Over the Front: the Great War in the air
19 August 2008 by
Amanda Rebbeck .
3 Comments
Aircraft 1914 - 1918, Exhibitions, News
A new permanent exhibition, Over the Front: the Great War in the air, will open on 28 November 2008 at the eastern end of ANZAC Hall. The story of military flight and aerial combat during the First World War will be brought to life through the Memorial’s collection of five original and extraordinary aircraft and an exciting sound-and-light show.
Australians played a distinct part in aviation’s remarkable advances during the war. Four squadrons of the Australian Flying Corps flew above the Western Front in France and Belgium and over the Middle East. Training squadrons operated in Britain.
The exhibition will continue the Memorial’s tradition of presenting dramatic and instructive displays. It will pay tribute to the young men who fought in flimsy machines of wood, fabric and wire, risking their lives for dominance of the skies and in support of the ground operations below.
Two Bristol Fighters of the Australian Flying Corps c. 1918 B02209
The Over the Front Team are using the AWM blog specifically to:
- Support the exhibition and stimulate interest in it during the lead up to opening and beyond and to provide a sample of what will appear in the exhibition.
- Record and relate some of the exhibition team’s experiences in putting together the exhibition, in particular our experiences working with the Memorial’s First World War aircraft collection.
- Provide additional content about the exhibition for those who want to know more, or for material we couldn’t fit into the physical exhibition.
The blog does not aim to provide an online version of the exhibition nor to replicate all available knowledge about the Australian Flying Corps, Royal Flying Corps or Royal Naval Air Service but additional information can be found in the links we provide.
We also welcome comments and feedback from interested members of the public or those in the museum (or related) profession. However they may not necessarily reflect the views or interpretation of the Australian War Memorial as an organisation. Comments received will be moderated and some (not all) may be posted on the blog. Any inappropriate or uncivil messages will of course not be posted, nor responded to. Unfortunately we have neither the time nor the resources to enter into lengthy correspondence, or to manage complicated arguments about historical interpretations of events.
The Australian War Memorial recognises and respects the copyrights, including moral rights, of all copyright owners and licensees. Accordingly, every reasonable endeavour has been made to contact the copyright owners whose works appear on this website. This has not always proved possible and so copyright owners are asked to contact the publisher directly.
More and more content will be added progressively during the lead up to, and after the exhibition has opened (Nov 2008), so if you’re interested, keep visiting the blog regularly and check out what’s new.
Regards,
Amanda Rebbeck
(Over the Front Blog Administrator/Editor)
September 25th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
That’s a very interesting photograph in this blog post. The “O.H. Coulson” shown at the bottom right hand corner is probably Oswald Hillam (Ossie) Coulson.
Coulson was a Flight Sergeant with the No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps and worked in the photographic section (SERN 455). He was commissioned Hon. Lieutenant on Armistace Day. He is also the donor and/or maker of other material in the AWM collection, in this case most notably photograph ID number P01726.003.
If you examine P01726.003 you will see the central image of the montage is the fighter plane shown above at left, with surrounding cloud. However the fighter plane shown above at right does not appear in the central image of the montage obscuring part of the cloud where you would expect to find it.
This implies that the photograph here, B02209, has been composed by the melding of two separate photographs - a composite image.
Perhaps you would give us your thoughts about the possibility that this is a composite image?
September 29th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Hi Bob
Thank you for your comment. Yes B02209 is indeed a composite image put together by AFC photographer Ossie Coulson c 1918. The photo montage at P01726.003 is also reproduced in our collection at P04934.003. In both versions, as you have correctly identified, the central image is the aircraft shown to the left of B02209. Unfortunately the Memorial does not know the source of the aircraft which appears to the right of B02209, but it would have come from a photograph Coulson had access to during his time in Palestine.
Composites such as these were not an unusual part of First World War photography. Often it was not possible for Official War Photographers to shoot the images they wanted, so they produced composite images that combined fragments from different negatives. It was a controversial practice however, with Captain Frank Hurley, Australia’s second appointed official First World War photographer, having a number of hostile exchanges with Charles Bean, the official correspondent for the Australian Imperial Force (and driving force behind the establishment of the Australian War Memorial) regarding the former’s use of composites.
For more information on composites and the close association between war and photography please click here.
September 29th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Thanks for that information. As there was no mention in the description of B02209 that it was a composite image, I thought it may have gone undetected. But you are well ahead of me.
I did come across another Hurley image which I think was previously not known to have a composite derivative :
http://lifeasdaddy.typepad.com/lifeasdaddy/2008/09/the-unmistakable-photographic-compositions-of-frank-hurley-and-some-interesting-questions-of-copyright.html