How I Filmed the War A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc.

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

a few words of introduction

Fate has not been unkind to me. I have had my chances, particularly during the last two or three years, and—well, I have done my best to make the most of what has come my way. That and nothing more.

How I came to be entrusted with the important commission of acting as Official War Office Kinematographer is an interesting story, and the first few chapters of this book recount the sequence of events that led up to my being given the appointment.

Let me begin by saying that I am not a writer, I am just a "movie man," as they called me out there. My mind is stored full to overflowing with the impressions of all I have seen and heard; recollections of adventures crowd upon me thick and fast. Thoughts flash through my mind, and almost tumble over one another as I strive to record them. Yet at times, when I take pen in hand to write them down, they seem to elude me for the moment, and make the task more difficult than I had anticipated.

In the following chapters I have merely aimed at setting down, in simple language, a record of my impressions, so far as I can recall them, of what I have seen of many and varied phases of the Great Drama which has now been played to a finish on the other side of the English Channel. Most of those recollections were penned at odd moments, soon after the events chronicled, when they were still fresh in mind, often within range of the guns.

It was my good fortune for two years to be one of the Official War Office Kinematographers. I was privileged to move about on the Western Front with considerable freedom. My actions were largely untrammelled; I had my instructions to carry out; my superiors to satisfy; my work to do; and I endeavoured to do all that has been required of me to the best of my ability, never thinking of the cost, or consequences, to myself of an adventure so long as I secured a pictorial record of the deeds of our heroic Army in France. I have striven to make my pictures worthy of being preserved as a permanent memorial of the greatest Drama in history.

That is the keynote of this record. As an Official Kinematographer I have striven to be, and I have tried all the time to realise that I was the eyes of the millions of my fellow-countrymen at home. In my pictures I have endeavoured to catch something of the glamour, as well as the awful horror of it all. I have caught a picture here, a picture there; a scene in this place, a scene in that; and all the time at the back of my mind has always been the thought: "That will give them some idea of things as they are out here." My pictures have never been taken with the idea of merely making pictures, nor with the sole idea, as some people think, of merely providing a "thrill." I regarded my task in a different light to that. To me has been entrusted the task of securing for the enlightenment and education of the people of to-day, and of future generations, such a picture as will stir their imaginations and thrill their hearts with pride....