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A comprehensive history of the development and use of cameras in recording British military conflicts from the 1850s to the 1950s.Books about war and the pictures that came out of conflict usually concentrate on the picture content. But behind every picture there is a camera—and that's what this book is about. Profusely illustrated throughout with pictures of the cameras, rather than the pictures they took, it looks at one hundred years of conflict from the Crimean War to the Korean War. It begins in the days when a photographer needed to be more of a scientist than an artist, such were the difficulties of shooting and processing any photograph. It ends with the cameras whose compact dimensions, versatility and ease of use meant that photographers could largely forget the science and concentrate on the art. Some cameras simply recorded events. Others defined and changed the way those events proceeded. These were the cameras that went to war, and this is their story.Praise for Cameras at War“An amazing collection of superb photographs beginning with some from the Crimean War—coupled with a brilliant narrative that emphasizes the use of photography to record conflict. Where would we be without such evidentiary mementoes?” —Books Monthly (UK)

The selection of over 150 rare wartime photographs in this volume in Pen & Swords Images of War series offers a graphic visual record of the dramatic and bloody battles fought for the Crimea during the Second World War. They show every grim aspect of the fighting and reflect in many ways the ruthless character of the struggle across the entire Eastern Front. The German-led Axis forces took eight months to conquer the Crimea in 1941-2 the Soviet defenders of the fortified city-port of Sevastopol held out against repeated assaults for 250 days. In 1944, after the course of the war had turned against the Wehrmacht and their allies, the city was liberated by the Red Army, but only after over 120,000 Axis troops had been evacuated across the Black Sea. Naval operations involving the Soviet Black Sea Fleet and the Romanian Royal Navy are covered in the book, as is the battle in the air between the Luftwaffe and the Red Air Force. But perhaps the most memorable photographs give an insight into the ordinary soldiers experience of the fighting and show the enormous material damage the conflict left behind.