OPERATION IN CENTRAL BURMA: CAPTURE OF GANGAW [Allocated Title]

After a pulverising aerial bombardment, the Lushai Brigade occupies the village of Gangaw in Burma, while casualties are evacuated by air.

[10:19:58:17] A flight of friendly fighter aircraft passing. Taken with a telephoto lens, Hawker Hurricanes attacking a target beyond some trees; bombs can be seen falling from one of the aircraft. Troops of the Lushai Brigade advancing over open ground. Attempts to pan with attacking aircraft; most of these shots are unsuccessful. Troops advancing. Troops moving through a treeline. Troops crossing broken ground; they break into a run. Troops advancing through trees. Troops entering a village; the air is full of smoke or dust. Long shot showing smoke spreading through trees in the distance. Views of a thick pall of smoke. More shots of aircraft. Troops hurrying forwards. Mules go forward. Three (Gurkha?) soldiers share cigarettes. More troops moving up. Mules going forward (with Chin or Lushai muleteers?). British signallers laying telephone cable from a drum; another man pushes the cable into bushes. More troops go forward. A team of stretcher bearers carry a casualty to a dressing station or aid post. British troops moving through and looking around a pagoda complex; they carry their weapons slung and do not wear webbing, so this patrol is probably not expecting opposition. Two British soldiers looking at small statues; the first (apparently inadvertently) pulls a hand off a statue and tries to stick it back on. Closer shot; the other soldier hands the first another small statute, and in taking it from him the first soldier (apparently talking to the damaged statue) drops the statue's hand again with a look of horror. Troops walking across open ground which is strewn with domestic litter. Soldiers looking through wreckage. More of thick smoke spreading. On an airstrip a Stinson L-5 Sentinel light aircraft of the US Army Air Forces' 1st Air Commando (denoted by diagonal white lines of fuselage) takes off to evacuate a casualty. More Sentinels take off. An RAF Sentinel (RAF 194 Squadron?) passes at low altitude. A static shot, looking towards thick undergrowth and a treeline; something explodes and dust of smoke drifts away. In trees; thick clouds of dust billow. Dust amongst trees. A Sentinel lands on the airstrip, followed by another that slews around and parks close to camera. An Indian casualty is put aboard the aircraft. A jeep followed by a lorry negotiate a steep, narrow, twisted and rutted road. Views of a British 25-pounder field battery in action. British signallers with rolls of cable board a local boat in order to lay cable across the Myittha River. Close-up cable drum. Boat pushes off. Two laughing British signallers, one smoking and holding a telephone. Laying the cable, as seen from the riverbank. Signallers bring the cable ashore, with a tilt down to boots walking on the muddy riverbank. [10:30:47:07]

35mm