Australian_Heliograph_in_Egyptian_Desert_1940.png
Description Australian Heliograph in Egyptian Desert 1940.png |
English:
Two A.I.F. signallers use a heliograph during exercises in the Western Desert of Egypt (Libya) in Nov. 1940, during World War II. This photo was made into a A.I.F. recruiting poster in Sept. 1941. This is an official Department of Information (Australia) photo of two signallers of the 2nd Australian Imperial Force. They are using a Mance Mark V heliograph in duplex (dual-mirror) mode to signal by Morse Code using reflected sunlight modulated by tilting one mirror. This photo appeared in the Australian Sydney Morning Herald on Nov. 13, 1940 (
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=qLVVAAAAIBAJ&sjid=spYDAAAAIBAJ&dq=department-of-information%20heliograph&pg=7317%2C1448435
), the West Australian on Nov. 16, 1940 (
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46749411
), and the Examiner (Tasmania) on Nov. 20, 1940 (
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52389945
) The poster was announced on Sept. 11, 1941, in the Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia) (
http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article41941629
). This was the cover photo for the British publication "The War Illustrated", VOl. 4, No.75, Feb. 7, 1941, with the title: "Signals in The Desert Battle: Australians With A Heliograph".
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Date | Taken on 13 November 1940 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Source | This is an official Australian Department of Information photo taken in Nov. 1940 in Libya. I ordered this particular scan from the State Library of Victoria, http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/argus/gid/slv-pic-aaa30361/1/an014292 , with the stated purpose of putting it in Wikimedia to make it publicly viewable and downloadable. Their record for this item says to cite it as Argus Newspaper Collection of photographs, State Library of Victoria, Accession no(s) H99.202/2489, and states that This work is out of copyright , No copyright restrictions apply. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Author | Anonymous, official Department of Information (Australia) photo. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Permission
( Reusing this file ) |
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Annotations
InfoField
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This image is annotated: View the annotations at Commons |
This tripod-mounted pair of mirrors is a Mance Mark V heliograph, a device used to signal by mirror-reflected flashes of sunlight using Morse Code. See "Heliograph" on Wikipedia for more information. For more about the A.I.F., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Australian_Imperial_Force
This image was obtained from the State Library of Victoria, ( http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/argus/gid/slv-pic-aaa30361/1/an014292 [ dead link ] ) and is from the Argus Newspaper Collection of photographs, State Library of Victoria, Accession no(s) H99.202/2489
This is the compartmented leather case used to carry the metal and glass components of the heliograph when disassembled for transport. When the heliograph was in use, the case was usually suspended from the tripod by its canvas shoulder strap, as seen here.
This is a female-threaded metal cap attached to the tripod leg by a chain. It is used to protect the male threads on the top of the tripod when the heliograph is removed from the tripod for transport.
The main mirror is produces flashes of sunlight by means of intermittent tilting of the mirror in elevation by the signaller depressing a disk attached to a four-bar linkage attached to the mirror.
This second, or "duplex" mirror was used when the sun and the target were on opposite sides of the signaler. When the target was on the same side of the signaler as the sun, a sighting rod was mounted in this location instead. The sighting rod had a crosshairs to align the heliograph with the target.