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Summary: British troops help French farm-workers harvest wheat in a field between Lantheuil and Pierrepoint in a part of the Normandy beach-head left untouched by the fighting.
Description: Off-duty 1st Corps troops help a colourfully-dressed farm girl stock sheaves of wheat. A healthy-looking teenage boy operates a horse-drawn harvester and, while doing so, drags away a length of barbed-wire laid by the Germans in order to obstruct landings by Allied airborne troops; the presence of a nearby airstrip from which RAF Typhoon fighter-bombers from No. 83 Group are seen flying off on their missions detracts somewhat from this otherwise peaceful scene.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Collins (Sergeant) (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations:
Keywords: agriculture, French - arable: harvest (object name)
Normandy, France (geography)
Notes: Note: Refer to A70 71-10, 72-10, 78-6, 98-3 and 4 and 120-16 for material relating to the fate of Normandy's beleaguered agricultural community during the campaign.
Remarks: Good footage, in which the healthy invigorating character of the farming life is seen personified in the well- formed youth who appears here.
Documentation/associated material: for details of the location of forward airstrips in 21st Army Group's sector of the Normandy beach-head, read 2nd Army HQ's 'An Account of the Operations of 2nd Army in Europe 1944-1945 : Volume 1'.
