JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
This is a detail from the following photograph made by the pool of photographers working for the Western Newspaper Union, and issued for public consumption (and passed by the censors) on October 14, 1918. It shows a goodwill mission of soldiers along with Mrs. Parker, the sister of Lord Kitchener, inspecting “comfort bags” for the troops at the front. Everyone here seems to be daintily inspecting the bags with fingertips, Mrs. Parker seeming to be the only one in conversation.
There is a portrait of her brother in the background–he had been dead for more than two years at that point, drowned along with 600 others when the ship he was aboard, the HMS Hampshire, struck a German mine. No doubt that anything the Red Cross could muster for the battlefield troops was absolutely appreciated.
At this point, the war was nearly over, with less than a month of fighting to play out.