WAR PICTORIAL NEWS NO 209 [Main Title]

An edition of the British official newsreel "War Pictorial News", produced by the Ministry of Information, Middle East.

I. 'IN MEMORY OF PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.' The arrival and departure of dignitaries attending a commemorative service at St Paul's Cathedral. Attending dignitaries include: The Soviet Ambassador and wife; Lord and Lady Wavell; Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary); Winston Spencer Churchill; John Winant (US Ambassador); King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth; Queen Wilhelmina and Princess Juliana of the Netherlands; King Christian of Denmark; King George of the Hellenes; King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav of Norway.

II. 'WITH THE MEDICAL SERVICES.' Brief footage shows the interior of a Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) storeroom. Rubber surgical gloves are manufactured at an undisclosed location. Hand-shaped porcelain formers are dipped into a bath of rubber solution. Female factory workers pack rubber gloves into boxes that carry the legend "Surgeons Operating Gloves." Elsewhere drug ampoules are heat-sealed over a Bunsen burner flame and packed into boxes. Women workers assemble field dressings at work benches and sewing machines. An RAMC member uses a Clark fork lift truck to stack medical supplies in crates. Brief footage shows the interior of an army field operating theatre as a surgeon sprinkles Sulpha powder into the open wound of a prostrate soldier. A Royal Air Force (RAF) Handley Page Harrow transport aircraft is shown on finals and landing. Wounded British soldiers on stretchers are off-loaded from an ambulance and into the hold of a waiting Douglas C-47 Dakota transport aircraft.

III. 'CLEANING UP THE RUHR. Liberated Poles and Yugoslavs stand by a roadside cheering passing Allied soft-skin traffic. Following his capture by elements of the US Ninth Army. Baron Franz von Papen is shown under armed guard sitting with his son and son in law in a garden. Aerial footage shows scenes of devastation at the Krupps steel works at Essen and partially sunk river traffic on the Rhine River at Duisburg. German civilians shovel looted coal into sacks at Osnabrück. At Enschede (Overyssel) in Holland, British Guards Armoured Division M4 Sherman tanks drive past the camera position with two 60-lb rocket projectors on their turret sides (field improvisation). Dutch civilians wave at passing British soft-skinned vehicles.

35mm