I am a history fanatic. I can admit it. I will sit for hours and read dusty books and watch questionable quality documentaries on any and every subject in history.
My top 5 are as follows
- World War 2 Tactics and Leaders Strategies
- Technological Developments Achieved During World War 2
- Anything about the American Civil War
- Canadian Involvement During World War 1
- The Proxy Wars of the Cold War
With that completely unnecessary information dump out of the way, Let me talk a little about this image.
What you see on your screen is not from some sci-fi concept art or dated film piece. This really happened. In Turkey. In 1939. Wild, right?
That’s a real gas mask. It was produced in Germany during the war for civilians and military personnel. It’s called the GM30 mask.
In the sky are some bombers, not there to bomb the city of Istanbul (where this pic is taken), but rather as a mock drill for Turkish military personnel in the event of a gas attack occurring. While Turkey remained neutral during the war, it lay straddled between two theatres of war: the Middle East and Eastern Europe. As such, drills like these were necessary to keep the young nation on guard.
I can’t quite explain why this image resonates with me, it could be the juxtaposition between the once magnificent rule of the Ottomans showcased in the background with the Mosque of Istanbul and the high flying threat of European ingenuity and engineering of the bombers. It could be the sense of wary calmness exuding from the masked figure- that come what may his city would not fall.
I wonder what he might have been thinking. Maybe he was annoyed at having to partake in another drill. Or maybe, trapped behind that mask for even the short duration of the drill, the ugly wraith of a war that would ravage the world for years to come overcame and occupied his heart and soul.
I don’t know.
But I know this is a pretty awesome wallpaper.
