Description
Object description
An edition of the British official newsreel "War Pictorial News", produced by the Ministry of Information, Middle East.
Full description
I. 'AUSTRALIA.' An item highlighting the work of Australian factories in their support of the war effort. A male factory worker uses a circular grinding wheel to manufacture optical lenses at an optical factory making rangefinders for anti-aircraft use. A set of highly polished prisms are shown as the commentary describes the science of optics as the cornerstone of modern warfare. A female factory worker calibrates a finished rangefinder mounted on a stand near a window. At another location, Universal carriers are mass produced. Male factory workers use oxy-acetylene torches to weld armoured plate. Universal carrier engines are crane hoisted across the assembly area and lowered into waiting carrier engine bays. Finished Universal carriers drive out of the factory. A vegetable canning factory is visited next, with close ups of the various industrial processes eventually leading to the finished product. Peas are graded and sorted by female factory workers, salt is added to cans and a mechanical device seals the cans shut at the end of the production sequence. Australian troops eat tinned carrots in the field. At an unidentified shipyard in New South Wales construction workers mill around the completed superstructures of two small warships (Bathurst Class fleet minesweepers ?). The ships are launched down a slipway as the commentary states that one of the ships is destined for the United States Navy (USN). The item concludes with footage taken at the 1943 Metropolitan Handicap horse race showing large spectator crowds and views of the very close finish that has been filmed in slow motion.
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II. 'MIDDLE EAST NEWS.' Aerial footage shows a submerged Royal Navy submarine underway at sea. A Royal Navy rating monitors a depth gauge as the submarine surfaces. Fixed camera views from the conning tower shows the submarine surfacing. An unidentified RN submarine is shown cruising on the surface (probably a T-Class). The crew of U-Class submarine Dolfijn of the Royal Netherlands Navy enjoy a leave period, skiing in the snow of the Lebanon Mountains. Supplies are loaded onto U-Class Submarine Dzik (ex Polish Navy). U-Class submarine Dolfijn leaves port at the start of a patrol.
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III. 'BURMA.' A patrol of Universal carriers manned by Assamese troops is halted at a watercourse in Burma, needing a bridge to get their vehicles across. The Assamese troops cut timber using hand axes and machetes and construct a bridge in short order. Once completed, the bridge is capable of bearing the three and a half tons of a Universal carrier. The carriers are driven with care across the bridge to continue their jungle patrol. British troops of the Fourteenth Army fighting on the Arakan front watch the effect of a United States Army Air Force (USAAF) North American B-25 Mitchell bomber raid on Japanese positions at the opposite side of a valley. Aerial footage shows a trio of B-25 Mitchell bombers dropping bombs on unseen targets. British troops fire a captured Japanese mountain gun at unseen enemy positions. British M3 Grant tanks (7th Hussars ?) appear on the valley floor and start to shell Japanese positions on the opposite mountain ridgeline. A British infantryman crawls through jungle scrub armed with a Thompson M1 .45-in sub-machine gun. British infantry advance across the valley floor. A wounded Japanese infantryman is pulled cautiously from his foxhole by British troops. Japanese dead are stretchered to a burial point by Indian troops who still carry their Lee-Enfield .303-in Mk III rifles. The fighting on the valley floor and the subsequent capture of Japanese-held positions is described as being a preliminary engagement which resulted in the resounding Allied victory over the Japanese in the Arakan.
Physical description
35mm