Summary: Prisoners taken by the 51st (Highland) Division during the fighting for St Aignan de Cramesnil are marched off to the nearest POW cage while the 1st Polish Armoured Division assembles for its baptism of fire in the second phase of 2nd Canadian Corps' drive towards Falaise.
Description: A column of forty or so Wehrmacht soldiers from the 89th Infantry Division - some evidently quite content at being prisoners of war - are escorted to the rear by military policeman from the 51st Division. In the flat, dry wheatfields beyond Cormelles, units of the 1st Polish Armoured division assemble for Phase II of Operation "Totalise"; two scout car crewmen clean their Bren light machine gun and officers serving with the 1st Polish Armoured Regiment plan for their unit's part in the offensive. Polish troops watch bombs from the 8th USAAF burst on St Sylvain (?) during a raid in which they and the Canadians too were bombed. 51st (Highland) Division troops watch another batch of German prisoners led by their own NCOs march into captivity. An M10 "Achilles" 17-pounder moves up to St Aignan de Cramesnil.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Connolly, J R (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, Royal Military Police (regiment/service)
British Army, Div 51 (regiment/service)
Polish Armed Forces in the West, 1st Armoured Division (regiment/service)
Canadian Army, Canadian Corps 2 (regiment/service)
Keywords: weapons, British - smallarm: Bren (object name)
prisoners of war, German - movement (object name)
transport, United States military - utility: jeep (object name)
armour, United States - tank: M4 Sherman & [British] (object name)
armour, British - tank: Crusader AA (object name)
combat, United States air - bombardment [d] (object name)
operations, British military - maintenance (object name)
intelligence, military, Allied - briefing (object name)
Operation Totalise 1944, Normandy, North West Europe, Second World War (event)
Calvados, France (geography)
Normandy, France (geography)
