WORKER AND WAR-FRONT MAGAZINE ISSUE No 11 [Main Title]

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  • Title: WORKER AND WAR-FRONT MAGAZINE ISSUE No 11 [Main Title]
  • Film Number: UKY 811
  • Other titles:
  • Summary: A wartime newsreel highlighting the part played by ordinary working men and women in Britain's war effort featuring a report on the manufacture of portable wire mesh tracking, a 'Make Do and Mend' exchange scheme for children's clothing and a short animated film by the well-known British newspaper cartoonist, Giles.
  • Description: START 10:00:00 Intertitle 'Portable Tracks support Allied Advance'. A report on how portable metal wire tracks help maintain mobility on the modern battlefield. Two M4 Sherman tanks manned by British crews travel slowly through thick mud and over a corduroy road made out of tree branches and logs in southern Italy, an example of frontline improvisation that nevertheless can be improved upon. Scenes inside a factory show a roll of three-inch wire mesh and bundles of long thin steel rod and feature women and men war workers manufacturing a section of portable track with the wire mesh and the steel rods. 10:02:21 A section of wire mesh is then rolled up in a specially-adapted rolling machine and made ready for delivery by lorry. On an exercise somewhere in the United Kingdom, a team of six Army sappers or pioneers engaged in airfield construction unrolls a section of wire mesh track, pull it tight and connect it to another section of tracking by passing a steel bar through the 'eye' at the end of each reinforcing rod. An RAF North American Mustang Mk I is seen touching down on an airstrip consisting of portable wire mesh track. 10:03:07 'Children's Clothing Exchange barter saves Coupons'. A mother and her young son identified by the commentary as Mrs Hunt and David are seen dressed in thick winter coats as they step out of the front door of their late Victorian semi-detached villa somewhere in London and head off along the pavement down the street. They are seen arriving at a community centre in Campden House Terrace in Holland Park where there is a sign advertising a Clothing and Shoe Exchange Centre for children up to the age of sixteen that is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The commentary states that the scheme is operated by the Women's Voluntary Service (WVS) and the Women's Institute as part of the Board of Trade's 'Make Do and Mend' campaign. Mrs Hunt and David step inside and take a seat next to a WVS clerk who produces Mrs Hunt's membership card and checks the details. The card shows how each member of the clothing exchange centre is awarded points for bringing in items like shoes, coats, jerseys, socks and vests and subtracts points for each item she chooses for her child. The amount she has in credit determines which item she can select from the clothing on offer. Other volunteers are seen sorting out and inspecting the clothes that Mrs Hunt has donated to the centre. Mrs Hunt and David then inspect the children's clothing on offer, choose a coat and select it once David has tried it on. Its value in points is noted in Mrs Hunt's membership card. Over shots showing Mrs Hunt and David in his new coat concluding their business with the WVS clerk and arriving back at their front door, the commentary appeals to the audience to get their local WVS and WI to organise a Clothing Exchange Centre in their district. 10:04:45 'The Grenade'. A short animated feature by the famous 'Daily Express' cartoonist Ronald 'Carl' Giles (1916-1995) showing the life of a typical Mills No. 36 'pineapple' grenade cut to music, especially Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and an unknown jazz/blues composition. Boy Scouts taking part in a scrap metal salvage drive collect an old tea kettle and take it to a munitions factory where it is melted down and becomes 'Grenade'. 'Grenade' is impressed with his own strength but, compared with larger and much more powerful weapons like a large-calibre howitzer, a tank, a large bomb, torpedoes, a four-engined bomber with a bomb bay stuffed with bombs, sea mines and a snooty collection of big naval shells, he is made to feel very inferior and, anxious to avoid further humiliation, he scuttles off to catch a train to the front. Avoiding the big and smart naval shells on the station platform, 'Grenade' leaps into a goods waggon marked '3rd Class' and finds space in an ammunition crate full of other hand granades. 10:07:37 In a billet somewhere behind the frontline, 'Grenade' meets a distinctly unmilitary-looking British infantry soldier (the genesis of the 'Father' character who featured in Giles' post-war cartoons) but they quickly conclude that, in combination, they are a strong and powerful fighting team. On the battlefield, with shots and shells bursting all around, the soldier and the grenade go into action, destroying a German gun crew in one go. At this point, 'Grenade' experiences reincarnation and goes on to wipe out Luftwaffe chief and Hitler's Number Two, Hermann Goering and Nazi propaganda boss Paul Joseph Goebbels before going on to dispose of the Führer himself, who in his demise leaves behind him all the tools of the trade of house-painter. His final objective is the German Eagle, symbol of German military might, which he manages to convert into a plucked chicken ready for eating. Despite his modest size, 'Grenade' packs a mighty punch. END 10:10:24
  • Alternative Title:
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised: Yes
  • Object_Number: UKY 811
  • Sound: Sound
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1944-04
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Ministry of Information (Production sponsor) Paul Rotha Productions (Production company)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations:
  • Keywords: British Army 1939-1945 (theme) British Home Front 1939-1945 (theme) British War Work 1939-1945 (theme) Italy 1919-1939 (theme)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Sound Soundtrack language: English Title language: English Subtitle language: None
  • Technical Details: Format: 16mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 390 ft; Running time: 10 mins 24 secs
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    UKY 811

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