What going on in this picture?

[RichardT10829]

Initially I thought the guy was on the deck looking under the carrier perhaps seeing if something was caught up or something along those lines. The guy stood up interests me (the one with his hand on the side armour) If he is REME you can hear the conversation "Bloody carrier drivers....he's made a right mess of this"

[Tony Smith]

Two points.

If it is an AIF unit, then the blokes will be AEME, not REME.

Secondly, Frank Hurley was famous/notorious for composing and/or recreating his pictures as recreations or even compositions, rather than actual "during the battle" scenes. This photo could well be a re-enactment. He felt it was far more important to convey the many elements of what he was depicting, rather than simply record an actual battle. He was essentially an artist using photography as a medium, rather than a chronicler recording actual events. That philosophy brought him into conflict with many in the Military, historians and journalists, but most of his pictures are so well composed technically, that many have become iconic images of war. Some of the AIF troops felt disdain for him as he treated them like actors when recreating scenes rather than follow them into battle. His personal courage cannot be doubted though, as his photgraphic career included many life-threatening highlights including being stranded on pack-ice with Shackelton's 1914 Antarctic expedition. A brief highlight of his career is HERE

Have a read of how it was normally done: HERE

[Richard Farrant]

No one has made much mention of the trailer so far. The Gantry lorry was probably a Leyland Retreiver or similar, and would not take a Carrier within the body. The trailer is not the normal Cranes 7 1/2 ton recovery, normally used, as wheels are out board of the trailer, the Cranes had the two rear axles with wheels under the load bed, and it also looks like a tilt bed trailer. So, is this an Australian Carrier transporter? I was looking at a Carrier transporter trailer recently in NSW, but that only had one axle, so rules that out.

[hrpearce]

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...hlight=trailer Richard post #9 looks like a front view of this type of trailer.

[Richard Farrant]

Originally Posted by hrpearce

http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/sh...hlight=trailer Richard post #9 looks like a front view of this type of trailer.

Thanks Robert, I thought there were Australian four wheeled Carrier trailers, as I can recollect Kurt Johansen used them when he built the self tracking trailers for his early road trains.

[Bob Moseley (RIP)]

Hi Richard - the trailers Kurt used were the two wheeled Bren Gun Carrier recovery trailer of which he bought twenty three out of Army Disposals. These formed the basis of the self-tracking trailers that he built.

Bob

[Bob McNeill]

The trailer in pic seems to be the same as AJ recovered last year. AJ posted pics at the time.