worked for a short while in the Air Crash Investigation unit, nothing grand I was basically an office boy being on office duty after an accident.
However I was talking to one of the experienced investigators. Obviously there was almost nothing he hadn't seen and how told me that there was only one thing that had ever freaked him out. It was a crash site of a Gannett, lifting up one of the panels there was an eye underneath it. For some reason this totally threw him and he had to leave the site. It was a shock to him that he had reacted in this way as he had seen worse than that many times. He put it down to just relaxing his guard for a second and being suprised.

syscom3 · 10-08-2005, 07:45 PM

These pictures were of my Great Grand Father, a proud soldier of the British Army.

The first picture is of him on leave in 1918. He was so excited to be back home to see his daughter (my grandmother, who is in her 90's and still alive told us the story). He wanted a pix of her and his wife, so they had this photo taken.

He was killed in action not long after the pix was made, on Sept 30 1918, and buried in one of the many small cemetaries dotting the "Fields of Flanders"

The place he fought in is near Ligny-Thilloy, Beaulencourt, Pas de Calais, France

This location was captured in March, 1917, It was lost the the Germans on the 24th-25th March, 1918, and recovered after severe fighting at the end of August. The cemetery was begun by the 53rd Field Ambulance early in September, 1918, and used during the latter part of the month and the early part of October by the 3rd, 4th and 43rd Casualty Clearing Stations. It adjoined a German cemetery of March-August, 1918, from which 200 German graves have been removed to larger cemeteries and seven British to Favreuil British Cemetery. There are now nearly 250, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. The cemetery covers an area of 673 square metres and is enclosed by a rubble wall.