1. TOMMIES ARRIVE IN FRANCE. II. CONSTRUCTION OF BASE DEPOT III. PETROL STORAGE DUMPS IN FRANCE [Allocated Title]

Unedited and uncensored newsreel rushes showing British troops engaged on railway construction work at an engineers' base depot at Rennes, the arrival of British reinforcements by ship at the port of St Nazaire and the stockpiling of petrol, oil and lubricants (POL) in a wood.

I. A brief glimpse of lorries, trucks and staff cars parked in the main square of a French town (possibly Rennes); a few British drivers (?) chat to two French women in the foreground. Scenes showing the construction of new railway lines at a Royal Engineers base depot at Rennes, Brittany: British soldiers wearing waterproof capes and greatcoats help extricate a Bedford lorry out of a patch of mud by using muscle power and crushed brick to give its back wheels traction. Most of the men seen here are wearing tam o'shanters and belong to a Scottish unit. Soldiers (Pioneer Corps or Royal Engineers ?) stack lengths of steel with an L-shaped cross-section on the ground. The camera focuses on the boots of one soldier as he walks across the muddy ground surface at the depot; in the background is a half-completed warehouse shed made out of prefabricated units. Army pioneers are seen using spades and pick axes to excavate a large trench, sufficiently deep and wide to fit a railway line, with their gas masks on. Some of them are wearing the new British Army battledress, others are still in the 1924-pattern service dress. Soldiers on railway construction duty shovel loose soil onto the railway track and pack it under the railway sleepers to give them support. Men serving with the Scottish unit transfer long and heavy lengths of rail from low railway wagons and stack them in a neat pile alongside the railway line. Men in pairs also carry heavy timber railway sleepers from a line of railway box cars and stack them nearby. A team of Scottish soldiers-turned-railway construction workers is seen lifting a section of rail as a new line in the depot is gradually extended.

II. At the port of St Nazaire, British troops wearing steel helmets, gas mask satchels and greatcoats are seen crowding the aft deck of a ferry normally used on the Liverpool-Belfast route (either MV Ulster Monarch or MV Ulster Prince) and now requisitioned for service as a troopship. French civilians and soldiers on a promenade overlooking the harbour wave to the foreign troops on the ship and the soldiers wave back at them and at the camera. Two French soldiers and a woman wearing a fur jacket with a leopard skin pattern (standing next to another woman) wave at the British soldiers. A hand-held shot behind a line of British soldiers in full service marching order as they walk down a gangway between the ship and the harbour quay. Once inside a warehouse shed, the men put their backpacks, steel helmets and SMLE Mk III rifles on the floor and line up to receive hot tea poured into their mess tins. A tracking shot past the men inside the shed during their tea break; they look up and stare at the camera as it passes them. More soldiers disembark via a steeply-angled gangway from the troopship. Men inside the warehouse shed use old wine casks to sit on; their backpacks, rifles and helmets are on the floor nearby.

III. A tug tows an Irish Sea ferry with two short funnels (either MV Ulster Monarch or MV Ulster Prince) into one of St Nazaire's harbour basins (Bassin de St Nazaire ?), filmed from the quayside and through the entrance to a warehouse shed. British soldiers line the railings on the ship's boat deck and the stern decks as she approaches the quay; one of the ship's officers is seen checking the distance between the vessel and the quayside from the aft bridge position on the poop deck. Four men - one holding a puppy - cram their heads through two square scuttles and stare at the camera. British soldiers and a French docker drag a wooden gangway across the gap between the ship and the quay. The first soldiers to disembark step ashore past a reception committee of fellow Britons who greet them with waves and cheers.

IV. Backpacks, steel helmets and rifles are left on the floor of the warehouse shed on the quayside as their owners drink hot tea in their mess tins. A long column of British soldiers, mainly Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) personnel, marches in ranks of three from the docks of St Nazaire through the town over traditional French cobbled road surfaces; the cameraman uses walking shots as well as static ones to illustrate their procession. A French woman waves to the soldiers from a first floor window above a café as they march past. The soldiers arrive at the entrance to a shed and form up inside. As they march towards the main railway station (?) in bright sunlight, the column of marching men creates shadows on the ground. Several 'poilus' (the nickname given to ordinary French soldiers) greet 'the Tommies' and shake them by the hand as they march past.

V. British (RASC ?) personnel on duty at the entrance to the Chateau de Blain roughly thirty miles north east of St Nazaire in Brittany check the papers of the driver of Albion and Bedford lorries as they arrive with working parties and petrol, oil and lubricants (POL). Two armed sentries keep guard on the main road running through a POL dump in a wood at Blain. Large tin containers of petrol are seen stacked underneath the trees along the road leading through the wood. Two Bedford lorries motor past the POL dump. POL containers are unloaded off the back of a Bedford lorry by RASC men (?) using a roller ramp and are stacked neatly by the roadside. A view of POL containers stacked high beneath the trees. Outside the guardhouse at the entrance to the POL dump at Blain, the non-commissioned officer in charge of the watch stops an officer who wishes to enter the site and gets him to hand over in his tobacco pipe and his box of matches. A sign in English and French banning smoking in the vicinity stands at the entrance to the POL dump. An ordinary soldier puts out his cigarette and stubs it out on the ground as he passes the guardhouse.

35mm