Title:1ST CORPS REACHES THE WESTERN END OF THE MAAS AND WAAL ESTUARY (PART 1) [Allocated Title]
Film Number:A70 192-2
Other titles:
Summary: 49th (West Riding) Division captures one of the German 15th Army's two evacuation points across the Hollandsch Diep from the southern half of the Netherlands.
Description: The cameraman examines battered Dutch and German town and province name boards on Willemstad's outskirts and surveys a street - deserted and damaged by British artillery - in the town. Surrounded by dead draught animals, two horse- drawn wagons carrying 3.7cm Flak ammunition are found intact. Deserted town houses and an empty hotel with curtains billowing through open windows and a wharf littered with dead horses killed by artillery and several abandoned vehicles characterise Willemstad's "ghost-town" appearance. On the ferry quay, a Wehrmacht Phaenomen Granit ambulance is found abandoned; in the background, a fierce wind blows over the 1 mile wide Hollandsch Diep. The corpses of two German soldiers killed by artillery - the first a Fallschirmjäger rifleman - are found nearby. A lieutenant from the Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment surveys the German-held foreshore - Hoeksche Waard - with binoculars and returns along the quay past abandoned wagons. The cameraman surveys Willemstad's harbour (navigation buoys beached in the foreground). The Lincoln's 'A' company marches through the town past an abandoned 3.7cm Flak 18 cannon.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Collins (Sergeant) (Production individual)
