Title:DEATH AND DESTRUCTION IN THE FALAISE 'GAP' (PART 2) [Allocated Title]
Film Number:A70 130-4
Other titles:
Summary: German motor and horse-drawn vehicles destroyed by either fighter-bomber attack or artillery are found scattered along the Falaise-Argentan road in the vicinity of Occagnes.
Description: Two British soldiers (one a driver, the other an AFPU stills photographer?) are seen walking along a wooded section of the N158 past wrecked German transport - an impressed civilian saloon, a waggon and a lorry - lying in the ditch. British army traffic in the form of two Humber scout cars and a Humber heavy utility staff car are seen motoring along the road past destroyed and abandoned waggons and impressed farm carts which the two men examine. The cameraman examines two derelict GMC or Studebaker medium cargo lorries (the one in the background loaded up with jerrycan petrol containers) and a shot-up BMW motorcycle and the corpse of its driver lying at the foot of a road direction sign in Occagnes pointing the way to Villedieu-les-Bailleul, Coulonces and Trun along the D.247; note the improvised German unit direction signs, notably "Bockhoff". Further along the road near a milestone giving the distances to Falaise and Caen, the two men examine the remains of a Wehrmacht heavy lorry.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Leatherbarrow, RichardPrior to the Second World War Leatherbarrow was a portrait photographer. During the Second World War he joined the Royal Armoured Corps, transferring to the Army Film and Photographic Unit in 1943, when he received training at Pinewood. He was one of the cameramen on Juno Beach during the D-Day Landings. (Production individual)
