Operations by RAF De Havilland Mosquito aircraft at Joari airfield, east of Cox's Bazaar, India, and paratroopers descending on Rangoon, Burma.

An RAF De Havilland Mosquito Mk VI fighter-bomber, HR622, being serviced. Two fitters work on one of the aircraft's engines. Two armourers service a gun supported on two oil drums. Mosquito VI QB:S of RAF 45 Squadron takes off followed by QB:T. A Mosquito's engines revving up. Mosquito VI HR540 'B' taxis from dispersal. Mosquitos take off; UX:B of RAF 82 Squadron passes two local Indian men working the ground next to the runway. Mosquitos taking off and landing. A Mosquito in flight overhead. Seated airmen being briefed from a blackboard; they get up and disperse. Aerial footage; three Douglas Dakota transport aircraft in formation. Parachutes drop from the Dakotas. Footage looking back over the tailplane of an aircraft (probably a Bristol Beaufighter) as a bomb bursts on a coastal position. Beaufighters in formation.

Notes

The shooting date, taken together with the presence of RAF 45 Squadron and RAF 82 Squadron, strongly suggest that the location is Joari airfield, east of Cox's Bazaar, India (now Bangladesh).

The parachutes seen are described as supplies on the Air Ministry's shotsheet, but given the Dakotas' altitude and close formation, and the speed with which each parachute follows the next, it seems more likely that these are paratroopers being deployed. If so, they are a Gurkha paratroop battalion of 50th Indian Parachute Brigade, landing on plains near Bassein south-west of Rangoon, Burma.

On 2 May 1945 the cameraman of this piece, Flight Lieutenant Sidney Woodcock was airborne off Rangoon with his pilot, Flight Lieutenant John Buchanan, in Mosquito HR446 'Z' of RAF 110 Squadron (also based at Joari at this point). They failed to return and are buried in adjacent plots in Rangoon War Cemetery.