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Title:BRITISH MILITARY TRAFFIC COPES WITH FLOODS ON THE ROADS IN NORMANDY (PART 5) [Allocated Title]
Film Number:A70 92-5
Other titles:
Summary: The effect of the great rainstorm of July 20th 1944 on troop movements in 1st Corps' sector of the Orne bridge-head.
Description: I. Traffic belonging mainly to 3rd Division units negotiates a road between Demouville and Banneville-la-Campagne whose surface consists of liquid mud; the vehicles seen here include a Fordson WOT2 truck and jeeps from the HQs of 9th and 185th Brigades, jeeps from 3rd Division's Corps of Military Police provost company and 62nd Anti-Tank Regiment RA, CMP 15-cwt trucks from 1st Battalion Royal Norfolk Regiment, a Humber scout car, a universal carrier OP and a jeep from 7th Field Regiment RA and a CMP utility ambulance and a DR (despatch rider) from 9th Field Ambulance RAMC. Sergeant Christie AFPU is seen wading through the mud and wiping his boots with grass.
II. Infantrymen serving with the 2nd or 5th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders use wooden fencing beams, doorways, and corrugated iron to provide overhead cover and flooring for their dugouts in the Bois de Bavent; these they then camouflage with earth and tree branches.
III. Troops serving with the 6th Airborne Division march in pouring rain through Escoville (?) along a road in use by 11th Armoured and 51st (Highland) Division units.
Production Details: Directorate of Public Relations, War Office (Production sponsor)
Army Film and Photographic Unit (Production company)
Wilkes, A E (Production individual)
Notes: Note: For footage showing traffic coping with the Calvados region's over-worked road network, see A70 63-3, 5, 65-2, 71-6, 7, 79-3, 7, 8, 84-1, 90-3, 92-2 to 4. Refer generally to ciné material showing both 1st and 8th Corps in action during Operation "Goodwood". Among the vehicles seen in Part (3) of the synopsis are Fordson WOT6 lorries (117th Middlesex Regiment and 65th Regiment RA).
Remarks: A good record of the difficult road conditions produced by the storm that effectively brought Operation "Goodwood" to a halt. Best seen with the items of ciné material listed above, notably A70 90-3 which shows traffic coping with floodwaters in 1st Corps' sector of 2nd Army's beachhead.
Documentation/associated material: for a bibliography, refer to the publications listed in A70 90-3.
Summary: (letter of 9/8/2000 to Carl Rymen from Alan Mc Kell, 9 Platoon C Coy, 8th Parachute Brigade, dropped on D-Day and operating as sniper: "On 21st June 1944 the 8th Bn was relieved by the 7th Bn and we marched in the direction of Hérouvillette. We were very tired and nervous and a photographer, who was standing in the middle of the road and getting in our way was pushed off the road and into the ditch. I heard him cursing and threatening that we wouldn't get our pictures in the news reel. But we could not have cared less." (See IWM FVA identification letters file for image of Mc Kell who appears in this film, with rifle slung on left shoulder and jeep behind.)
