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Neville, great thread full of interesting, new material and illustrated by excellent photographs. I do not want it to veer off-topic but since Rob mentioned the star shells I thought the below picture is not entirely out of place.

Everhard,

There is a copy of this photograph in Majoor von Wichmann’s album. I have never been entirely convinced that it is “genuine”, and suspect the trails of the star shells have been drawn onto the negative. The long exposure required to capture the fall of a single star shell, let alone eight, would have meant that any moving individuals (such as the mounted men in the middle distance) would appear so blurred that they would look more like apparitions than the living.

It is, nonetheless, a very evocative photograph.

The star shell photo was one of Jan van Hoepen's, and the magnesium trails must have been added by hand, as here's a slightly different version