ADMIRAL STARK VISITS OMAHA BEACH AND MULBERRY A [Allocated Title]

Admiral Harold R Stark, Twelth US Fleet commander and head of all US naval forces assigned to Operation Overlord, inspects Omaha and Utah Beaches in Normandy shortly after D-Day.

START 00:00:00 Admiral Stark's party looks out from the cliffs at Vierville over the crowded anchorage off Omaha Beach. A bulldozer 'Rammer' passes camera. MSs of the Admiral's party, and US infantrymen wading ashore from LCAs. MCU as an amphibious jeep approaches the beach. Camera craft pulls away from the beach - LCA 130 lies astern. MCU track from port bow to stern of the destroyer HMS Scorpion riding at anchor. Admiral Stark and companions board the destroyer. MCU of crew holding up ship's name plate for the camera. Camera craft at speed - MS of US Elco 80 foot patrol boat holding station on the starboard quarter - a British hospital ship in the background.

00:02:29 A Dodge ambulance emerges from the shallows onto Utah Beach. Admiral Stark stands in a Dodge command car on Utah Beach talking with a colonel of the US Rangers (2nd Rangers ?), while US troops pass in the foreground. German POWs fill sandbags in a beach compound. Stark's command car passes a crashed P.47B-D. Stark and the Rangers colonel continue talking before a parked DUKW. MS of US medical orderlies relaxing on Utah Beach around a mobile crane.

00:03:10 Scenes at Mulberry A artificial harbour off Omaha Beach. MS of a DUKW alongside on the port quarter of a small freighter in the anchorage. LS to the caisson line. CU of Rear-Admiral Kirk. MLSs of MTL, with Spud pierhead sections and a US Army tug in the background, and lengths of Whale roadway and caissons. Camera vessel carries Stark and party along the line of blockships - small craft alongside include LCM(3)s, LCP(R)s, LCI(L) 86, MLs, Rhino barges, etc. LCP(L) passes by on an opposite course. LS to Omaha beach and unloading LCTs - LCT(5) 2487 and a LBO(Petrol) lie in the foreground.

00:05:12 MS off the port beam of the US heavy cruiser USS Augusta. LA.MS of Admiral Stark's flag. Camera craft comes alongside the warship, and Admiral Stark goes up scramble netting to be greeted by Captain Foskett (?). Admiral Kirk follows. Crew (including Afro-American ratings) watch from upper deck.

00:06:16 Admiral Stark inspects sections of concrete beach defences on Omaha Beach converted into beach group HQ. Stark and party look over the anchorage.

00:07:21 Stark and party go down the side of the USS Augusta into camera craft. CUs of Stark, Kirk, and Brigadier-General Royce (?). MS of a group of merchantmen, and pan left over LCM(3) to trawler. Final LS of Omaha Beach (Fox Green Beach), and LCTs and heavy supply barges.

END 00:07:21

35mm