MONSOON CONDITIONS ON FRONTLINE RAF AIRFIELDS IN BURMA [Allocated Title]

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  • Title: MONSOON CONDITIONS ON FRONTLINE RAF AIRFIELDS IN BURMA [Allocated Title]
  • Film Number: ABY 7
  • Other titles: ROYAL AIR FORCE OPERATIONS IN SOUTH EAST ASIA DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR [Allocated Series Title]
  • Summary: Muddy frontline conditions are emphasised through shots of airmen wading through waterlogged airfield perimeter trenches, and later pushing a Spitfire through the mud.
  • Description: Men washing their feet. Tents sinking into mud. RAF medical staff retrieving items from a flooded tent. RAF Regiment personnel manning Bren light machine guns, trenches and lookout posts. Pet bears eating at a table and towing a bomb trolley.
  • Access Conditions: IWM Attribution: © IWM
  • Featured Period: 1939-1945
  • Production Date: 1944-06
  • Production Country: GB
  • Production Details: Air Ministry, Directorate of Public Relations (Production sponsor) Royal Air Force Film Production Unit (Production company) McKee, J L (Production individual)
  • Personalities, Units and Organisations: Royal Air Force (regiment/service) Royal Air Force, Royal Air Force Regiment (regiment/service)
  • Keywords: Burma (geography) Burma 1942-1945, Second World War (event) Burma 1942-1945 (theme) Far East 1939-1945 (theme) Royal Air Force 1939-1945 (theme)
  • Physical Characteristics: Colour format: B&W Sound format: Silent
  • Technical Details: Format: 35mm Number of items/reels/tapes: 1 Footage: 422 ft; Running time: 5 minutes
  • HD Media:Yes
  • Notes: Dopesheet adds that the bears were bought a year previously by an airman on leave in Shillong (Assam, India) and that while they are tame they were rapidly growing too big to stay with the squadron. The cameraman of this piece, Warrant Officer John Laing McKee, was killed on 21 January 1945. Flying in a Liberator heavy bomber of RAF 99 Squadron supporting the landings on Ramree Island, McKee's aircraft collided with another Liberator of the same squadron and both disintegrated. All aboard both aircraft were killed. McKee, and the nineteen other aircrew of the two bombers, are buried in the CWGC Maynamati War Cemetery, near Comilla in Bangladesh.
  • Link to IWM Collections page:

    ABY 7

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