Jul 31 1917 During the Battle of Pilckem Ridge, war photographer Ernest Brooks takes this photo, IWM Q 2636, of three Irish Guards wearing German body-armour, examining a captured German machine-gun, at Pilckem.
Italiano: Copertina La Domenica del Corriere 30 Gennaio Cover La Domenica del Corriere #OTD Jan 30 1916 Company of death “La Comgagia della Morte”, Italy. Special patrols of infantry and engineers that dealt with barbed wire entanglements
During WWI, Italy developed body armour for the “Compagnie tagliafili” engineers tasked with cutting barbed wire. Due to their high losses they became known as the “Compagnie della morte” or Death Companies. Some of the armour was designed by an engineer, Farina.
Sometime in 1917, a German photographer takes this photo, IWM Q 88002, of a German stormtrooper, Sturmtruppen, on the Somme wearing Grabenpanzer body armour and Stahlhelm helmet. He is armed with two potato mashers-grenades or Stielhandgranate (German for “stick hand grenade”).
“He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to the single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front. He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come…”
– Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
France, D’Arles à Uzès , Le Brigadier de Toulouse, fils de Parents Toulousains, le Spahi de Paris, parents originaires de Nancy, le plus grands des deux : de Constantine, et l’autre de Biskra
