Title:I. FRANCO-BELGIAN BORDER; II. LIGHT TANKS ON EXERCISE [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BEY 69
Other titles:
Summary: Unedited and uncensored newsreel rushes showing fixed defences along the Franco-Belgian border in northern France and an exercise outside Arras in the vicinity of the Vimy Ridge (?) by the 13th/18th Royal Hussars, a cavalry reconnaissance regiment serving with 1st Division in the British Expeditionary Force.
Description: I. A low-angle shot of the cameraman (Sid Bonnett ?). Two British soldiers stand guard near a gateway leading to a large ferro-concrete pill box built by the French near the Franco-Belgian border in northern France. A view of the field defences protecting the pill box in the background - a narrow ditch, logs driven into the ground to serve as anti-tank obstacles (?) and a barbed wire entanglement secured by wooden stakes driven into the ground. Geese and sheep share a meadow with barbed wire. Bollards painted in different colour stripes on the road at the French frontier; nearby stands a sign for a French customs post. A view beyond a lowered frontier barrier down a deserted road lined with poplars heading towards neutral Belgium. A dark interior shot of two soldiers inside a pill box (?) showing light coming in through the firing slit.
II. A brick farmyard built in the Flemish style showing a Vickers Mk VI light tank belonging to the 13th/18th Royal Hussars parked at the entrance to a barn; next to the tank (registration 'FME 929') is an old pony-drawn trap. Splattered in dried mud, the tank is driven out of the barn. A low-angle, out-of-focus shot of the cameraman (Sid Bonnett ?). Travelling shots filmed from a scout carrier armed with a Boyes .5-inch anti-tank rifle as it travels along a road through the French countryside. It follows a column of scout carriers and light tanks belonging to the 13th/18th Hussars as they make a left turn off the road and head along a dirt track through a field. A view of the back of the driver's head, his hands on the steering wheel and an instrument panel to his right. The scout carrier in front of the cameraman's own vehicle (registration plate 'HMC 479') makes a right turn; the superstructure on the right hand side of this particular carrier consists of a steel plate that extends the full length of the crew compartment. An under-exposed shot of the radio or W/T operator of a scout carrier listening to a message on his headphones (?) whilst in the background the crews of two Vickers Mk VI light tanks look over their vehicle. A travelling shot as the cameraman's scout carrier overtakes a Vickers light tank whose commander and machine-gunner are riding with their turret hatches in the open position. Two Vickers light tanks - 'FME 926' and 'FME 928' - negotiate a shallow ditch as they motor across a road. A view through the driver's aperture from behind the driver of a Vickers light tank as it bumps up and down on the rough ground behind another light tank. A brief travelling shot in the front compartment of a scout carrier showing its driver at the controls.
Production Details: Gaumont British News (Production company)
Bonnett, Sidney R (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, 13th/18th Royal Hussars (Queen Mary's Own) (regiment/service)
British Expeditionary Force (1939-1940) (regiment/service)
Keywords: France (geography)
Phoney War 1939-1940, Second World War (event)
Armoured Warfare 1939-1945 (theme)
British Army 1939-1945 (theme)
France and the Low Countries 1939-1940 (theme)
Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles 1939-1945 (theme)
