The 'Lost' D-Day Documentary

Discussion in 'NW Europe' started by Charley Fortnum, Mar 20, 2017.

  1. Charley Fortnum

    Charley Fortnum Dreaming of Red Eagles

    The Normandy Landings are not my field and I've no idea how truly 'lost' this footage was, but some of it is very smooth and easy on the eye for 1944 film and I had never seen it before - apologies if most have you have.
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    Four reels, discovered by researchers at the Eisenhower Library in 2014, were found to contain the first ever documentary of the D-Day landings. Intended as an initial report and produced in only days, the film was screened for military leadership and is mentioned in OSS reports as having been viewed by Winston Churchill, with copies 'flown to President Roosevelt and Mr. Stalin.'

    Apparently forgotten in the climactic weeks and months that followed, the film was cataloged as separate, non-sequential reels rather than a single production. The film, lost and forgotten for decades, was digitized by the US National Archives and I have done my best to restore and enhance the footage.



    More about the film and it's discovery can be read on the US National Archive's blog:

    The First D-Day Documentary
     
    Chris C, Tolbooth, Buteman and 4 others like this.
  2. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

    Thanks for posting,always interesting to browse any official records.

    The colour documentary by George Stevens on the Normandy landings and the operations ending in the defeat of the The Third Reich entitled "D Day to Berlin"was first shown by the BBC for the 40th Anniversary of D Day after the recording had been found by his son.

    Stevens was detailed to record the operations with black and white film being the only film available.However with a background in the motion picture industry,he was able to access colour film and filmed the operations in colour...a first class account of the last year of the European land operations to final victory.

    I recorded it and have watched it from time...the film unit were regularly directed to sites of particular interest that had been overrun....one such site was the entry of the US Army into the Dora V2 complex at Nordhausen which I think the Allies knew little about....no record of intelligence previously revealed and I do not think the site was ever discovered by aerial reconnaissance.
     
    canuck likes this.
  3. canuck

    canuck Closed Account

    Any idea who the narrator is?
     
  4. m kenny

    m kenny Senior Member

    It is bits of various reels from British, Canadian & US photographers spliced together. As such nothing is 'new' rather the way the clips are arranged is different from other films. There is very little chance of really 'new' footage being discovered.
     

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