CAMERA MEN UNDER FIRE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15723, 17 October 1916, Page 9

CAMERA MEN UNDER FIRE.

HOVT THEY TAKE THE OFFICIAL PICTURES. (By W. BEACH THOMAS, in London "Daily Mail.'') No one compares with tho lighting soldier. He endures daily enough dangers and difficulties to pad out the annals of a thousand other lives. Those who take their bit of risk from time to time or at wholesome intervals and feel perhaps ;y certain glow at the memory or sinking bullets or bursting (shells or cracking grenades should own to a soil of shame, at their own excitement or.pride in these stirring experiences. After all their best were no more than soldiers' commonplaces. "With so much preface I may be allowed to express some admiration for those almost-soldicrs who spend their days not in lighting, but in taking pictures of those who light. They run a soldier's ritjk, if not daily at any rate once a week; and on occasion the risk is very great indeed. Sometimes this is the fault as well as the virtue of the photographer. 1 remember very distinctly the preparations made lor taking a pltotogi upU of the destruction of a German Olock-hou<-e. An officer turned his ingenuity, learnt in shooting big game in India, to the work of finding and organising a hiding place lor the photographer. A loophole was puncturea at uignt in the front parapet, which was perhaps 100 yards from the target. Tjiis hole was then carefully blocked so as to be iqyisible; and the photographer install-ed?-behind it was ordered not to Mpor; it till after the first heavy shell was fired and the enemy were taking shelter. But photographers, in my experience, are not in ado quite line other people. No danger looms so large in their nature as the danger of missing a good photograph. •

So it was with tho artist on this occasion. A nervous terror possessed him that tho first shell from the 9.2 would do the deed and render further shots unnecessary. His photographer's nature gave him no alternative, and ho opened the loophole at once. Of course, tho enemy saw, and, of course, turned guns on to the spot. Happily our ( J. 2 was punctual- The photographer was forgotten in bigger things and he gob an excellent picture of tho dissolution of tho blocfihouse, which shot up in dust and ashes under the stimulus of tho eighth shell.

Often on such occasions the nervousness of the photographer's work has been increased by the complete clearance of the trench. There is always the danger of a- mine or shell kicking back, so lor a short period in certain circumstances the front trench may be cleared. But tho soldier's withdrawal is occasion for the photographer's advance. To miss taking the explosion of a big mine, such as that of the Ilawfhorn liedoubt on July Ist, would be as seriou.s as a soldier's failure to take a strong place. I*, was while holding such a trench alono that the garrison of two photographers had one of their t\Vo machines crippled. A fragment of a high-explo-sive shell cut the log of the camcra clean off.

One 01' the most disagreeable facts o>' the war for photgraphers and some others is the enemy's unpleasant habit of sniping with artillery, even heavy artillery. I have myself seen a shell pitched within ten yards of two observers who had exposed themselves on a hill-top in Flanders. At least as good shooting was made at a camera shown above the parapet in the neighbourhood of Hebutorne. - Possibly the Germans ! thought they had discovered eomo new ; mortar or infernal machine. At any rate, they began almost at oneo to "snipo" with their 5.9. The excellence of the shooting suggests that the spot had been already -'registered." The iiist shell foil just in front. It was followed by another within a lew yards, and the third hit the parapet just a 6 the two were packing up their apparatus. Like wiso men they fell on their faces at the fust sound of the whistle: hut even a recumbent position lias its dangers. One of them was covered up with mud and needed his friend's help to get clear; but it may be- understood that the whole mjinaeuvro did not take long. The timcrf for "trench-sprinting : on such occasions are for thoee who have no obligation to stay remarkably good. Everyone becomes an athlete and a gymnast —that is if he does not prefer to be a limpet. I make this exception bec«««J on ono occasion an invaluublo camatf» *'as lost for some forty-eight hours. An officer who was harnessing andl directing the enterprise of the photographers gave one spare machine to an orderly. As they approached their destination the enemy's shrapnel bursts were observed to be coming nearer and nearer, and a change of direction was counselled. The need was urgent and off they went; but to the consternation of tnc party the *uan with the extra camera had vanished. When the storm was over ho was sought this way and that in vain; and the re&t were forced at last to return without him. Fears for his safety and at least as great fears for the safety of the camera were expressed. hut both returned two -days later. It seems that the orderly had observed the .approach of the shrapnel early in the proceedings and retired to the decent obscurity of a dug-out. For myself, I have met the official photographers in many places. There is nothing in or l>ehind the lines that cscapc: their ministrations. Indeed, one is inclined to feel that th& futura

history of the war should bo photo*graphs as to a gotul half of its con-* , tents. But the most vivid picture I' i have is of n buoyant figure, equipped, I of course, with shrapnel helniet and gas musk, picking his way between German prisoners and our wounded in the neighbourhood of Mamctz. He was, \ think, on the track of captured guns in the wood, hut <Mi his way was busy i with prisoner*-. He had a great way ■with prisoners. His refusal to t-pealc German impressed them and did not. soein to interfere with the crisp clarity of his instructions, which were obeyed to the letter. All the official photography, kinematograph or other, k done bv men who fly about with extreme ;activity from oue part of the front to the other. One of them, has been up in aeroplanes over tho enemy lines and all of them have endured almost, the worst tiling in war, a trench under heavy bombardment, besides, of course, t-lje common danger of "whistling Percies'" and other far-flung shells. Between them they have accumulated such a aeries of pictures of war as .should leave no one tho chance of remaining unpatriotic enough not to know what the war is like. The best compliments to their work r.havo lieaiyj in those excellent Kxpeditionary Force canteens which do a brisk trade in postcard photographs an well as in creature comforts. These pbotoj graphs have certainly brought the war home to many men who work behind tho tines in I'ranee, indeed to some who I work in the lines, for the range is larao and the pictures real. Jho bulk of the work is, of eour.se, rather busy than There l- "an Army behind an Army,"' and the life of both needs record. It is getting a record hevond comparison in other wars. I can imagine some historian of the twenty-first, century counting in his list of great, historians, shall I eav? Thucydides. Gibbon, Napier, and —the official photographer.