Moonrise on the Somme, by Percy Smith from the Drypoints of War series, 1916-1919.
Taking place between July and November 1916, the Battle of the Somme was one of the largest of the First World War with more than 1 million men wounded or killed.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation
Dugout Fires, by Percy Smith, 1916-1919.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
The Prisoners, by Percy Smith from the Drypoints of War series, 1916-1919.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
Fuel to Dugout, by Percy Smith, 1916-1919.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
The Corner Cottage at Beaumont Hamel, by Percy Smith, 1916-1919.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
The Long and Winding Way, by Percy Smith from the Drypoints of War series, 1916-1919.
Percy Smith served until 1919 in France and Belgium as a gunner and experienced trench warfare. He was not an official war artist, so he had copperplates sent to him, concealed in magazines. He used them to make etchings from sketches made on the front line.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
Fifteen-Inch Howitzer, by Percy Smith, 1916-1919.
Percy Smith experienced the newest most powerful naval gun, the 'fifteen inch Howitzer'۪, popularly known as 'Granny'. His attempts at sketching the gun were met with opposition and he was reported to his superiors as such sketches were 'suspicious'۪ and considered to be tantamount to a spying activity. Successive appeals at last reached General Aston, himself interested in etching, and Percy was allowed to continue unofficially.
Image Courtesy of Percy Smith Foundation.
From the 'Life of a Field Telephonist' a series of 6 postcards by Fritz Lindshoeft, 1917.
Field telephones were first used in the First World War to direct troops. They replaced flag signals and the telegraph as an efficient means of communication. The first field telephones had a wind-up generator, used to power the telephone's ringer and batteries to send the call, and call the manually operated telephone central.
Images Courtesy of Queen Mary University of London Archives.
