On a winter’s day in 1915 the family of one Capt Charles Sorley – athlete, soldier and poet – received a package. It was his kit bag, sent home by his regiment from the Western Front, where Sorley had been killed, aged 20, at the Battle of Loos. Out of this bag came a life abridged: personal effects, items of uniform and a bundle of papers, from which emerged his now famous sonnet When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead. A new photographic survey of military kits now illustrates that curious combination. The photographer Thom Atkinson has recorded 13 military kits for his ‘Soldiers Inventories’ series.
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It's creepy to me to see all that young boy's things now, here. He never knew when he was carrying all that stuff that some guy in the armed services would post the photo of his things and some woman in L.A. would look at it, you know:? That kind of thing always touches me.
ReplyDeleteI had to read his poem; beautiful and true and SO SAD.
I think the military kits are a poignant way of illustrating any war