Description
Object description
Unedited and uncensored newsreel rushes showing a delegation of senior British and Egyptian politicians and military commanders led by Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs in Neville Chamberlain's wartime government, greeting the first shipload of Australian troops to arrive in the Middle East following the outbreak of the Second World War.
Full description
A view down a ship's gangway as Anthony Eden, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, steps onto it (from the motor launch «Cicogne») watched by two ship's officers from the motor launch and then scales the gangway to board the troopship «SS Otranto», an ex-P & O passenger liner anchored in Crocodile Lake at Ismailiya on the Suez Canal; behind him is Sir Miles Lampson, the British ambassador in Egypt, General Sir Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East and a senior Egyptian government official, Mahmoud Bey Azmi, the governor of the Suez Canal Zone. Azmi is wearing a fez. Hundreds of Australian troops belong to the 2nd Australian Imperial Force are seen crowding the ship's deck at the stern as Eden, Wavell, Lampson and Azmi make an appearance at the aft end of the promenade deck. Lampson is seen reading out a message to the Australians from HM King George VI, followed by a speech from Eden, to whom the cameraman devotes the most attention, Wavell (very brief) and Brigadier A S Allen, the diminutive commander of the Australian 16th Brigade. The soldiers packing the stern deck and the poop deck applaud their Brigadier and give him three cheers. Eden is seen talking to making his way around the deck talking to individual Australian soldiers in company with Wavell, Azmi, Allen and several other Army and Royal Air Force officers. Eden pauses at the top of the gangway to exchange words with an Australian Army Major before heading down below, followed by Wavell who stops to allow the two officers from the motor launch to go ahead of him.
Physical description
35mm