The Cine Technician (1943 - 1945)

September— October, 1943 THE CINE-TECHNICIAN 109 apart from any camera work (see page 107). So the Army Film Unit had started its life in the campaign with a bang. Tanks and armoured cars were naturally considered more important vehicles than ours, so that our first job at Algiers | was to get transport. We were fortunate enough to find two little Simca-Fiats about the size of a Morris 8, and half as tough. With these and half-a-dozen motor bikes we dashed off to Medjez-el-Bab. For a fortnight we had a wonderful thru'. We were completely a buccaneer unit operating out in the blue without one single Army Form to spoil the view, and photographing the battle wherever we could find it. In those days the roads around Medjez were pretty hot ; Stukas would often come over unescorted, so that if you wanted to get close to the battle area it was essential to do any moving up at night. In the early idays the forces on both sides were so small that it was quite simple to get nearer the enemy lines I til an our own, but our chief snag, as ever, lav in (the fact that infantry activity when it isn't at night is always well dispersed and well camouflaged. You may know that the Lancashire Fusilliers are going into action a few hundred yards Pfrom you, but all you can see is an olive grove, I and if you go into the olive grove all you see is a ! lot of tree trunks. However, once in a while things I turned out better for us, and we were able to get I shots of infantry actually attacking in daylight. I General shots and long shots were easy enough to get. but medium shots and close shots were almost • impossible. One without the other, from a movie IjDoint of view, is not satisfactory, so all the I cameramen pooled their knowledge and experience and ideas, and bit by bit we evolved a techI nique of Battle Photography. On one occasion Sergeant J. Huggett went out j with a Guards Bren carrier patrol. They got quite I close to Tunis when a German anti-tank gun and A.F.U. Group including Capt. A. Black and Set. Jock Gcmmell (Junr.) Battle cameraman in action heavy machine gun opened up at a few hundred yards range from a nearby farmhouse. Thanks to dispersal and the training of their crews most of the Bren carriers were all right, but the leading one in which Huggett was travelling was hit, and two of the crew killed outright. Huggett himself fortunately got away with his life and a 35 mm. lens. Accompanying an attack on Long Stop Hill in the early days, Sgt. West had the 2 inch lens blown off his camera by shrapnel whilst actually photographing. When the further convoys arrived we had to establish a headquarters. We chose a blitzed hotel in Beja, a town at the junction of the roads leading to the three main fronts, Sedjenane, Medjez-el-Bab, and Bon Arada. Our billet became quite a well-known social centre. The local French and Arab police used to come in each evening, and conversation would range pleasantly over all kinds of subjects. We even taught them pontoon — for me a disastrous experience. During the rainy season while the Allies were building up for the big attack the First Army was involved in continual bitter fighting. It was a time when Battalions held Brigade fronts — a very fluid and exhausting business. The cameramen went in wherever the battles broke out. Sometimes we had the initiative, sometimes the enemy. On one occasion the 6th Armoured Division put in an attack near Bou Arada; the enemy tried to repulse it with repeated dive-bombing attacks. Rjgnold. Glendining and six Sergeants were there with our attack, so we got some pretty good coverage of enemy planes coming down in flames, tanks going into action with shells bursting around them, and so on. When the Grenadier Guards re-occupied the Kasserine Gap they had about half an hour start on a party of three of us, but we got across a spur of hills, and caught them up just as they were ■