WwW: Part 1 covers the beginning of WW-One and trench warfare up to (+,-) 1916. Part 2 will follow next, and will cover Russia’s exit, America’s entry and the Armistice.
1)WwW, Part 1:
How it started. Austrian Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand & wife Sophie, shortly before their assassination in Saraje.
2)
The assassin Gavrilo Princip.
3)
Princip’s FN 380-cal. Model 1910.
4)
And so it did.
5)
British troops marching to the trenches.
6)
French troops.
7)
French soldiers, 1st battle of the Marne, 1914.
8)
Brit trenches.
9)
Austrian machine gun crew.
10)
German trenches. They would learn to dig them deeper.
11)
Christmas in the German trenches, 1914.
12)
German and Brit troops during the unofficial Christmas truce, 1914.
13)
1 British Webley .445 Revolver.
14)
Belgium Trench Sweepers.
15)
German U-Boat.
16)
The primitive rise of airpower.
17)
British Handley Page bomber.
18)
German Gotha bombers raided London.
19)
Rule .303 – British SMLE with grenade launcher.
20)
Australian infantry, Gallipoli, Turkey, 1915.
21)
British machine gun crew Battle of the Somme 1916.
22)
Canadian doctor Major John McCrae, who did not survive.
23)
Rail guns at Verdun, 1916.
24)
Third battle of Ypres, 1916.
25)
Trenches at 3rd Ypres, 1917.
26)
German Zeppelins bombed London.
WwW, Part 2:
It was an awful blood-bath but because our country wasn’t in it very long, I think sometimes we tend to forget how raggedly ugly it was. And probably part of that would be how America was attacked at Pearl Harbor and the extensive mobilization that wasn’t as wide-spread for WW-One. It definitely deserves more attention.
My father came along late in his father’s life, as did I, but his brother George was much earlier and rode the boat to France in 1918 (daddy rode the boat to Guadalcanal in the next “big one”). There’s a 37mm gun crew in this batch and Uncle George crewed one of those. I have an inert shell for one of those contraptions rat-holed that he gave to Dad.
27)
Germany sent Vladimir Lenin back to Russia where he led a revolution and took Russia out of the war.
28)
Tsar Nicolas and his entire family were murdered by the Bolsheviks.
29)
America goes in.
30)
31)
USMC recruiting poster.
32)
USMC John Daley two time Medal of Honor winner who famously asked “Come on you sons-of-bitches, do you want to live forever?”
33)
American 37mm gun crew in Argonne Forest.
33A)
The deactivated 37mm that my uncle brought back from France and gave to my father, with a 30-06 for comparison.
34)
Major General John A. Lejeune, USMC, commanded US Army’s 2nd Infantry Division during WW-1.
35)
American artillery.
36)
Eddie Rickenbacker’s Spad.
37)
John Moses Browning and his water cooled heavy machine gun.
38)
Val Browning used the BAR designed by his father in combat in France.
39)
M1903 Springfield with trench stock.
40)
The Bloody Red Baron Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen sitting in his Fokker tri wing.
41)
Richthofen’s nemesis.
42)
Australian machine gunner SGT Cedric Popkin (middle row, 2nd from right) likely fired the shot that killed Richthofen.
43)
Clank, clank, I’m a tank. The state of Armor Branch in 1918.
44)
BB35 USS Texas, the last remaining Dreadnaught class Battleship also fought in WWII.
45)
USS Mullany, 4-stack destroyer.
46)
SGT Alvin York, Medal of Honor.
47)
Harry S. Truman’s 1911.
48)
American soldiers celebrating the Armistice, 1918.
