Burmese troops receive their mail at Contalmaison, Autumn 1917

Photograph, World War One, Western Front (1914-1918), 1917.

The men shown are probably personnel from a labour battalion as they are not wearing regulation uniform. Thousands of men from Burma and the Indian subcontinent served on the Western Front building fortifications and trenches, loading and moving supplies, and maintaining transport and communication links.

From a collection of official photographs.