Further information: Shot by amateur filmmaker Ivan Bawtree, formerly a Corporal with a British Army Graves Registration Unit working as a photographer in France and Flanders, 1915-1920 during the First World War.

During the war, British soldier death counts were rising rapidly which inspired Sir Fabian Ware to set up the Graves Registration Commission in 1915, funded by the British Red Cross.

He acquired the services of three photographers, including 21-year-old Ivan Bawtree, to visit the cemeteries in British held areas of the Western Front to document the dead.