And 6944 american canadian and british cameraman and photographers landed on the beaches of normandy alongside the 150000 men from the allied forces. Around 20 of these reporters soldiers were british and when asked by the services of the army to film the parts of the Operation Overlord that were covered by the british troops between we stream and arrow moms 3 sections that were named juno sword and gold an armed nearly protected their battle be a battle of images that will serve the allied propaganda and will become part of history. When reporting. First difficult scenes of em on jobs and better job making their final preparations before the attack seems taken a few hours before general eisenhower was going to get a number one tells us that the 2nd front and open. The outbreak of the 2nd bout will in britain there was not a single a cameraman well all newsreel filming was done by newsreel companies it took some time until the leaders of they armed forces in britain could be persuaded that there were advantages to allowing cameras to record events for reasons of morale propaganda at home but also very important lay propaganda abroad the Army Film Unit was created in november 1940 the people recruited to become cameraman well all men who had some form of military service the belief was held very strongly that to be a good cameraman you had 1st to be a good soldier. And the soldier could be trained to use a camera the cameraman was sent to Pinewood Studios for a tweak. So this is the divide camera used by most of the common man at normandy you either wind the camera like this you want to quote what mechanism. Feel. There is a gulf in up which means if you can go roughly the right speed that you pick up as well. So obviously it requires some skill by the cameraman to get a regular motion to make sure the film goes past the lens at the correct speed. When sergeant grant was coming in on the Landing Craft tank he noticed to the left of him that there was a Landing Craft that coming in that he got hit by shell was in flame because he had hed been trying to pinewood to keep this eye open he noticed this action off the side and he moved across and filmed the Landing Craft in flames. So what they were trying to do was have a very simple shot selection which had a narrative within it so you have 3 shots which is the 1st shot as an establishing shot establishing shot as a wide shot and then you have a mid shot and then you have a closeup for interest and that automatically collect creates a very simple narrative and they were told always to think in story time on d. Day we have on troops well armed with all the latest weapons with rations for 2 days and a Little French money not mr moore they went on with the spirit of victory and already the brilliant success of their work in the opening phase of the battle is well known. The other thing is the amount of film they had at normandy they had 10 rows of 100 feet of film which is about 10 minutes or so maybe a little bit more about 12 minutes of film they didnt know when they were going to get more film that in there they could be shot by the end of the day so see they had to be very careful about what they would shoot had to be very judicious very sensible they didnt have hours of videotape that they could just shoot whatever they liked so they always were thinking what should i shoot what was the most important thing for me to record here or so they had to consider how the film would be used so this is one of the reasons perhaps that cameraman didnt shoot scenes of dead british soldiers or wind old very badly wounded british soldiers because they suspected it wouldnt be used by the news related to. Cash or his doing the landings weve been telling well less than had been expected in a well known it received 1st aid on the beaches themselves and many us with the evacuation. Of some of the noise it was a case of getting hit right at the beginning of the battle for the beaches and then home again to recover. The 1st cameraman to land was delusional those who came ashore at 745. And within 15 minutes others were coming. In grant landed with the command. The inside landed. The leslie as a means. Then sergeant christy. Landed with the glider troops. Others were deployed to cover juno and derek knight was based on one of the large Landing Craft and came ashore later quite a few who came ashore after the 1st way. Jimmy map took the best known british photographs of the d. Day landings. And one of them was described by American Forces at the time as the best image of d. Day. The thing about george law that struck me was that he he seemed to have an instinctive feel for how to maneuver around a battlefield he looked like the most unlikely person that you would find in a combat zone and he wore glasses. He wasnt a very beefy person but he knew how to get himself to where he needed to be to take the photograph and he managed to do it with minimum of fuss. A few d. Day the photographers couldnt get too far out of contact with the beaches themselves because they had to get their films back to britain and the pressure was on to get that film back quickly. The. And they had to keep notes of who what where and when. And so they wont just photographers they were also a form of journalist once that data all came back with the photographs themselves censorship was applied now that meant that the water ordinances didnt necessarily get all the facts the 1st photographer had noted down and it also meant that the interpretation of that fetch graphic might not be factual for talk for himself that originate ascribed to it. As a curator one of the things im required to do is to assess the significance of a photograph. First of all whether it is what it claims to be and then whether it. How far it goes in actually giving a true representation of the event that it claims to represent. We are on our way out so youre seeing each enormous one of the very few that certain photographers sufi army film through traffic you know. To sort service in the fronts of the 144. 00. So if he says. How did the super icons work well this is a prewar camera. It was a very good shabbos. You came into the war with professional training with a trade is not a robinsons burstall approach yeah i was working you the war office when. I was. Yes and i was working on a skill group of prisoners of war right i was in the. Moral office all get lost all transfer transferred myself in the army field to write the finished occupied wood so i didnt get a cough only that. But about 4 months off to run his and when you came to france can you remember where you came ashore so there are more you can then you came ashore. And what was the scene like when you 1st landed. A lot of. The poetess. Several. Sometimes a lot of them over under 6 isaac. I must say that you know i was so interested in the 3rd graphic because there were some people who just shot pictures like bang bang bang to try and compose everyone to. George to talk reasserts. And these these pictures just. In. The seeds and papers that. Actually happening then and then. Oh i did shoot 1st caught german the. Only picture of a. Waltz and sets up but otherwise it was always action photography. I joined about one year after the unit was formed it was formed in 1900 to one for training cameramen i was the 1st sound. Absolutely malard bird to see whats coming next. Job is called sound camera operator because the sound is photographic so the machine is called a camera not a recorder. Our job was to record it and you never knew what we were going to what was going to come next and nothing was rehearsed we just went and shot whatever was available you know all that material was shipped back to Pinewood Studios and its the job of the sound editor whos on the production to align the picture with the sound its not the job of the sound recordist as such so they had quite a job sorting out material we recorded over 100000 feet of sound effects the system was that wed go to battle headquarters in the morning to find out whether theres likely to be any fighting and then we will a map of europe or a large scale that will go down to where we could see some of our troops mingle amongst them and see what was happening asked them what they were going to do that day and make some recordings in appropriate fashion. And peter hanfords job at the time he was a sound mixer before the war he was a very keen amateur photographer and that was his main trash so having been trained in sound and having a great knowledge photographer he was a very useful person for a film unit. And 6 june i was a farmer studios lot. Of film i was working on at the time but we were frustrated because we couldnt do much about this. Peter hanfords was over on d. Day one of the 1st to land on may be. The main aim was to get some troops on the ground and get the battle going and get what photographs you can mainly still of that theres a little bit of a syndicate of course movie but theres absolutely no sound whatsoever. Off the wall finish. I went into the film and id made quite a number of feature films. Success if you can call it that says it was 2 particular Television Series one was the st then we did the film show called the persuaders with tony curtis and roger moore. I was called up into the Royal Artillery actually and i was sent out to the middle east for the 7th tommy in the desert. I applied for a transfer to the Army Film Unit and. Only when the war was finished in north africa did i get the transfer and they transferred me back to cairo and within 2 weeks hamas back in. With one of the english regiments. We were landing in sicily and that was that was a piece of cake there was no no real problems with dad it quite easily and we went through sis and the and the next place we had to go was no which was a bit dicey but fortunately it wasnt as bad as the dantons in europe and france. The funny thing about about making the seaborne land an issue always scared before you step on land and when you settle in and you get a kind of a reassurance but then you were exposed so the next thing to do was to go and get cover. To camera and used to Work Together film camera man which i did and still camera man we had there were a jeep. And we just drove around and the fortunate thing about being a film camera man is at the end of a day shooting you could pull back about 5 or 6 kilometers away from all the trouble and get a decent months worth but apart from that theres very much like. Being a soldier. Going. Around. I think you angles whatever you did was was reflected by the condition in which you were filming i mean if there was bullets coming all over the place you want the sound up and trying to get them us angle on the thing you just photograph one way or possibly because we had to use our own judgment to what to film and what not to film. Most obviously you dont go around film and dead. Thats. A very negative way of doing things no we were we were trying to film action. Soldiers actually and that shouldnt have guns firing. Whatever we thought would be newsworthy weve filmed ive seen are you have seen some of the footage. That theyd filmed on the day yes it was very go theres one particular shot i remember from the back of a landing barge when the doors came down the men rush forward very good shot. At it must have been pretty tough on the day. You know this house for fortunately i miss that. No one else can ever be wholly truthful and wholly objective the human mind human memory isnt like that we remember things in a selective way. The more pressure wear on the more stressed one of the more our vision is narrowed and people will remember things differently depending on the amount of time that has elapsed since the event so any event will have a whole series of individual memories people talk about things and put them together and they then form a collective that i know from that collective memory isnt the same as individual memories added together. And. I think that its usually possible to identify the style of different cameraman. Cameramen have particular ways of doing things they have shots that they particularly like they compose things in a particular way there is a sort of style that cameramen develop and i think that you can very often as a historian when youre looking at work make some deductions as to who might have shorted from the style of the work that youre saying. The 1st news reel that was issued by british may be to a new user on the 8th of june so its 2 days off to the invasion its unusual because the look the item covering the d. Day landings is actually the 2nd the last item so its the climax is away in a way of the film but its strange because actually theres very little dog or very little commentary mainly what the editors have done is theyve blended oh theyve synchronized the scenes of the landings with beethovens 5th symphony. Actually its much more like the german approach to the news or that its saying if you look at look at the did you know its a vulcan chart indeed which is the 14th of june 19th 44. 00 which is the german these are the kind of the d. Day landings the music the music and the editing is almost symphonic. Things we. Cant confirm the been done. So its obviously very emotive its a very powerful way of linking images of sound and you know many people 18 if you like the audiences emotions in a way the movie has adopted a similar technique in order to promote the success of data and then on the 12th of june which is the next issue covers gives a much fuller account of the d. Day landings with a full commentary full explanation much more detail if you beam come on down with admiral ramsey who. My tremendous responsibility looking at is. Not to strike once more on his own enemy rama for me it had to do or is to be did gentleman. By the time that the not and number of the 5th section had been set up of the army from photographic unit that the policy was the units policy was that there would be no reenacting theyll be no faking so i know that when i watch the material at normandy i know that its all real theres no reenactment taking place that doesnt mean to say that we dont get some impact upon the scene created by the presence of the cameraman for example when you watch the film of Desmond Oneill the real of him all of the commandos look at the camera they cant help looking the camera even though desmond they own sergeant grant us the man not to look at the camera when they were filming them because of course looking at the camera is the way you break the artifice of cinema in the british army there was an unwritten set of guidelines about how you present all represent corpses you didnt show british dead or allied dead and you didnt show the dead civilians or civilians in distress they knew that these scenes wouldnt be used by the newsreels so given that they only had a very small amount of stock 10 rolls of film so about 10 to 12 minutes of film there was no point filming scenes that wouldnt have any use however there is one scene which is shot by i think its. On juno beach where a film some dead canadians of the longshore regiment in the water just near the shore now if you didnt look very closely you wouldnt realize that this was a dead body its very discreet its a mid show your cameraman is about 10 feet away from the body and theres lots of other rubbish or flotsam and jetsam in the water so thats the only shot ive come across in all of the neat normandy coverage shot by the british cameraman that include scenes of a of a dead allied soldier. The americans covered it very differently they were much more candid so the film shot by us signal corps and u. S. Marine corps cameraman of the landings at beach show not only a dead american soldiers they also show american soldiers being shot obviously a combat record of what happened the d. Day is an authentic record it has great authenticity it was shot at the time who by men who were there at the time who familiar with the surroundings who try to capture all recalled the scenes that they could to the best of their ability they couldnt record sound and all the cameramen all the soldiers remarked on the fact that the noise as they approached the beaches was enormous it was a crescendo it was the biggest noise theyd ever heard and lot of the cameraman talked about how frustrated they were that they werent able to record the sound and although the film was recorded mute and the editors would lay soundtracks on afterwards we know that post thinking sound is not an authentic or truthful way to record actual sound basically you can only the sound editor can only create an approximation of what really happened and sound is absolutely crucial to the impression of Normandy Beach or. The other thing is that there are only 7 cameraman stretched along quite long bit of beach they could only of record a certain perspective of what was happening. And i suppose the last thing i would say is that of course although it was a very pure form of documentary their presence undoubtedly did in fact impact upon the surroundings to a certain extent so for example we have the soldiers looking at the camera and to a certain extent the soldiers acted in front of the camera one of the really interesting things i noticed about the soldiers in the Landing Craft tended to adopt a very brave nonchalant stature almost as if theyre performing in front of the camera now all of the soldiers talks about how nervous they were when they approached the Normandy Beaches many of them fell sick some of them were sick and they were undoubtedly full of anticipation but none of the soldiers who were filmed by the cameraman on the on the in the boats as they approached the no many beaches convey any of that fair to the camera now returning to the combat film that was shot by the cameraman on sword and juno and go beach we only ever see the perspective from the invading forces now thats an authentic record because in fact for a soldier you never see the enemy you only ever see the enemy dead or as a captive so thats very authentic but its not truthful because of course a battle involves 2 groups of men fighting each other. To do 2 more the dutch even more Historical Documents need to be treated with care more the story and the detail of the does it come from yet we shot it where when and why i came a more. Through of them and we all know that if you choose certain images over others if you read it to him in a certain way if you had certain sounds of music you can tell a completely different story the on the short but then more into our. Should is already did and im one of those who believe that if we need to have this sort of educational approach towards the viewer it is because the cities they need to think that an image isnt something you just receive you need to analyze it. Saw as you saw like the case all make. Up a wide. Its clear that there are 2 aspects of the images captured by the cameraman filming the landing. And later on the in lynn operation in the images as they were shot and then you have the way they are used for instance we. Are not going to show british or american soldiers execute germans who have surrendered they dont show that. The. However they are going to shoot and show images glorifying the courage of the allied troops in the. Book you can see it through the choices that are made by the cameraman. Yeah yeah clearly think hes a thief and all sweet and then those images are sent and edited with music and narration that serves and thats understandable in a time of war that serve the interest of their propaganda. Was. I got one vacation historical day forced by moscow americans and they got a lot on the way to the legion but germany remains under guard in my view on the government even if they are trained in baghdad the events of june 6th 1904 from the middle of the night into the end of the day are told in a completely organized way it was essential for the german propaganda to never present the events in a chaotic way and to use narrated sequences instead of possible that even if any of them go when you try watching the enemys approach and transmit their position alert to do so they are going to use old images often videos of military drills and insert them in order to get a continuous progression from the middle. The night with the 1st commandos until the end of the operations of the 1st day. There are also images that were indeed shot on that day and that are authentic he says were out so. Theres from nova scotia. The authenticity of these images was easy to verify because they provided a number of compelling element yet it could also see. For instance when you see the pictures of the canadian prisoners who were held at the art in the abbey you can see the camera zooming in on the patches of the soldiers on the regiment number on their military papers so that any viewer would think what is true is that it could be fabricated since the canadians and americans could themselves verify that the prisoners were indeed there if you continue to get if you can i just you know i just like to get. It. And i was able to place we dont need a lot of time i was a kid here we have the British Press for instance the times of london newspaper. Here you go oh yeah here we have the issue from june 7th 1944 nothing really stands out at 1st you just have this on the top right corner saying that the great assault has begun to feel is all i dont mean to do and you need to open the paper not in 1st or 2nd page but all the way to page 8 above the crossword puzzle. With a selection of 5 photos showing the different aspects of the landing on the one picture shows the allied fleet at dawn on june 6th 1944 this one here you can see all the ships stationed off the coast of normandy. Here the Defense System of the beaches its interesting because you can see all the fortifications built on the beaches. And the 3 other pictures show the preparations that british troops boarding the ships about crossed the channel and the last one with canadian flag to show that the americans and british were not the only ones in gauged in these operations canada also took an important part in these events of june 6th 1941 that we did. Not a word about the presence of french soldiers there were some who took part in the operations with the british commandos the famous keeper commandos here we have the front page of the daily sketch from june 8th you can see the troops landing in normandy. This newspaper isnt bad shape but on pages 4 and 5 we have very interesting photographs. Look at those 3 days after the landing heres what the british war reporters and probably some americans too they were taken from the american section to the beach have decided to send to the newspaper when it clears and it would clear the planet a little difficult you cant see the actual landing the pictures are taken from the ships away from the shore without showing the british or american soldiers fighting on the beaches the difficulty group. The idea is to show that the landing is going well theres no mention of casualties or captured soldiers just give us who they dont talk about what happened on omaha beach. They dont talk about the 3000 casualties in this sort of like he did back. When they only saw the Landing Craft full of soldiers. They dont show the fights and the deaths nor the temporary American Cemetery in omaha whod have us we must leave the operations are going well massively. The idea is to reassure the populations and the Political Authority on oil. Wealth and here we have a british magazine translated into french so aimed at french readers called ensemble the 1st issue came out in july 944. 00 that its on those that so whats interesting is that there are lots of pictures of the landing of the old who got sick with a commentary by a french soldier malise shohei who landed with the british troops within the french kieffer commandos and with the chavez militia they keep explaining minute by minute the 1st 2 hours of the landing forcibly turning on a comb although fawcett on Public Affairs keep speaking minute by minute see do for me also to do the whole fuel swap meets. If. You can keep. Those a sleepy little piece. Of a sunday for you. Id like to go see the city as. It would give. Us enough. Sleep while some sleep. Is something just stuck. On the seat of. The evening of the 5th of june we boarded close to southampton. And we made our way along the canal between the our and the white and the coast that they look. For quite a 1000000 there the secret had been very well kept because there was a young soldier on board and he told me this is a big drill i told him the big drill is tomorrow in france his face turned completely white we were 177 divided into 2 let me crafts the 523 and the 527 where kiefer was the last was home and shit that was on shuffle to make you fail. People it was our guys had spent the night in the bottom of the Landing Craft the sea was very rough many were sick the moral was low. Many were seasick the male. Who were who pointed me out your as the sun rose we began to discern the coast i remember the fog that was something we were coming home all. We could see our land it was an emotional moment you know. At 1st we didnt get head at all but close to the shore the 527 gets hit by a mortar shot right in the front of the craft in a tube we were forced to jump into the water from the top of the Landing Craft. When i believe we lost a lot of men on the beach i lost one of my units the adventure unit you dont know if. Thats 15 men. Until no. Lucia mustnt song until all aboard the 523 we got very lucky we landed. I mean michel our mission was to get from the rallying point to the casino or leave this group because he knew. They made their way without trouble on to the route to leone. Thank you and while we were attacking each and every bunker on the beach. Syriac and alan when i saw a british camera man called sergeant laws i found out his name later when i met him again he was filming on the route to leo mainly the encounters between the french soldiers and the civilians. In the casino was an important objective because that was the point of command for all of the bunkers it was incapacitated thanks to the tanks of the key for commandos we were able to destroy the cameroons and the next morning the british troops completed the assault on the casino not there yet they told the list the old leader then the. British. On the morning of june 6th we had 10 killed and 36 injured who were evacuated to recreate. The commandos or a volunteer unit to do the day we could hear of you could quit whenever you wanted to no questions asked less. Like kiefer said before we boarded. You know what to expect. If some of you want to leave come and tell me i wont hold it against you. And nobody laughed. You know you go to war for your country i dont go to war for funny because war is a disaster. People die on each side and even when its your enemy who dies youre not with a happy sink people die is not fun at all is the way if you fold it to. Feel. It. Few feet. In grants georgia law the other reporter soldiers after the war have resumed their photographer in temperamentally. In 1985 peter hand for sound engineer received an oscar for his work on out of africa and the day leslie evans dick leather barrow is a minnow neo or injured on the beach on the ground oneills camera kept rolling norman clegg landed on south beach with the 6 commando was killed several days later and come for the. On june 6th 1904 cameramen from the british army only had 80 minutes worth of film have to dispose. They were able to shoot 40 minutes and only 3 minutes was shown in the cinema. From the movie tone news narrating the events of d. Day. The 1st. If. The lifeline a connection to. The river of spirits that protects us. Along the canadian amazon. The river still budgets neutral claims. The communist government has big plans to develop the region. To the horror of the financial indigenous peoples. The flow such slums to the. Rock and. Cut. Sinful school condemned by the church. I know the evil feeling that you feel when you fight. Your past music. Stop hold no one is more popular than. Good religious morality preachers subversive talkers battle with sound marketing potential by placing a warning label on music quad outs. For auction and religion a clash that brings many clubs to light. Are the 2 really so irreconcilable. Rock n roll storage june 70 t. W. This is deja vu news live from berlin President Trump ailes the British American alliances the greatest the world has ever known the president promising britons was a quote phenomenal post brecks a trade deal before welcoming Prince Charles and other dignitaries of the u. S. Ambassadors residence in long. And today on the final day of a state visit the president