LOCAL LABOURERS AND TACTICAL EXERCISE BY ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS IN NORTHERN BURMA (10/10/1944)

This film is held by the Imperial War Museum (ID: JFU 182).

Synopsis

A line of Burmese labourers queue up to receive their payment of money (1 rupee, about 1 shilling sixpence at contemporary rates), salt, tea, bully beef and biscuits. A British man in a bush hat with 36th Division insignia (two overlapping rings) pays a labourer.

Tactical exercise. A mortar team of 2nd Battalion, Royal Welch Fusiliers, operate an Ordnance ML 3-inch mortar. The sights are adjusted. A man speaks on a field telephone. A man standing in a trench fires two rounds from a PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank). Good view looking over the man's shoulder; the PIAT is fired and an explosion can be seen on a target perhaps a hundred metres away. A soldier fires an Ordnance SBML 2-inch mortar almost horizontally. Soldiers, concealed in long grass, wait as a white smokescreen spreads across a field in front of them. Infantrymen rise out of long grass and advance across the field. Men advancing with a broad smokescreen in front of them. Footage from a banana grove with a number of small bashas or shelters; a Bren gunner enters shot, kneels and fires a burst. A soldier with a Thompson submachine gun ('Tommy gun') fitted with Cutts compensator at the muzzle does likewise before advancing. Second shot; Tommy gunner enters shot, kneels and fires a burst. A very brief, but well focused and identifiable, shot of a section of infantry posing for the camera.

Local civilian labourers are paid with money and food after a day's work with 29th Brigade (36th Division) near Ywathit in the Mogaung Valley, Northern Burma, while the Royal Welch Fusiliers hold a tactical exercise in no man's land.

Notes

Dopesheet remarks that a secondary purpose of the tactical exercise was to use up ammunition that had been supplied before an operation that was later cancelled. While the material is obviously not 'action' footage (not least because of the careful direction and the fact the mortar team is seen wearing full service marching order) it still provides some useful footage (particularly of the PIAT) of a variety of small-unit infantry weapons.

At this point 36th Division (commanded by Major-General F W Festing) was part of Northern Combat Area Command (NCAC) under the American Lieutenant-General Daniel Sultan. NCAC was a multi-national force comprising American and Chinese troops in addition to 36th British Division.

 

Titles

  • LOCAL LABOURERS AND TACTICAL EXERCISE BY ROYAL WELCH FUSILIERS IN NORTHERN BURMA (10/10/1944) (Allocated)
Series Title:
BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
 

Technical Data

Year:
1944
Running Time:
3 minutes
Film Gauge (Format):
35mm
Colour:
B&W
Sound:
Silent
Footage:
198 ft
 

Production Credits

Production Countries:
GB
Sponsor
War Office Directorate of Public Relations
cameraman.
Park, Roland (Sergeant)
Production company
SEAC Film Unit
 

Countries

 

Production Organisations