IF WAR SHOULD COME [Main Title]

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  • Title: IF WAR SHOULD COME [Main Title]
  • Film Number: COI 849
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: A public information film made in the final weeks of peace in August 1939 containing specific 'do's and don'ts' in the event of war with Nazi Germany, specifically during enemy air raids on major population centres which the British authorities expected would immediately follow the declaration of hostilities.
  • Description: START 00:00:00 Opening titles and credits. Over Elgar's 'Pomp and Circumstance', shots showing people and press reporters and photographers in Downing Street during the build up to war over Hitler's threat to invade Poland in August 1939. Shots showing Britain's preparedness for war and national resolve - army gunners manning a Bofors 40mm L/60 light anti-aircraft cannon, sailors on board a Royal Navy warship closed up around their twin 4-inch dual purpose gun, RAF fighter pilots running towards their Vickers-Supermarine Spitfire Mk I aircraft, crowds waiting outside the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square as two black limousines and a London taxi motor past the camera, a line of Metropolitan Policemen filing out of a police station, firemen in steel helmets and with gas masks slung over their fire jackets running to man fire engines in a London Fire Brigade station, crowds of spectators and heavy traffic on the junction of Westminster Bridge Road and Parliament Square, army gunners manning a rangefinder for anti-aircraft guns and a mechanical gunnery predictor on an anti-aircraft gun site somewhere in London. 00:01:12 A sequence warning people not to spread rumours consisting of a view of BBC Broadcasting House from Upper Regent Street, a newspaper vendor in the street standing next to hoardings advertising the latest headlines for the Anglo-German crisis over Poland for 'The Evening News', 'The Evening Standard' and 'The Star' as a London double decker bus passes by and a scene filmed in front of Admiralty House (?) showing three men in smart office clothes swapping gossip and rumours. Two women in conversation, allegedly spreading more rumours. Scenes showing two men erecting corrugated steel sections for an Anderson Shelter in a square pit they have dug in their back garden, screwing a nut and bolt assembly tight to tie two sections together, and heaping soil to cover the shelter with other members of the family. A sequence urging people not to indulge in panic-buying showing a middle-aged lady wearing a fox stole buying a large amount of tinned food in a grocer's store and getting the male shop assistant to bring her more items off the shelf. Window displays of tinned food in neat piles. A pallet of frozen beef carcasses are unloaded from a freighter in London Docks. Scenes filmed in Smithfield Meat Market, crates of freshly-caught plaice and cod (filmed at Billingsgate), porters at work in the fruit and vegetable market at Covent Garden. An interior shot of crates of food in a refrigerated warehouse. A housewife opens a pantry cupboard to put an emergency supply of tinned food inside before closing the door. Pedestrians including a tall lady with a shopping basket under her arm passing a fruit and vegetable stall in Covent Garden (?). 00:02:55 Shots illustrating basic air raid precautions in the home showing a couple clearing out old belongings left in their attic and putting them into an old suitcase before disposing of them. A man leaves a bucket filled with sand and a spade on a first floor landing next to two other buckets filled with water. A man digs dry soil in his back garden and puts it in a bucket as a substitute for sand. A woman picks up her cardboard gas mask container from a side table and leaves her house by the front door with it in her hand. A woman gets up from her soft chair in her sitting room with a pencil and note book in hand and places them on a table next to a wireless set. A sequence illustrating careless use of the telephone showing a young women idly chatting to her boyfriend over the telephone and popping chocolates into her mouth whilst the operator at the local GPO telephone exchange reports to a caller trying to get through to somebody else on the same party that it is engaged. A sequence about the importance of carrying personal details at all times in which a middle-aged man writes his name and address (A C Brown, 37 Bury Road) on a bit of paper with a pen and his wife stitches a name label (Johnny Brown, 37 Bury Road, Blackheath, SE23) onto a jumper belonging to her son and helps him into it. A sequence about the importance of obeying government restrictions on travel showing a uniformed Southern Region employee chalking a notice on a blackboard on the concourse at Victoria Station (?) advising passengers of cancelled train services and a notice informing the public that the Dunkirk ferry service is cancelled in both directions until further notice. 00:04:26 Wearing name tags and carrying gas masks, bags and small suitcases, children aged from six to ten years who have been selected for evacuation to the countryside set off for a mainline railway station that will take them to their destination. Outside a London Underground station, an official notice informs the public that tube train services are reserved mainly for evacuees on this day. Evacuee children make their way past the ticket barrier inside an Underground station and are seen sitting on the ground inside a mainline railway terminus (possibly Paddington Station) under the supervision of adults. A steam train speeds along the Great Western Railway line past the large gas holder at Hayes, Middlesex. A travelling shot from a fast-moving train as the countryside flashes past. A sequence designed to reassure the anxious parents of children evacuated to the countryside that they will be safe and happy, showing cattle grazing in a meadow outside a village somewhere in the West Country. Evacuee children are seen sitting down to eat a hot main meal. A female volunteer spoon-feeds a little girl sitting on her knee. A young boy eats food from a bowl. A woman teacher holds an outdoor music lesson for evacuee boys and girls (ranging from 6 to 11 years). The female carer seen earlier is seen putting two young girls to bed. The young boy sharing the same bedroom bounces onto the bed and falls off the other side. He climbs back into bed. The two girls in the next bed are seen fast asleep next to their gasmasks on the bedside table. 00:05:51 A sequence illustrating the need to obey Air Raid Precautions (ARP) in anticipation of heavy enemy air raids on British towns and cities showing the wife inside her home placing a blackout screen over a window in the sitting room whilst her husband on the pavement at the front of their home makes sure that there is no light showing. Neon lights at the Leicester Square Odeon Cinema advertising a new British feature film, 'The Spy in Black' starring Conrad Veidt, Sebastian Shaw and Valerie Hobson are switched off. Daylight scenes filmed in Sutton Row between Soho Square and Charing Cross Road show pedestrians going about their business, an ice cream street vendor picking up some trade and two builders filling a sack with sand. As an air raid siren goes off, people stop what they are doing and quickly head indoors. A shot of a rooftop air raid warning siren in operation. A sequence showing people clearing the pavements by dashing into a public air raid shelter with their gas mask containers and a policeman running along a suburban street (Bennett Park, Blackheath) blowing repeatedly on his whistle, prompting the few people out in the open to seek shelter. A uniformed Post Office messenger boy abandons his bicycle on the pavement and disappears into the air raid shelter whose heavy doors are closed behind him, only to be re-opened when a father and his son succeed in attracting the attention of the warden in charge. Over sound effects of bomb explosions and a wailing air raid siren, shots showing the abandoned Post Office bicycle, the ice cream bicycle trolley and the builders' cart and the deserted street. 00:07:06 Shots illustrating the precautions to be taken in the event of an enemy poison gas attack. An ARP warden wearing a steel helmet and a gas mask and dressed in a gas-proof decontamination suit walks down a residential street using a rattle to warn people that a gas attack is imminent. Shots showing a woman donning her government-issue gas mask and members of one family in gas masks rushing into their Anderson shelter. Over sound effects of exploding bombs, people are seen inside the shelter and crouched low behind a sand bag wall with gas masks over their heads. Shots laid over sound effects of exploding bombs and anti-aircraft guns in action showing the Anderson shelter in the back garden with family members inside and deserted roads and residential streets in different parts of London. 00:07:50 The air raid siren is seen sounding the 'All Clear'. An ARP warden in a gas decontamination suit walks along a city street (Sutton Row) ringing a bell informing everyone that there is no poison gas present. People emerge from their air raid shelters and places of refuge and remove their gas masks. One man lights up a cigarette as he looks up at the sky. 00:08:24 An end sequence over Elgar's 'Nimrod' (from 'Enigma Variations') consisting of a view of modern factories along the A4 Great West Road in Brentford, the interiors of a factory with transmission belts powering the machine tools on the factory floor, clerical workers (mainly female) behind their desks in a large office, a large ship - the Cunard White Star liner Mauretania - going down the slipway at the Cammell Laird shipyard at Birkenhead on 28th July 1938, tall lattice masts at a radio transmitting station (?), a prosperous-looking farm where sheep graze peacefully in a meadow and farm workers feeding wheat into a mechanical threshing machine next to a long low barn. Fade to black and end titles 'If War Should Come'. END 00:09:23
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: COI 849
  • Sound: Sound
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM (COI 849)
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1939-08
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Home Office (Production sponsor) GPO Film Unit (Production company)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords: Aerial Warfare (theme) British Army 1919-1939 (theme) Royal Air Force 1919-1939 (theme) Chemical Warfare (theme)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Sound Soundtrack language: English Title language: English Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 877 ft; Running time: 9 mins 23 secs
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    COI 849

  • Related IWM Collections Objects:

    COI 850 (DO IT NOW [Main Title])
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