Description
Object description
Confused series of generally short sequences or single shots covering various aspects of Operation Musketeer and the subsequent British occupation of Port Said.
Full description
Reel One. (i) Port Said street scenes - a street sweeper at work, a horse-drawn taxi, Egyptians queuing. (ii) Soldiers in fox holes dug by a waterway - some washing has been strung on an improvised line. Some look about with binoculars. (iii) Sequence in a hospital ward filled with Egyptian casualties. The nurses are nuns. One man speaks with his doctor. (iv) Aerial shot passing over salvage vessels at work on the group of three floating cranes sunk in the outer entrance to the Canal. (v) British soldiers sort through stockpiled captured weapons. Ammunition boxes are put into the back of a lorry. Among the booty are two 6-pounder AT guns. (vi) CU of two small boys squatting by a wall - they smile at the cameraman. Water is being distributed from a horse-drawn tanker, and people queue holding jerrycans and other containers. More are arriving on bicycles and carts. Some wave to the camera. (vii) Very brief aerial shot of a desert road lined with foxholes. LS along a street in Port Said. LS as a Bristol Sycamore alights in open ground in Port Said - soldiers have dug in around the area. (viii) HA to a LCM alongside in the harbour, operating clearance divers. (ix) CU of an Egyptian worker in a generating station - he is accompanied by a soldier, who is taking down notes. This presumably relates to the British attempt to restore electrical power in the city. Soldiers look on as a team of Egyptian workers dig - repairing a water main (?). (x) A group of soldiers emerge from a damaged building - possibly the Coast Guard station. (xi) Stationary line of horse-drawn water tankers - probably waiting to be topped-up. A lorry serving as a Red Crescent ambulance pulls up and casualties walk or are carried out. Soldiers guard a group of prisoners waiting for medical attention. British troops remove stretcher cases and other casualties to a hospital train for evacuation. (xii) Egyptians stand about in the ruins of the shanty town area - one man cradles a retrieved (or perhaps newly looted) possession. Paratroops restrain a crowd of locals - one of the guards has a small kitten crouching at his feet. (xiii) Soldiers examine a captured SU 100 brought up to cover 3 Para HQ in Port Said. (xiv) Harbour scene - in the foreground is a launch flying the French ensign. Soldiers search (examine ? stand about ?) a house. A local boy buys some sweets from a vendor. Horse-drawn taxies in the street. (xv) Harbour scenes - a British LCT(9), the Georges Leygues, a hospital ship (La Marseillaise ?), and three Ton Class minesweepers feature in various shots. Onboard a landing craft, a woman spoon-feeds a small girl from a tin. LS past fluttering RFA ensign to the troopship Empire Parkeston. LS of HMS Tyne at moorings. LS from cameraship to vessels astern - a destroyer and a French (ex-US) destroyer escort. Intercut are two brief shots - one from a moving vehicle as it passes a burnt-out Egyptian lorry and local pedestrians, and one of a horse-drawn wagon in the city. (xvi) A donkey enjoys a well-earned meal - he is pulling a cart piled high with possessions, two small girls sitting on top of the heap. Egyptians move about the still smouldering ruins of the shanty town area. Water sprays from a burst pipe. A old woman sits disconsolate among the ruins. (xvii) French troops pass carrying kit. A man examines a Czechoslovakian 32-barrelled 130mm rocket launcher mounted on a Praga V3S truck - used against the British at El Gamil, it was knocked out by a RN air strike. British troops sit in foxholes. LS from assault fleet offshore to distant oil fires at the beginning of the Allied attack on Port Said. Egyptians crouch in the street over an open crate - a street vendor? Royal Marines assemble a captured Czechoslovakian 82mm Tarasnice anti-tank grenade launcher - in the foreground lie two unassembled Belgian RL-83 Blindicide rocket launchers, also captured from the Egyptians. A British officer tries to pet a cringing local dog. LS over paratrooper's stockpiled supplies on El Gamil airfield to the distant sewage farm tower and Port Said on the horizon. (xviii) French paratroops sit by their transport. British troops on the march. HA from a troopship to a launch alongside as soldiers manhandle baggage up the accommodation ladder. (xix) Sequence shot in one of the Hastings transports carrying paratroops for the assault on El Gamil airfield. Paratroopers sit along either side of the cabin. MS of a companion aircraft. The men stand up as the drop approaches. Despatcher opens door panel. (See AMY 623) (xx) CUs from a smallcraft as it passes close to the dredgers Peluse and Pollux. MS to the stern of Peluse. The twin funnels of the hopper Neptune break the surface - in the background are Canal Company buildings. MS of capsized 80-ton floating crane - Peluse in the background. Two Hartlepool lifting craft, LC.10 and LC.11, a third salvage vessel and a tug move one of the Canal wrecks. (xxi) LSs from a boat to an oil fire onshore, and to burnt-out warehouses.
Physical description
35mm