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Summary: Food supplies for Paris are prepared for despatch by road at a 21st Army Group Civil Affairs Base Port Depot in the village of Bussy near Bayeux.
Description: Former Spanish Republicans, civilian employees and RASC personnel load three-ton and ten-ton lorries with a cargo consisting variously of clothing, soap, tinned fish and meat, dried milk, margarine, biscuits, wheat and vegetables. Bags of flour, each weighing 140 lbs, are loaded onto a five-ton trailer which carries eighty such bags in all.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Palmer, F A W (Production individual)
Personalities, Units and Organisations: British Army, Army Gp 21 (regiment/service)
British Army, Royal Army Service Corps (regiment/service)
Keywords: transport, United States military - truck: Mack 10-ton 6x4 (object name)
transport, British military - truck: White 10-ton 6x4 (object name)
transport, British military - truck: Bedford 3-ton 4x2 (object name)
operations, British military - relief (object name)
supplies, Allied, movement [RA] - food (object name)
Calvados, France (geography)
Notes: Note: See with A70 142-1, 3 and 4 and refer to footage taken during the liberation of Paris. 21st Army Group Civil Affairs planned to send to Paris in 4 convoys 1,500 tons of flour, 750 tons of meat, 350 tons of biscuits, 750 tons of wheat, 750 tons of pulses, and 150 tons of soap. 50 3-ton lorries were to be handed over to the French at the end of the 4 convoys' journeys.
Remarks: Best seen with material covering the road convoy's journey from Bayeux to Paris listed above. Together these items constitute a good record of the efforts required to keep Paris going after its liberation.
Documentation/associated material: for a journalistic account of the liberation of Paris and an insight into the reasons why SHAEF was anxious to avoid entering the city - reasons which this film quietly delineates - read 'Is Paris Burning?' by Lapierre and Collins in which the French capital's food problem is described.
