Title:ANZAC'S LAST TRAINING BEFORE GOING INTO REAL ACTION [Allocated Title]
Film Number:BEY 76
Other titles:
Summary: Uncensored and unedited newsreel footage showing units of the first echelon of the 2nd Division New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) training for combat outside Cairo before being ordered to reinforce defensive positions behind the Egyptian-Libyan border following Italy's declaration of war on Great Britain on 10 June 1940.
Description: Ten NZEF officers line up to fire their service .38 revolvers at a firing range in Maadi Camp; they each fire two rounds at the unseen target. Five men dash out of their underground shelter, hurl hand grenades and drop to the floor to avoid injury from the blast. A view through the firing slit of a pill box overlooking a network of trenches as a grenade explodes, raising a small cloud of dust. On the training ground at Wadi Digla, Vickers Mk III light tanks and scout carriers belonging to the 2nd Division NZEF's divisional cavalry unit race around the desert churning up clouds of dust. The light tanks appear to have had their main armament, a single .303 machine gun, removed. Two-man teams each consisting of a Bren gunner and an ammunition porter are trained to fire short bursts and maintain the supply of ammunition whilst in the prone fighting position. An NZEF officer gives orders to the five members of an anti-aircraft detachment riding in a Morris-Commercial GS8 15-cwt truck; all the men seen here are wearing stetson hats, the NZEF's chosen form of headgear. The Morris truck motors across the desert and comes to a stop; the men leap off the vehicle and set up a Bren light machine gun on a pintle mounting on tripod legs capable of directing accurate fire at low-flying enemy aircraft. A battalion of men serving with the NZEF take part in a march past with fixed bayonets on their SMLE Mk III rifles. An army band plays and the officer commanding the unit, a young-looking individual, takes the salute. The battalion bugler blows on his cornet; above him flies a flag with the insignia of the NZEF (?).
