THE FREE FRENCH NAVY [Main Title]

A tribute to the units of the French Navy which remained on the Allied side after the French Defeat.

Film starts with a dramatisation of a supposedly typical incident, a British naval tender picking up a sailing dinghy manned by 2 French escapees anxious to join the Free French Navy; recruits are shown taking oath at the Navy's London centre. Some film of training (including a floating college for under 17 year-olds) followed by film of some of the Free French Navy's ships: De Gaulle visits the Surcouf (world's largest submarine); destroyers (Le Triomphant); chasseurs (one has rendezvous with British submarine); British-built corvettes in convoy escort role; some French merchant vessels; fishermen from Normandy and Brittany work from English harbours; the old battleship Courbet permanently in harbour is manned by veterans and provides AA defences and a bakery. Closes with close-ups and histories of individual seamen: "in men like these we see reawakened the spirit of the people of France."

35mm