Description
Object description
Incomplete edition of US-produced wartime newsreel, showing potato planting in Italy and the bombing of Rabaul in New Britain, New Guinea.
Content description
Part 1: Interior; at a wood-burning kitchen stove a woman wearing a heavy greatcoat tips 'Phenix Green Pea Soup Mix' into a cooking pot from a cardboard box. Close shot stirring the pot. Around the dinner table two parents (?) and their five children. Soup is dished up. Close shot hands grasping slices of bread, which appears plentiful. Close-up; a young girl, perhaps five years old, eats happily. Close-up; the father eating bread, followed by close-up of the mother with pan to elder daughter. Father pouring wine (apparently drunk by all) from a straw-wrapped 'fiasco' bottle; everyone round the table eats vigorously. More hands taking bread. Another close-up of the little girl. Wider shot whole table. Father eating and smiling at the camera. Elder daughter smiles for the camera. Little girl smiles. Exterior; on a narrow street a one-horse cart is loaded with sacks. Sacks put onto a cart; a local policeman (?) watches. An enormous-wheeled cart, pulled by three horses and laden to a huge height with sacks, emerges from a warehouse (?); a sign reads Depot 685. More footage of carts in the street; a nun passes. A bullock cart carrying sacks is unloaded. Two British Army (?) majors open a sack marked 'Royal Kidney Seed' and show seed potatoes to two local civilians (farm owners?). Closer shot; British major speaking to a civilian man via a US Army interpreter. A sack is carried to where a number of women are hoeing the earth and planting the seed potatoes.
Content description
Part 2: Map, showing New Ireland, Solomon Islands, New Britain, Rapopo, Cape Gloucester and Rabaul; an animated arrow points from Rapopo to Rabaul. Aerial footage of a B-24 Liberator dropping bombs. Aerial footage of an airstrip (probably Tobera, East New Britain) under bombardment. Formation of Liberators. Liberator dropping bombs. Looking at the airstrip with explosions and anti-aircraft fire. Closer shot; Liberator bombing. Bombs falling and exploding below; some explode on water and make perfectly circular ripples. More aerial footage of Liberators; bombs explode on a coastal city.
Physical description
35mm