Razed to the ground: Incredible aerial photo shows obliteration of Passchendaele during World War I



The first shows a typical village - the second a barren landscape more reminiscent of the Moon's surface.

These two aerial photographs show the horrific toll of World War I on Passchendaele, north-east of Ypres in Belgium.

Incredibly, they were taken just a year apart - the first in 1916 before the bloody battle and the second in 1917 once the village had been seized by the Allies.

Picturesque: Passchendaele in 1916, a year before it was blasted beyond recognition by the bloody battle which raged between July and November 1917

Wasteland: Taken in 1917 by the Royal Flying Corps, only the original curve in the road once at the heart of the village is visible in the photograph

The 1916 image shows a typical village with a church, houses lining the roads and pretty fields spread out in a patchwork.

But the second picture shows a wasteland, with no houses or buildings left. Only the original curve in the road once at the heart of the village is visible.

More than 2,000 lives were lost a day on the notorious battlefield between July and November 1917 - a total of around a quarter of a million Allied soldiers.

The pictures were taken by the Royal Flying Corps, who helped give their chiefs a view of the battlefield through aerial photos.

They were taken from a two-seater biplane at around 12,000ft.



The Lochnagar Crater, white area at top of left picture, was a deep hole caused by the detonation of a huge underground mine in July 1916, on the first day of the Battle of the Somme

The images have just been found in a collection of 140,000 negatives at the Imperial War Museum.

They are due to feature in a BBC documentary, The First World War from Above, which is being broadcast on November 7.



Historian Nigel Steel told The Times: 'When the battle reaches the top of the Passchendaele Ridge then washes over it, it becomes something almost inconceivable.



'You can still see the route of the roads, the remains of the church but everything else is obliterated.'

Equipment check: The troops line up with their cameras for an inventory. The images were taken from a two-seater biplane at around 12,000ft