The Storm Of Steel

Sixty percent of all wounds in the First World War were caused by artillery fire.

Here we see examples of shrapnel- fragments of the shells themselves or metal balls contained in the shells. Both did lethal work upon reaching their targets.

Here we see a cutaway of a shell.

And this illustration drives home the difference between damage from a bullet and from shrapnel.

This field gun starkly shows how quickly artillery was changing as the war went on.

A new technology was introduced into warfare during the Great War- airplanes. First used for reconnaissance, they were soon seeing combat, and young pilots were inventing brand new tactics in the skies. Many of them didn't survive.

The typical uniform of a World War One pilot. An open air cockpit of a biplane flying thousands of feet up meant being in cold weather.

Dogfight was painted by John Armstrong Turnbull in 1919.

Canada didn't have an organized air force until after the war. But many young Canadian pilots flew for the British. William Barker was one of the great aces of the war, highly decorated, including the Victoria Cross.

This is a portion of his Sopwith Snipe.

Raymond Collishaw of British Columbia commanded a squadron of Canadian pilots called the Black Flight, and his personal plane he called the Black Maria.