Description
Object description
After the headquarters of 7th Indian Division is surrounded by the enemy, tanks and infantry fight to break the encirclement and a number of enemy prisoners are taken.
Full description
On a road in the Arakan a signpost reads 'Adm[in] Base HQ' and is decorated with the 'Golden Arrow' insignia of 7th Indian Division. A jeep is parked left foreground and a Lee-Grant medium tank of 25th Dragoons and a horse and rider can be seen in the midground. A number of mules are led across shot. General scene with men, tanks and jeeps; it is raining heavily. A file of heavily laden men pass a parked tank. An officer of a Scottish regiment talks to a British soldier. Parked vehicles and men in the rain. Tank crewmen, probably of 25th Dragoons, mount up. View from a moving vehicle, probably a Valentine bridgelayer, of tanks on a hillside road; possibly the Ngakyedauk Pass. View from a Universal carrier. A tank approaches camera. Footage apparently taken from inside the tank looking forward through the open driver's hatch. Looking along a road infantrymen climb the hillside. View across the valley. Indian soldiers line a low crest on the hillside; two soldiers (one with a rifle and another with a Bren gun) shift positions. A line of troops lying on the hillside; they are well armed and have rifles, at least two Bren light machine guns and one soldier has a grenade discharger fitted to his rifle. An Indian (officer?) with another gestures across the valley. Cloud drifting across the valley. A stationary tank. Another line of soldiers lying prone on a crest with a tank on the road below. Two tanks. A Lee, framing the left edge of shot, fires its main gun across the valley. Unnamed senior officers (including General Briggs?) in conference. Tank (?) interior; Briggs speaking on a wireless set. Various angles of tanks firing on Japanese positions. Smoke on opposite ridge. Indian (probably Sikh) infantry lying in scrub; a (probably non-commissioned) officer waves them forward and they advance uphill away from camera. Alternating footage of a Bren gunner and tanks firing. A tank fires followed by brief shot showing impact. Man on top of tank observes the fall of shot. Infantry crawling up hillside; one throws a hand grenade over the crest. Another shot of a Lee. Indian infantry seen before advance over the top of the hill. Troops come down a bank towards a shallow stream, apparently being led by Burmese civilians. Around a bend in the river the patrol encounters a lone and wounded Japanese soldier, his uniform in tatters, who surrenders to them. A stretcher is improvised from a blanket and some lengths of bamboo. A British officer dresses one of the Japanese soldier's wounds. The Japanese soldier drinks from a folded leaf. He is helped onto the stretcher. Panning views of a wrecked Main Dressing Station where a Japanese atrocity was committed against British and Indian patients and medical staff. Corpses (probably Japanese) lie scattered about. A British officer points out what looks like a large bloodstain on a stretcher lying amongst the wreckage. Grave markers nearby. Three Japanese prisoners are brought in under guard. A fourth prisoner is escorted in; he has a distinctive patch on the side of his soft peaked cap but it is not clear what it is. The prisoners are seen sitting in the shade of a tent behind barbed wire and talking to a British officer. The fourth prisoner seen earlier smokes a cigarette. The wounded prisoner on the improvised stretcher is unloaded from a lorry. A Japanese soldier has plaster put on a broken leg. Japanese prisoner on stretcher. The wounded prisoner is carried on a stretcher by two bearers. A medical officer cuts off the dressing on his arm. The wound is cleaned. More footage of a Japanese prisoner's leg being plastered. The fourth prisoner, earlier seen smoking, drinks from an enamel mug. Ambulances pass a parked tank; one is marked with the 'three V' insignia of XV Corps.
Physical description
35mm
