Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Henry Lee-Thomas: World War 1 Photos

Henry Lee-Thomas sent home two small photo albums and a post card from World War 1.  These have  fallen in to my hands and are in unusually good shape considering their age.    These are the original albums which were mailed home in 1915 and 1916.  That makes them almost 100 years old.  I have just scanned them today and want to share with everyone.  The first album was sent to Myrtle Moore  (Myrtle Thredgold) who was Henry's sister-in-law and Ruby Thredgold's sister.  The second album was to a "Miss Pickering."  I have no idea who this person was.  The last two photos are of a post card which Henry sent to his wife and baby.  (Ruby and Maurice).  The post card caption says, "The Strafer Strafed."  I looked up "Strafer" on "google" and found the following definition:

Verb:  To attack (ground troops for example) with gun or cannon from a low flying aircraft.
Noun:  An atttack of machine gun or cannon fire from low flying aircraft.
Common World War 1 slogan. 

This will make sense when you see the last photo.  Here is the link to this group of photos:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10071252/Wold%20War%201%20Henry%20Lee-Thomas.pdf

1 comment:

M Field said...

Thank you for sharing these photos and those of Maurice & his family. They are very interesting and I am sure the Australian War Memorial might also be interested in these.
Also on television tonight and a few months back there was a program on a town in France Vinracour (not sure of the spelling) where a lot of the men on the Western front stayed. If Henry Lee-Thomas was there it is possible he had his photo taken by a woman photographer and Channel 7 Television with help tracked down and located the original glass plates and the head of the television station Mr.Kerry Stokes has purchased these and they will be given to the Australian War Memorial. They have been cleaned and will be scanned there are over 4,000 of these. So you never know but he might be among them.
Thanks again.
M.Field Aust.