Germans with a captured London omnibus, 1914

Photograph, World War One (1914-1918), 1914.

In August 1914, Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, asked the London General Omnibus Company to provide Daimler buses for moving troops in France and Belgium. The company asked for volunteers from among their conductors and drivers. Over 70 crews were chosen and recruited into the Royal Marines. In September 1914, the buses and crews were shipped to France. The Germans captured several of the buses, but the rest remained in France until the end of the war.