The open breech of an 18-pounder field gun of 101st Battery, Royal Field Artillery, 1919 (c)

Photograph, India, Hyderabad, Sind Province, 1919.

The 101st Battery served during the 3rd Afghan War (1919) with Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Wapshare's Baluchistan Force that captured the Afghan fortress at Spin Baldak on 27 May 1919. The use of artillery, initially in short-supply at the start of the campaign, was, alongside British airpower, a crucial factor in the outcome of both the war and the subsequent revolt in Waziristan. With a crew of ten men, this gun could fire 18-pound shrapnel, high explosive or smoke shells up to six kilometres (over 6,500 yards).

From an album of 137 photographs, relating to the 101st Battery, Royal Field Artillery in India 1917-1919.