Description
Object description
Unedited and uncensored newsreel footage showing the work done by troops serving with the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (AMPC) in base depots established by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in Brittany.
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Part I. Under the supervision of their non-commissioned officers, members of the AMPC are seen assembling the inner and outer skins of a Nissen hut with prefabricated sections of corrugated iron and attaching wooden panels for the windows and the front door to the end of the structure nearest the camera. It is a cold winter's day and all the Pioneers seen here have been issued with the new British Army Battledress. The location is probably just outside Rennes.
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Part II. Pioneers, wearing greatcoats, balaclavas and gloves against the cold, drag heavy steel ammunition crates from open railway waggons at a railhead somewhere in Brittany and load them onto four 3-ton lorries backed up to the railway. In a wood nearby, Pioneers stack the steel ammunition crates in a tall pile; the stencilling on the sides of the crates suggests that they contain high explosives. The Pioneers seen here have been issued with the old 1924-pattern service uniform.
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Part III. Pioneers march in a compact body along a harbour quay at either Nantes or St Nazaire. Nearby, there are railway flatcars with Bedford OY 3-ton lorries on them and on the quay in the background a Bedford MW 15-cwt truck. Scout carriers (commonly known as Bren gun carriers) are among the vehicles unloaded onto the quayside from the cargo freighter visible in the background. One of the carriers carries both the Army's pre-war vehicle number plates (RMY 12) and the War Office's new tracked vehicle registration number (T4658).
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Part IV. Pioneers are seen shovelling sand from a line of hopper trucks on a site where a railway marshalling yard is being established to handle the movement of supplies for the BEF. A gang of labourers digs a drainage ditch alongside the railway whilst the rest are seen trying to straighten out rails that have been twisted out of shape by the recent wintry weather (?). Pioneers push a hand rail cart towards the camera, use pickaxes and spades to hack a drainage ditch in the soggy and heavy clay and drain a shallow ditch full of rain water.
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Part V. Pioneers take a short ride on hopper trucks as an old ex-Great Western Railway 0-6-0 steam locomotive requisitioned by the War Office pushes them along a section of railway track under construction. When the train has stopped, men on top of the hopper trucks and on the ground below shovel piles of sand onto the ground next to the railway. The Pioneers' commanding officer (?), wearing a light coloured gabardine coat, can be seen keeping his eye on the men as they work at various points in this film. The men seen here are wearing a mix of of 1924-service dress and the new Battledress.
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Part VI. In ranks of three, a company of Army Pioneers marches up and down a stretch of sandy beach on the Loire Estuary whilst wearing their gas masks. All the soldiers seen here are wearing Battledress. They are backlit by the morning sun. An oil tanker and a sailing yacht can be seen out in the bay.
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Part VII. The company of Pioneers is seen marching down a slipway from the seaside promenade. They pause to open up the gas mask satchels each man is wearing on his chest and don their gas respirators. The route they take on the beach avoids a large stone and concrete groyne.
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Part VIII. Cutaway shots filmed at a low angle and in medium close-up of the Pioneers coming to a halt as they march down the slipway towards the beach, extract their gas masks from the satchels worn on their chests, put them on and put their army caps back on afterwards. More shots of the men backlit by the sun as they march along the beach, with the sea sparkling in the sunlight in the background. The end shot consists of the men marching past the camera on either side.
Physical description
35mm