Tuesday - March 31, 2009

Their voices have not been heard since the First World War.  With some help from a lipreader.

I’m really surprised that nobody has done this before.  Surely someone , somewhere must have thought of bringing in a lipreader.

‘I’m going to bomb ’em all and then b****r off’: Lipreader helps Tommies find their voice

By Nigel Blundell

Their voices have not been heard since the First World War.

The soldiers in these photographs are all long dead – some meeting their fate only minutes after the pictures were taken. But now, thanks to a lipreader, we know what the Tommies were saying.

The stills are taken from a silent movie shot at the bloody Battle of the Somme in 1916, which on its opening day, July 1, alone claimed the lives of 20,000 British and Empire troops.

One wounded soldier swears. Another voices deep foreboding about an imminent attack. Others, away from the Front, smile and shout greetings to their mothers.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus’, says a soldier with a wounded foot, far right. Another soldier implores: ‘Stop filming, this is awful’

Their comments have been revealed for the first time in more than 90 years by lipreader Jessica Rees who, with three historians, has been analysing the film held in the Imperial War Museum – likely to have been one of many shown as newsreels in cinemas back home at the time.

One clip shows a company of Lancashire Fusiliers about to go ‘over the top’ on that first day.

One Tommy, operating a mortar, is now known to have been saying to his second lieutenant: ‘I hope we are in the right place this time because if not, I’m going to bomb ’em all and then bugger off.’

They may have been among his last words. For, only minutes later, he and his comrades were cut down by machine-gun fire as they were ordered into battle.

A soldier with a wounded foot repeats: ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.’ He also swears out loud: ‘F***.’ Another a soldier appeals: ‘Stop filming, this is awful.’
the somme trenches

A soldier in trenches during the Somme, taken from the Somme exhibition at the National Army Museum

Elsewhere along the Front that same day, men of the Royal Fusiliers are readied for battle. A corporal urges them to speed up fixing of bayonets, ordering: ‘Fix ’em, fix ’em, get ’em fixed.’

There are lighter moments, though. Soldiers of the Essex Regiment were filmed washing at a pool. They shout out ‘Hi Mum!’ and ‘Hello Mum, it’s me.’

The latest research, which has resulted in a new book on the Battle of the Somme, dispels the long-held belief that such films were pure propaganda, featuring ‘staged’ battle scenes.

‘The bulk of the footage was not re-enacted for the cameras,’ says Alastair Fraser, co-author of Ghosts On The Somme: Filming The Battle.

‘The harrowing scenes of injury and death were largely for real. When a soldier fell, he really was dead.’

Mr Fraser, a Durham University librarian, and his co-authors Steve Roberts, a battlefield guide, and Andrew Robertshaw, TV military expert and curator of the Royal Logistics Corps Museum at Deepcut, near Aldershot, came up with the idea of getting
Ms Rees to ‘listen in’ to what the soldiers in the films were saying.

‘For some, these were to be their last words’

Ms Rees, who is deaf, often appears as an expert witness in major court cases.

She said: ‘What struck me the most was the optimism of the soldiers and their bravery. They were very upbeat in their speech.

‘It is impossible to tell whether this was due to their patriotism or because they had been told that an easy victory lay ahead but they were very jolly in ways that many of us, who now know the outcome and death toll of the Somme, find very hard to comprehend.
battle of the somme

‘They all seemed very positive, full of team spirit and jocular. Yet, as I was stunned to learn, many of them did not even survive the day of filming. I came away feeling a bit humble.’

Mr Robertshaw added: ‘Many of the men filmed were soon dead. Some were killed a little later that same day.

‘What we learned were, in some cases, almost the very last words of these Tommies.’

TOMMIES AT WAR

OTHER PHOTOS AT THE LINK ^

Posted by peiper     on 03/31/2009 at 07:47 AM   
Filed Under: • History • UK • War-Stories •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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