Summary: Unedited and uncensored newsreel rushes showing General Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), meeting senior army commanders and inspecting troops and an army post office and the 12th Royal Lancers in service with the BEF, October 1939.
Description: I. General Lord Gort, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), strides into his billet at the Chateau le Couroy at Avesnes-le-Comte, 12 miles west of Arras. Interior shots of Gort talking to his two corps commanders, Lieutenant-General Sir John Dill, General Officer Commanding (GOC) I Corps and Lieutenant-General Alan Brooke, GOC II Corps. Gort arrives at the headquarters of the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders in the village of Templeuve near the Franco-Belgian frontier on 27 October 1939. Accompanied by officers including the Gordon Highlanders' commanding officer, a Lieutenant-Colonel wearing Highland Light Infantry trews, Gort inspects the men of the Gordon Highlanders billeted in the barn and then makes his way to a nearby field where he watches men from the battalion working at digging a system of trenches and filling sandbags with earth.
II. Morris CS9 armoured cars and motorcyclist belonging to the 12th Royal Lancers' 'C' Squadron are seen on the move near the village of Villers-Sir-Simon. For one shot, a troop of Morris armoured cars drives straight over the camera
III. Scenes at an army post office based in a farm building where soldiers leave with mail for delivery to their final destinations and new mail arrives from the United Kingdom for sorting.
IV. Men serving with the 12th Royal Lancer's 'C' Squadron billeted in a farm in the village of Villers-Sir-Simon mount their Morris CS9 armoured cars and head out on patrol accompanied by motorcyclists.
Production Details: British Pathe (Production company)
Martin, C R (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: Vereker, John Standish Surtees Prendergast (6th Viscount Gort) (person)
Brooke, Alan Francis (person)
Dill, John Greer (person)
British Army, Gordon Highlanders, 1st Battalion (regiment/service)
British Army, 12th Royal Lancers (Prince of Wales's) (regiment/service)
British Expeditionary Force (regiment/service)
Keywords: Templeuve, Nord, France (geography)
Villers-Sir-Simon, Pas-de-Calais, France (geography)
Avesnes-le-Comte, Pas-de-Calais, France (geography)
Phoney War 1939-1940, Second World War (event)
British Army 1939-1945 (theme)
France and the Low Countries 1939-1940 (theme)
