I love Sepia Saturday, check out the other great stories by clicking the link. Today's theme was the great war or WWI. I don't know why the called it great as war in general is anything but great. When I started my family tree many years ago I discovered that I had no direct ancestors who went to either war. I only have the odd Uncle or cousins many times removed who went.
I have already talked about my Uncle Willy going to war but thought I would include a couple of great pictures of a gas mask, probably with William Henry Pearce underneath. He got back from war to find a relaxed Kiwi house in Christchurch with all his family still there. He must have put this mask on so his brother Cyril, who was into amateur photography, could get an interesting shot. I love this photo. It is a scary face looking at you. A mosquito type face. A reminder of the Dr Who episode where the little boy with a gas mask face calls, "Where is my Mummy. Are you my Mummy." These masks were the stuff of nightmares.
Scary to look at and even scarier to wear.
ReplyDeleteGreat photo!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the movie "The Fly". Yikes!
ReplyDeleteCreepy, indeed. Enough to give anybody bad dreams! But a wonderful photo anyway.
ReplyDeleteHe looks like some alien creature!
ReplyDeleteI have always found pictures of people in gas masks scary, but I have only seen photographs on TV and in books. How wonderful to have such an ancestral photograph. and that it has survived..
ReplyDeleteI am glad I wasn't around then. It must have been one nightmare after another.
ReplyDeleteGood job he had one though..Death from inhaling nerve gas was probably one of the most unpleasant ways to go.
ReplyDeleteStrange to look at but they did a necessary job. So glad that you love Sepia Saturday!
ReplyDeleteIt's nice to hear of someone else without direct ancestors involved in the war. I often wonder how that happened. But in my family with WW1 there didn't seem to be any young men of the right age around at the time.
ReplyDeleteScary indeed. My grandfather Oliver Cruickshank served but thankfully returned. We have his medals but no photos of him in uniform.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great photo, I'll admit! I suppose the gas masks worked, but they don't look like they would.
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