RECREATION BEFORE REPATRIATION AT BOMBAY [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: RECREATION BEFORE REPATRIATION AT BOMBAY [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: ABY 177
  • Other titles: ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Airmen enjoy some time on leave in Bombay (Mumbai), India, while awaiting embarkation for return to the United Kingdom
  • Description: Indian countryside seen from a moving train including a ramshackle village and a scrub-covered rocky valley. View along the side of the train as it rounds a bend. Airmen lean out from carriage windows with Indian children begging below. Men step off the train. Men wash themselves at a trough on the platform. A man buys tea from a 'char wallah'. A serviceman in glasses gives his luggage to some local Indian bearers to carry. A carriage is marked 'G.I.P' ('Great Indian Peninsula'). A soldier wearing the cap badge of the Seaforth Highlanders gives something to an Indian. View from the moving train; a station platform with a London Underground-style circular roundel (the location is not legible). Further along the platform a rectangular sign reads 'Sandhurst Road'. Airmen and women in swimming costume on Juhu Beach, Bombay. Men play with a ball in the water. Men in swimming trunks watch local fishermen at work; they appear to have had a good catch. Men watch a snake charmer. Rooftops at Worli Transit Camp. Two men on a balcony; a sign reads 'No.3 Release Embarkation Centre Worli'. A parade of shops at a Worli bazaar; two airmen stop outside the 'Indo-Burma Store' and examine some clothing. A number of signs advertising various helpful services such as 'Clothes altered to fit you' and 'Parcel service to UK' can be read. In a concert hall Monty Banks, acting as compere, introduces his wife, singer and comedienne Gracie Fields. Fields performs and the audience applaud enthusiastically. At an open-air swimming pool a man bounces several times on a diving board before making a rather underwhelming effort at a dive. General view of the pool.
  • Alternative Title: ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
  • Colour: B&W
  • Digitised:
  • Object_Number: ABY 177
  • Sound: Silent
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1945-10-19
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Air Ministry, Directorate of Public Relations (Production sponsor) Royal Air Force Film Production Unit (Production company) Goozee, S (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Fields, Gracie (person) Entertainments National Service Association (regiment/service) British Army, Seaforth Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs, The Duke of Albany's) (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: Bombay, West India, India (geography) Repatriation (event) Home Front, India, Second World War (event) Welfare and recreational activities and services, Burma 1942-1945, Second World War (event)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 389 ft; Running time: 5 minutes
  • HD Media:
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    ABY 177

  • Related IWM Collections Objects:

    ABY 73 (SO THIS IS INDIA [Allocated Title]) ABY 182 (SEA REPATRIATION FROM BOMBAY TO SOUTHAMPTON ABOARD HMT OTRANTO [Allocated Title])
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