Gradually increasing number appearing online at IWM Collections: Sadly, no Piano Soundtrack, but some great footage of an early simulator on rails, from 4:14. Still boggles my mind that these blokes were taking to the Air with Machineguns after barely a decade of powered flight: TAILS UP FRANCE [Main] | Imperial War Museums John Wayne? Pah, we had Robert Morley: COMMANDO - THE STORY OF THE GREEN BERET (long version) [Main] | Imperial War Museums "Veterans of the North African and Syrian campaigns see combat in New Guinea with the 7th Australian Division, 1943-44." : JUNGLE PATROL [Main] | Imperial War Museums Need to prepare a landing on Sicilian Beaches? There's a film for that: COMBINED OPERATIONS: BEACH ORGANISATION [Main] | Imperial War Museums (Good stuff on recovery & Docks Operating Companies etc., as well as that remarkable narrator's voice.) Searching for 'Army Training' under 'Video' is fertile ground, do tell if you encounter any good ones.
Even some Gert and Daisy stuff to satisfy my Burmese urges... [OPERATION RIVER: AIR EVACUATION OF CHINDITS BY SUNDERLAND FLYING BOATS OF 230 SQUADRON RAF] [Allocated] | Imperial War Museums
There is a nice one there of my boys getting ready to go in too. I've seen it before, but always makes me wonder if Grandad might suddenly appear.B) INTO BURMA [Main] | Imperial War Museums
always makes me wonder if Grandad might suddenly appear. IWM's accessible online collection appears to be growing at such a rate, I'd think it might well be worth people keeping more of an eye out for Grandad on there. Prescient Hitler-impersonator here at 5:57, followed by a cowboy... WITH OUR TERRITORIALS AT THE FRONT [Main] | Imperial War Museums 17Lber production/prototyping, Tiger testing (Jerry's got ahead with the Mk. VI!), and some reassurance: a DATE WITH A TANK [Main] | Imperial War Museums SOE explosives - in colour. Must sit down with this and the Agents catalogue to work out what they're using. looks like a fun trip to the woods: [SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE TESTING OF EXPLOSIVE AND INCENDIARY DEVICES FOR SABOTAGE] [Allocated] | Imperial War Museums [SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE TESTING OF EXPLOSIVE AND INCENDIARY DEVICES FOR SABOTAGE] [Allocated] | Imperial War Museums
Giving this a bump as I think the digitised films continue to grow. Most are made up of a number separate, unconnected (I hesitate to say random) clips but come with a narrative to help describe the contents. All I can say is, type in some keywords, places, regiments, operations etc etc and see what you get. Use this link as an example: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=cassino&pageSize=15&filters%5BwebCategory%5D%5Bfilm%5D=on North Africa/Malta/Sicily https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060007095 Sicily /Centuripe https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060006057 Messina https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060006058 Sicily https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060007096 Cassino https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060006072 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060006070 https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060007125 Italy https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060007314 FROM ITALY TO D-DAY [Main Title] Husky Search objects | Imperial War Museums Caen Search objects | Imperial War Museums Plenty more.
I can only talk about the 'A' series 'Normandy'films but every film has an assigned address. That is the film itself is online or there is a placeholder address that is waiting for the film to be uploaded and shows as 'no media available online'. I think the IWM search function is worse than useless for a systematic search and if you look for a specific film and it is not yet uploaded the search will not tell you straight out that it is not uploaded but gives you a barrage of partial/near hits that you have to check one-by-one to discover if it is the actual one you want by elimination. There is no way to check for 'recently uploaded' films either so again if you want to see if the links have become live you have to check each one individually. I use AHF to do this. I compose a 'reply' to a random post and insert a batch of links. Then I preview it and click on each link to see if the film is online. Slow methodical work that I do every month or so. Out of some 664 films I am interested in (A70/30 to the A140s) 374 are online. I have a 'master list' of all the live links and placeholders I compiled the hard way, one-by-one!
Fiddling with the last 5 digits of the URLs is interesting. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060020000 There might conceivably be a link to number range & upload time. Though only if they're working through bookmarked URLs sequentially, which is quite an assumption. Highest saved URLs with no media I've got to are in the 5000s: LAUNCH OF HMS BULLDOG [Allocated Title] Don't really think there's a logical procession, though. Whatever, it's one wildcard way of throwing out random interesting stuff: Noel Coward on the Paris Resistance LE JOURNAL DE LA RESISTANCE [Main Title] And a copy of the True glory. THE TRUE GLORY [Main Title] (Those were shown by sequential single digit url changes. So maybe possible you can find the end of whatever's on there & see if it extends as they upload more.)
A lot of films are sequential numbering but not all. There are also random abrupt changes only to later revert to previous sequencing. In short adding '1' to the last film will not always guarantee you a walk through the films in chronological order.
Confirmed that from first try! Might just lead to a 'latest upload' end of the entire project, though. Now intrigued by the equipment used to get potentially fragile celluloid onto digital. Wonder if it has to run at standard speed. Massively more URLs saved than uploads. Slow old business.
Are some IWM films only on line temporarily ? I watched a Canadian return from 2nd BEF film a while back, went to look today and there is apparently "No media available on line" :-( CANADIAN TROOPS IN PLYMOUTH [Allocated Title] Bamboo had the same problem I see. Is there a policy behind this ?
