Description
Object description
Film illustrating a variety of activities of the Royal Australian Air Force in India including bomber and supply operations, medical evacuation, and a rehearsal by an Indian marching band.
Full description
Reel 1: Men playing cricket; they are all wearing cricket whites. An Indian marching band performing. Various close-ups on different musicians playing trumpets, saxophones, clarinets, euphoniums, drums of various sizes, etc. Local people doing laundry by a river. A goods train passes over a girder bridge in the background. More footage of the band; as there is no sign of an audience or other troops on parade, this performance may be only a rehearsal. Aerial footage, probably taken from an RAF Consolidated Liberator heavy bomber; a pall of smoke rises from a small settlement. View of a river with a broken bridge. A road and railway line. Australian officers get into a jeep. Aerial footage; clouds of smoke rise from the impacts of several sticks of bombs. A Douglas Dakota taxiing for take-off on a dusty airstrip. An RAF Beechcraft Expediter liaison aircraft, KJ478, taxiing with a North American B-25 Mitchell medium bomber of the US Army Air Force (USAAF) parked in the background. A long building with a veranda; its roof appears damaged and a small sign reads 'Post Office'. A number of men get out of a jeep and go into the house. A white man sits in a bath and an Indian servant pours water over him. A USAAF P-51D Mustang taxiing; this aircraft probably an F-6D photo-reconnaissance variant, likely of 20th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron, 8th Photographic Reconnaissance Group, 10th Air Force. A Spitfire taxiing with an Expediter behind. A man washes a small Dachshund puppy in a basin of water. Local people at a street bazaar.
Full description
Reel 2: Air-to-air footage of a Liberator in flight. Airborne interior; a member of the Liberator's crew in full flying kit reclines in the cabin. A brick building marked 'Flying Control - Elevation 180ft'. A small hut. Local Indian women carefully pile bricks on their heads. Local Indian bricklayers at work. Local people unload rocks from the back of a lorry. A blackboard with a variety of (meteorological?) data on it. An airman speaking on a tannoy chalks more information on the board. Aerial footage. Liberators in flight. Bombs exploding on a target in a wooded area. The target itself is not apparent. Dakota taking off. A lorry reverses towards a Dakota. Sacks of rice are loaded onto the aircraft. Indian civilians on stretchers, apparently women and children, are put aboard a Dakota from an ambulance. One of the stretcher cases, a woman in some distress, is seen clasping her head with both hands. Aircraft interior; the patients are on the floor of the cargo cabin and are tended to. A small child, sitting up on a stretcher, is put into a waiting ambulance marked with a red cross. Air-to-air; a Dakota drops parachute supply bundles at low altitude over a paddy field. A grinning airman chalks 'Eastern National Omnibus Co.' and 'Sorry, no conductress, ladies scarce' on the side of the cab of a lorry. Three men board the 'bus' and it drives away. Close-up of a sign marked 'B Flight' above the badge of RAF 194 Squadron (a winged elephant superimposed on a map of India) and below the nickname 'The Friendly Firm'. Three officers talking; one of them appears to be an Asian man in the uniform of an RAF flying officer. A US Navy Consolidated PBY Catalina flying boat taxis past camera. An RAF Vickers Warwick, possibly the unarmed C Mk III transport variant, taxiing. Republic Thunderbolt fighters on a pierced steel plank (PSP) dispersal. Men queuing for food from an open-air cookhouse. A man operates a machine apparently for carbonating water. Tent interior; men innoculated. A man with a small pet monkey. Airmen standing by Dakota KK124. Indian Sikh soldiers unloading a number of small drums from Dakota FZ616. Aerial footage; a runway on a broad plain with parked Dakotas and transport gliders scattered about. Rather grainy footage of a Liberator taking off past camera.
Full description
Reel 3: Aerial view of coastal terrain. An undercarriage leg lowers for landing. On the ground an airman paints a victory silhouette onto the nose of a Liberator named 'Lucifer'. Interior briefing room; an officer points out various locations on a map of Burma. Aircrew discussing the upcoming sortie. Shot of a piece of paper marked 'Take your'; an unseen person throws down a kukri and then a dagger or fighting knife, which stands upright on its point. A humorous cartoon showing an elephant labelled 'Not to be taken into the air' advises aircrew to empty their pockets before flying. Liberators landing, taking off and taxiing. Casualties loaded onto a Dakota. A Bristol Beaufighter with tarpaulins over its canopy and engines. Indian personnel bagging supplies, including petrol tins, for delivery by parachute. Men packing parachutes. Bundles of wire unloaded from a plane to a lorry. A crane removes an engine from a Dakota.
Physical description
35mm