Documentary News Letter (1944-1945)

' DOCUMENTARY NEWS LETTER 23 THE R.A.F. FILM UNIT Few people will forget the shots of Genoa looking like a lake of fire in the surrounding darkness with the bursting bombs adding to the terror of the scene. Or the shots of the German planes, looking very close, disintegrating in the sky. Or the coast of France, still occupied by the Germans, approaching the camera as our planes went in for a low-level daylight attack. These shots are part of history and we record some facts about the unit that produced such magnificent, even if horrifying, material. Results were not achieved without cost. Thirteen members of the Unit lost their lives and five were taken prisoner. The story of the R.A.F. Film Unit is a fine one and we are happy to have been able, by courtesy of the Air Ministry, to give this brief account of its activities. the R.A.F. Film Unit was not started until the end of 1941. Its main purpose was to provide a film record of the part played by the R.A.F. in the war, but it was also to provide material and films to outside organisations, to film technical developments that could only, for reasons of security, be shot by R.A.F. personnel, and to make training films for internal consumption. Men and equipment presented problems — A.C.T. helped with the former — but it was not until 1942 that the fifty members of the Unit moved from their one room in the Air Ministry to the airier spaces of Pinewood. Running a film unit on Service lines was no easy job, but under the successive leaderships of W/C Twist, W/C Baird and S/L Moyna this unorthodox set-up was fitted into Technical Training Command. The Unit at Pinewood became known as "No 1 Film Production Unit" and was the base from which all filming at home and overseas was planned. No. 1 FPU was the parent Unit which "fed" the overseas detachments which covered R.A.F. activities in the Middle East, North Africa, Western Europe, U.S.A., Canada, SouthEast Asia, the Azores, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Sicily, Greece, Yugoslavia, Malta, Gibraltar. The units serving abroad covered the M iddle East campaign up to the victory in Tunisia, the AngloAmerican assault on North Africa, the landing in Italy at Salerno, the fall of Rome, the invasion of Southern France and the Greek landings. In S.E. Asia they filmed fighter and bomber operations against the Japanese. In Europe, Unit No. 4 filmed the war from D-Day across Europe into Germany. Unit No. 4 also had the job of filming the evidence of our bomber offensive for use in future operations. It was they who fitted the cameras into the wings of Typhooss and Tempests to cover the sensational rocket attacks. The material thus obtained was of great use to the designers of this new weapon, and to the tacticians who planned its use. At home the Unit was making such films as Operational Height, The Big Pack and Journey Together. These films were primarily designed to make the non-fighting people in the R.A.F. feel that their job was important. One sound film, eight reels in length, was produced to be shown on one or two days only. It happened in July, 1943, when an American officer visited W ,'C Twist and asked for his help on a most urgent matter. The result was that for seven days, with only three breaks for sleep, a section at Pinewood worked continuously, under conditions of the utmost secrecy, to produce a 16 mm. film which, when completed, was immediately flown out to North Africa. The film was a complete sound and visual briefing for the pilots who, a few days later, smashed the great oil centre of Ploesti. Perhaps the most unusual use to which the Unit's productions were put occurred in 1944 when a special request was received from the French for some R.A.F. films to show in the Department of Savoy. The Maquis were in control at the time but they were ringed by the German armies, and when the R.A.F. delivered the films they had to cross the German lines to do so. The films were shown in cinemas at which special collections v/ere made for a Maquis hospital. It was S/L Moyna who persuaded someone to let him fly with a cameraman in 1942. No one liked the idea at all but it was to result in the special film flight in Bomber Command as well as planes specially fitted for cinematography in Coastal Command and the Second Tactical Air Force. The value to the public of the vivid action pictures se:ured by the "Ops." cameramen and shown all over the world does not need to be emphasised, but their value to the Service, perhaps is not so clearly understood. Here are some of the achievements of operational cinematography: On daylight attacks conclusive evidence was obtained of the accuracy and intensity of the bombing and the precise route followed could be examined afterwards to check any deviations from the planned course; films made at night could be examined to show, not only the accuracy and concentration of the attack, but its development— particularly the speed with which the fires built up in the target areas; bombs and bombing gear have been re-designed because FPU pictures revealed weaknesses, previously unsuspected; "chance" shots of technical interest were obtained— e.g. pictures of the "shock waves" of bombs exploding and the German anti-aircraft weapon the "scarecrow". The film that undoubtedly aroused the greatest technical interest was the Unit's record of the sinking of the Tii pit:; the film shows precisely where each of the 12,000 lb. bombs exploded and has been minutely studied, frame by frame, by air, naval and ordnance experts. Another strip of film that made history was secured by an FPU Mosquito that accompanied the first low-level attack on a VI site. Operational cinematography as developed by the Unit is now a permanent Air Force requirement. At Pinewood six small rooms housed the entire organisation for covering all operations of every Command of the R.A.F., nevertheless, there was hardly a single raid of major importance after July, 1943, that was not filmed by an R.A.F. cameraman from Pinewood. The section was in direct contact by "scrambler" telephone with Operational Commands and was kept informed of impending operations: such strict security rules were observed that, when a call about a planned operation was expected, other personnel in the studios were not allowed to use the passage past the Ops. section's rooms. Pinewood was an operational base from which men went straight to war: cameramen who left the studios by car in the morning were in action over occupied territory within a matter of hours; others breakfasted at Pinewood after a night over the Ruhr. Nine members of the "Ops" Section, including S/L Moyna, were awarded the D.F.C. and three others received the Croix de Guerre for their work covering the operations of the famous Lorraine Squadron of the R.A.F. All FPU material was made available to the Newsreel Companies free of cost. On their side, the newsreels co-operated by presenting to the public a fine pictorial record of the work and achievements of the Royal Air Force throughout the war. Extensive use was also made of the Unit's material in the War Pictorial Newsreel, circulating in the Middle East, and, although no statistics are available, it is also known that stories provided by the FPU have been widely used by newsreels in America and other parts of the world. THE SUPPLY OF EDUCATIONAL FILMS (continued from page 21) The probable cost of the scheme alarms some people. Either the right visual material is potentially so valuable that it must be made available — and there is much evidence that this is so — or it is not. If it is, then the problem of costs must be faced. It is important to realise that, since more than 95 per cent of our educational institutions are maintained from the Treasury and Local Council funds, practically all production and distribution costs and profits on educational material, even under unsubsidised speculative enterprise as in the case of textbooks, come ultimately from public funds. But a spate of speculative film production, from which the pattern of educational requirements could be expected to emerge by selective demand, is for various reasons highly improbable. Some form of official action appears to be essential. Planned and commissioned production costs no more than provision by speculative enterprise, even without the guarantee against loss, and may well be the more economical as well as the more efficient way of meeting teaching needs. Those who believe that visual material is valuable in education cannot ignore the issues. THE SCIENTIFIC FILM ASSOCIATION The SFA Catalogue of Films of General Scientific Interest is due to be published at 5/-. Orders are now being taken at the SFA head office, 31 Soho Square, W.l.