![]() ![]() With slicked down hair, sometimes parted in the middle, sometimes paired with a moustache, the men’s waists are cinched with thick belts, their hands sheathed in leather gloves. It must be winter, for snow and mud is on the ground, caking their short boots, knee length boots, and the wheels of the bombers. As the men pose in front of their aircraft, what is also notable is the fragility of the machine: lashings of wood and canvas, wire wheels, and a huge amount of wire bracing, so much so it seems that the pilots are caught in a spiders web of the stuff as they stand there staring down the camera. Some wear thick bezelled, large crowned aviation (a term coined in 1863) watches, which in the Great War were to be used to make coordinated attacks possible at a precise moment. Their early leather helmets or “bone domes”, used in motor-racing and adopted by pilots as head protection, rest on the wing beside them. With their nonchalantly relaxed pose, arm on wing, clad in thick, buttoned flight suits trimmed at leg and neck with real fur to keep them warm up in the beyond, these daring young men stare straight at the camera. What I find fascinating are the attitudes of the men toward the camera, and the wonderful details present in the images. This means that the propellor is at the back of the aircraft pushing the plane along, instead of being placed in the front. The photographs seem to have been shot in one sitting, for the images contain the same wooden sheds, picket fence, and two bomber aircraft (one with wire wheels, one with solid wheels) of the “pusher” type, possibly a Farman MF.11 Shorthorn bomber. Taken in 1913, or possibly in 1914 the first year of the Great War – there are no guns present on the bomber, but this is not unusual for the early part of the war as can be seen in the photograph of Captain Maurice Happe in his bomber of 1915 below – I have spent a long time researching the make of the bomber and, with the help of the knowledgeable Jacques Crouille (thank you!), ascertaining the period uniforms that the men are wearing. Not the best outcome, not the best quality, but better than nothing … and it means that other people can get to see them. But I kept the negative jpg images, inverted them into positives, and I have cleaned them up as best I can. They fetched an enormous sum of money, far beyond the humble means I had at my disposal to purchase them. These fabulous and rare French large format glass slides were for sale on Ebay many moons ago, illustrated as negative images only. When I was seventeen, I tried to enrol in the RAF as a fighter pilot, hence my own interest in the subject artistically over the last 10 years. ![]() I have always been fascinated with flight, and aeroplanes. Those daring young men in their war machines ![]()
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