[DeathHand]

Originally Posted by Davis916 ↗

I met several American WWI veterans. They told me that so many guys went bad with Shell Shock that guys would just let themselves be killed or ran away.

I wish that I had been able to meet a few. I had 3 grand-uncles who each fought in the major battles (the Somme, Verdun, Yres, Flanders, etc) and all but one returned unscathed (one had most of his left side blown off). But my grandfather was the youngest of a family of 14 - he didn't even know his brothers who had fought in the war...they had each moved off by the time he grew up.

As for shell shock. I can so see that shit happening but the British didn't understand it at the time. Most of those poor guys were tied to a post and shot dead by a firing squad from their own battalion.

They couldn't move or fight and were considered cowards, especially if they tried to run.

[Razorhead]

Grest collection, thanks.

[SuperFox]

Awesome post!!!!

[Jrad]

Great post thanks. I haven't seen a bunch of those. If anyone is interested I recommend listening to the "blueprint for armageddon" podcast series by Dan Carlin www.dancarlin.com it's all about ww1 and he does a great job. I think it's still free atm.

[TheFallOfTroyML]

writing in the forelast pic is in german and says "attack of the english people at neuve chapelle at 12 .." if you are curious

[EMason88]

Imangine being wounded and stuck in no mans land. Then the night comes and the rats.

[Eisenberg]

If there is hell, this place at this time must have been pretty damn close to it...

[K53]

For those drafted to fight, this war was hell on earth.

[DeathHand]

For the first 3 sets, this set, and the next few, I have intentionally refrained from posting images that show only 1 dead soldier.

I did this because during the large-scale slaughter of WW1 the bodies of 5, 10, 20 dead soldiers could be found in the same location.

When we look at photos of WW2, the Korean War, Vietnam, etc. we usually only see that many dead soldiers in one place because they have been put their - usually awaiting burial or clearing a battlefield. Photos from the Pacific of dead Japanese soldiers would be the exception.

World War One ~ Set 4.

[DeathHand]

In the previous set and in this set are several photos of the skeletal remains of dead soldiers.

This was probably a common sight for any soldier during the fighting since burial was not easy if soldiers were under fire. Often, bodies would be hauled into a ditch or ravine and often there was no time to cover them.

In a few of the photos, we also get a glimpse of what frequently happened to dead soldiers on the battlefield or in no man's land: artillery fire often buried them while the next salvo would unearth them and another explosion would bury them again and so on.

I once read an account of a British WW1 Vet who spoke of this. He said that one day there would be a dead German soldier out in the mud. Then the artillery shells hit and the next day the dead German was gone...and the body of a dead British soldier had appeared.

World War One ~ Set 5.