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Title:GREEK BRIGADE IN THE DESERT [Allocated Title]
Film Number:AYY 261/6
Other titles:BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: The 1st Greek Infantry Brigade in the Western Desert after training in Syria, as a supplementary brigade to the 44th Division.
Description: Colonel Katsotas, Acting Brigadier of the 1st Greek Infantry Brigade, in conference with his officers before visiting a battalion. He looks at his route on a map. He drives off in his jeep. An informal group of Greeks and New Zealanders off duty together talking and joking. Close-up of the words 1st Greek Brigade Signals on a battery charger. Greek soldiers joining cables and testing batteries and a Greek surveyor at the theodolite. A group of Greek soldiers digging a pit. Second-Lieutenant Dounakis, troop commander, shouting Fire orders to a gun crew. The gun crew run in and take up their positions. The gun fires. A shell is handed across into the breech. Sergeant Hikoulakas gives the fire signal. An ack-ack spotter sees an enemy plane. Ack-ack Bren pit. The Bren is fired. The magazines are changed. A Greek soldier picks up a Boys anti-tank gun and mounts it on the Bren carrier. The carrier moves forward. A Greek soldier mounts the Bren on its ack-ack mounting on the carrier.
Father Thanossides of the Greek Orthodox Church blesses Greek soldiers. Troops kissing the cross. Greek soldiers perform a traditional dance for their companions. A Greek flag damaged by bullets in the Balkans flies over the desert. An infantry patrol passes the flag. Spectators at the dancing clap their hands in time with the rhythm. General Horrocks, Commander 13 Corps, with the Brigadier and Major-General Prince Peter of Greece.
Alternative Title:BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Production Details: Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Hopkinson, Peter Richard Gunton1920-06-272007-06-28Hopkinson started him career in the film industry at the age of 16 as a clapper boy at Ealing Studios, then working at Denham Studios. He volunteered for overseas service in 1941and was an AFPU photographer and informant in the "Wartime Filming" interview project. He was sent to Persia initially to make a film about getting supplies through to Russia and made many other films in the Western Desert. He joined the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). His career after the war was mainly filming documentaries and his last documentary was Whickers War, made in 2004. (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Horrocks, Brian Gwynne (person)
Katsotas, Pausanias (person)
Paul I, King of Greece (person)
British Army, 44th Division (regiment/service)
Greek Army, 1st Greek Infantry Brigade (regiment/service)
New Zealand Army (regiment/service)
Keywords: Egypt (geography)
El Alamein 1942, North Africa, Second World War (event)
North Africa 1939-1945 (theme)