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Summary: A rough analysis of various sea battles of the early war years is combined with a description of various classes of warship to provide basic information on the character of contemporary naval combat.
Description: An opening sequence (including 'News' excerpts and part of Churchill's description of his 'Atlantic Charter' voyage) indicates the worldwide distribution and activities of the Navy. Representative film of battleships, aircraft carriers, carrier-based and Coastal Command aircraft, cruisers and destroyers, with descriptions of their characteristics, is interspersed with animated diagrams of the Bismarck, Admiral Graf Spee and Cape Mataplan battles indicating the tactical and strategic ideas governing their deployment ("All naval success depends on these units working together as one team"). "These are some of the tools with which we shall finish the job."
Access Conditions:IWM
Featured Period:1939-1945
Production Date:1941-12
Production Country: GB
Production Details: Ministry of Information (Production sponsor)
Shell (Production company)
Tharp, Grahame (Production individual)
Anstey, Edgar (Production individual)
Rodker, Francis (Production individual)
Willard, Edmund (Production cast)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Royal Air Force, Coastal Command (regiment/service)
Royal Navy (regiment/service)
Keywords: operations, British air - routine: (object name)
operations, British naval - routine: (object name)
ships, German naval - battleship: Admiral Graf Spee [diagrams] (object name)
ships, German naval - battleship: Bismarck [diagrams] (object name)
strategy, British (object name)
Animation (concept)
Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W
Sound format: Sound
Soundtrack language: English
Title language: English
Subtitle language: None
Technical Details: Format: 35mm
Number of items/reels/tapes: 1
Footage: 790 ft; Running time: 9 mins
Notes: Remarks: nothing on offensive submarine warfare and very little on the convoy system, but otherwise good fulfilment of the intentions of the film - especially considering its brevity.
