Summary: Unedited and uncensored newsreel rushes filmed on showing artillerymen serving with the British Expeditionary Force on duty during the Christmas holiday period at the end of 1939.
Description: Part 1. Christmas Day scenes shot from different perspectives to help the film editor showing two men serving in an anti-aircraft regiment filing along a trench and entering a small shelter made out of corrugated iron through a wooden door marked 'Cafe Anglais'; the men are wearing steel helmets and are dressed warmly to protect themselves from the frost and snow and there are Christmas decorations over the doorway. Interior shots showing at least five gunners huddled together inside the shelter enjoying slices of cake; pinned to the wall behind them is an aircraft recognition poster. They suddenly get up from their places and dash out of the shelter. Shots taken from different perspectives to aid film editing showing a look out on duty next to a range-finder (?) sounding the alarm as he spots an unseen enemy aircraft, at which point, his comrades run out of the corrugated iron shelter and another one nearby. The men are seen dashing across the snow-covered field to man their QF 3-inch 20-cwt anti-aircraft guns positioned inside neat square sandbag emplacements. The members of one 3-inch gun crew are seen closed-up at their action stations.
Part II. A single interior shot inside a field artillery troop or battery command post (possibly 92nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery) showing a gunner picking up a field telephone handle. Six artillerymen are seen closed up around their QF 25-pounder Mk I field gun and its ammunition limber as it fires smoke rounds; because of the cold, they are all wearing greatcoats and have their gas mask satchels slung around their necks in compliance with standing orders. A troop of four Ordnance QF 25-pounder gun crews is seen in action. At the troop or battery command post, a signaller puts down his field telephone receiver and takes down a message. The troop officer and his assistant plot target ranges using an ordinary wooden table as a desk; their truck is parked nearby. A 25-pounder gun crew is seen in action; the gun carriage has a split trail indicating that it was once fitted with an 18-pounder gun. The troop officer watches all four of his guns in action.
Production Details: British Pathe (Production company)
Martin, C (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, Royal Artillery (regiment/service)
British Expeditionary Force (1939-1940) (regiment/service)
Keywords: France (geography)
Phoney War 1939-1940, Second World War (event)
British Army 1939-1945 (theme)
France and the Low Countries 1939-1940 (theme)
