Title:EL ALAMEIN: RAILWAY HALT, ROAD SIGNS, CAPTURED GERMAN VEHICLES AND BRITISH, GERMAN AND ITALIAN HEADSTONES [Allocated Title]
Film Number:MWY 123
Other titles:INDIAN INTER-SERVICE PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTORATE COLLECTION - INDIAN HOME FRONT AND MILITARY OPERATIONS, AND ALLIED OPERATIONS IN ITALY AND THE PACIFIC DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Summary: Film showing the railway halt at El Alamein, road signs, captured German military vehicles, trenches and British and German minefields, and British, German and Italian headstones in a cemetery.
Description: A double-track railway line stretching away into the distance, with a signal post and small building left. ‘ALAMEIN’ on the wall of the building. An Egyptian railwayman on a telephone. Semaphore signal arm dropping. Ringing bell. Train arriving with some local civilians waiting for it. Haggling with passengers. Sign ‘Sydney Road’ on corrugated metal. High, wide shot of desert terrain. Shot from a moving vehicle. Sign ‘Springbok Road’. A single lane tarmac road leading away. ‘Qatara [sic] Rd’. A panning shot showing masses of captured German tanks and armoured vehicles. Various shots of German tanks and self-propelled guns. German motor transport. SdKfz 2 half-track motorbikes (Kettenkrads). Lorries and half-tracks. Panning shot assembled vehicles. British officer; pan to fighting position with scattered debris. Views of a trench system. Abandoned boot. Trenches. Rag stuck on barbed wire. Sign ‘Danger Mines’ on barbed wire. Thick barbed wire barrier. Sign ‘British Forward Minefield 23rd October 1942’. More of barbed wire and mine field. Sign ‘Forward Enemy Minefield 23rd October 1942’. Sign ‘To El Alamein cemetery’. Panning shot showing a field of white crosses. Cross ‘Unknown British Soldier 17.11.42’. Cross ‘Unknown German Soldier – German Army – 22.1.43’. Cross ‘Unknown Italian – Italian Army – 14.1.43’. Row of crosses. Close-up head stone: ‘2nd [the word following is cut off by the top of frame] – Killed in Action 17.7.42 – He Gave His Life For A Comrade – Greater Love Hath No Man’. Cross. Base of a cross ‘Here lies a man’. Shadow of a cross.
Alternative Title:INDIAN INTER-SERVICE PUBLIC RELATIONS DIRECTORATE COLLECTION - INDIAN HOME FRONT AND MILITARY OPERATIONS, AND ALLIED OPERATIONS IN ITALY AND THE PACIFIC DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
Personalities, Units and Organisations: German Army, Deutsches Afrika Korps (regiment/service)
British Army, Eighth Army (regiment/service)
Italian Army, 1st Army (regiment/service)
Keywords: North Africa 1939-1945 (theme)
El Alamein 1942, North Africa, Second World War (event)
North Africa Campaign (event)