FIGHTING IN THE ARAKAN [Allocated Title]

An undated silent edited film showing combat operations in Burma, including medium and dive bombing, tanks, mountain guns and infantry, the capture of a Japanese prisoner, and the bringing in of the wounded, possibly during the Second Arakan Campaign in early 1944.

Panning shot, right-to-left, from a hillside; below is rolling jungle (and a river or fields?). Concealed in tall grass a British officer with his back to camera looks out with binoculars. A British officer points skyward. A formation of United States Army Air Forces B-25 medium bombers passes overhead. Camera follows a diving fighter-bomber as it flies towards a ridge, which is covered in smoke. British officer with binoculars; in the background some open ground, and a ridge in smoke. Aerial shot of three B-25s, flying left-to-right, with bombs dropping from their bomb bays. More footage of fighter-bombers attacking the ridge. A wide shot with troops looking to a distant ridge with smoke rising beyond it (a different location?). Another shot of the original ridge with smoke. A 3.7-inch Mountain Howitzer, beneath a camouflage net, fires. Brief shot, close-up, of a gun commander shouting 'fire'. More shots of the smoking ridge, of the howitzer firing and being reloaded. Wide, high shot of open ground with a number of smoke shells burning; a smoke screen spreads. Reloading again. Ground level wide shot with four Lee medium tanks (of 25th Dragoons?); one fires its main gun. High wide shot showing the tanks manoeuvring on the open ground. In a wooded position a Vickers medium machine gun is fired. Close-up of the gunner, a British soldier with a pipe in his mouth. More angles of the Vickers gun. Wide shot; tanks firing. Looking down on a Bren gun team in a slit trench; a soldier with a Thompson submachine gun crawls forward with close-up. The camera rises above some undergrowth to look at a soldier apparently rapidly firing his rifle (but which doesn't appear to be recoiling). A wide shot; a smoke shell (?) emits thick smoke in front of a treeline in the background as three men run away from it. A slightly unclear shot; a jeep and trailer, is driven towards camera but is largely obscured by vegetation. British soldiers amongst the wreckage of a wooden building. A British soldier in a woolly hat and armed with a revolver at the entrance to a bunker. A British soldier apparently searching some bamboo. A Japanese (?) soldier is hauled out of the bunker by a number of British soldiers and the man with the revolver emerges after him. Japanese soldier on a stretcher. A stretcher is carried away. At the bunker, a number of British soldiers examine bits of Japanese equipment (helmet, bayonet, water bottle). One shows some Japanese collar insignia (two small stars of a Private 1st Class) to the camera. A British soldier retrieves a small piece of paper, but the inscription is not legible. Three British soldiers with a captured inscribed Japanese flag. An Indian soldier is helped onto a stretcher. Some walking wounded Indian troops are helped along. A corpse (?) is carried past on a stretcher; rigor mortis has apparently set in and one arm is stretched out. Another casualty on a stretcher is carried past. A river; a pair of mules are led down towards a small boat, where they are unloaded and sacks are put onto small wooden boats. Close-up hand-painted warning sign with a skull and crossbones and the message 'Duck your head over the next hill – Sig. Tojo'; pan down to another sign reading 'Dorothy Lamour Three Jungles Up – Gunners watch out for Tarzan believed taking aerial photos'.

35mm