Title:AIRBORNE TROOPS ATTACK AT SEA [Allocated Title]
Film Number:AYY 513/1
Other titles:ATTACK ON PILLBOX [Allocated Title]
BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: The 1st Airborne Division on an exercise, demonstrating their use as sea landing troops. They make an early morning attack on a beach one mile south of Sousse and then attack a pillbox.
Description: Troops of the 21st Independent Parachute Company in three GMC DUKW amphibious trucks (nicknamed 'Ducks') as the sun rises. The vehicles entering the water. View from the back of a vehicle of four other vehicles at sea. Various views of the vehicles. Panning shot of a vehicle coming into land. Men getting out into the water in preparation for the assault on the beach. Men going up the beach with fixed bayonets. Men dashing across the beach and into the sand dunes. Close up of a 'Duck'. Panning shot of men dashing up the beach.
View of a pillbox. Men charge forwards to their firing positions in front of barbed wire. The sergeant flings himself down and shouts 'Taskmen forward'. Close up of man with a Verey pistol. Two men come forwards past the camera. Two men throw themselves onto the barbed wire. Men come forward under fire and troops pour forwards. Bullets striking the ground. Troops coming forward through the smoke screen. The final attack on the pill box with two flashes and an explosion made by gun cotton.
Alternative Title:ATTACK ON PILLBOX [Allocated Title]
BRITISH ARMY OPERATIONS IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Production Details: War Office Film Unit (Production company)
Spittle, B (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, 1st Airborne Division (regiment/service)
British Army, 21st Independent Parachute Company (regiment/service)
Keywords: Italy 1939-1945 (theme)
Sousse, Tunisia (geography)
Operation Husky, Allied Invasion of Sicily 1943, Italy, Second World War (event)
