Summary: (Free) French newsreel. No commentary, but recorded speech in items (a), (f) and (g).
Description: a) Dramatisation of maquis preparing to receive a parachute drop of equipment. Rural sequence (duplicated in this print) opens with reconstruction of peasant household listening to BBC broadcasting messages to the Resistance. Children relay message to peasants who light signal fire for allied plane at night. Canister is recovered and escapes discovery at a road check by gendarmes.
b) Franco-American ceremony at airfield, apparently the transfer to the Free French Air Force of a Douglas Havoc marked with an impressive number of sorties and "La France Libre". Tillon and USAAF officers congratulate the plane's crew.
c) Two Free French submarine chasers, QO 41 and QO 12 (Audierne and Benoder), and a Fairmile "B" motor launch of the type manned by the FNFL and lost during the St Nazaire raid on 28 March 1942, lie moored in an estuary. French and British naval officers and ratings as well as British commandos honour their dead comrades at a cemetery.
d) Diver recovers a corpse from a well in a bleak landscape. Other atrocity victims lie in coffins in a hall.
e) Girls of the Corps feminin des FFL.
f) Woman magistrate performs a civil marriage ceremony.
g) Meeting of the Union des Femmes Francaises "for the defence of the family and the liberation of France" hears two speakers, the second Marie Bell who states that "when the guns cease fire it is to France that the world will turn to relearn civilisation."
h) Auction of Laval's possessions on 22-24 October is preceded by flashback to the ex-Premier leaving his château for his Vichy office.
Alternative Title:
Colour:B&W
Digitised:No
Object_Number:COI 530
Sound:Sound
Access Conditions:
Featured Period:1939-1945
Production Date:1944-10
Production Country: France
Production Details:
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Bell, Marie (person)
Laval, Pierre (person)
Tillon, Charles (person)
British Army, commandos (regiment/service)
Royal Navy (regiment/service)
Free French Air Force (regiment/service)
Free French Navy, Audierne (regiment/service)
Free French Navy, Benoder (regiment/service)
United States Army Air Forces (regiment/service)
Maquis (regiment/service)
British Broadcasting Corporation (regiment/service)
Forces Francaises de l'Interieur, Corps feminins (regiment/service)
Union des Femmes Francaises (regiment/service)
Keywords: aircraft, United States - combat: Douglas Havoc & [French] (object name)
casualties, French dead (object name)
casualties, French dead - graves, formal (object name)
ceremonies, British - event-related: memorial service (object name)
ceremonies, French - event-related: memorial service (object name)
ceremonies, French - event-related: wedding (object name)
operations, French military - movement: para-drop (object name)
ships, British naval - light forces: Fairmile B ML & [French] (object name)
ships, French naval - escort: Audiere (object name)
ships, French naval - escort: Benoder (object name)
society, French - domestic (object name)
France (geography)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: French
Title language: None
Subtitle language: None
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 669 ft; Running time: 7 mins
