Please view this excellent website containing much information on this unit. Welcome to the Canadian Film and Photo Unit website
Thanks Steve! If anyone has any questions about the website or the images, they can use the Contact page to reach me. Thanks again for your fantastic reenactment story and pictures on the CFPU website
Do any of the WW2 film 'dope sheets' still exist? Is the Canadian Film Archive going to be reconstituted using the Pathe clips?
Hi - yes, some of the dope sheets do exist. I have been able to find some but not all. A lot of the Allied Newsreel companies used each others material, so I have located some NFB, British Movietone, Fox, and ASN dope sheets, but some credit CFPU and some cameramen from the newsreel companies - a lot has been lost in the NFB fire. At some point I hope to gather all of them and post them through the website. In regards to the British Pathe find, no - they are already being housed in the secure British Pathe Archive, digitized, and accessible. I have tried to find out more about their documentation that might accompany the films - its where the dope sheets should be.
I have in mind this film which is partially shot in Cagny (2m:02 and the M10 is Cagny) on 19-20 July 1944. It is not IWM footage and thus must be Canadian.
Hello Steve Ann, interesting subject - and Dale's website is a great help. I started a thread about CFPU a while ago... maybe you want to take a look: Canadian Film & Photo Unit going into battle / Operation Varsity Best Alex
Hi Alex. New to the site and didn't see the original thread. Had a look and really good info and pictures. These people are largely forgotten about these days , so great to see the intrest. What got you into the CFPU stuff. Kind regards Steve.
Hi Steve, I only joined in April, so I'm relatively new to the forum as well. My interest in CFPU started because at the beginning of this year I (locally) published a DVD with footage shot in 1945 in and around my hometown (Wesel in Germany). On 24 March 1945 Canadian paras - and some members of the CFPU - were dropped on a DZ right next to the village where I grew up. And the footage can be seen in Canadian Army Newsreel No. 67. Hence my interest... With best regards, Alex
Wow that's real cool.May I ask, did any of your family have direct contact with the CFPU at the time.
No, my parents were teenagers at the time and lived in other other villages in the area. Civilians were not allowed to move about in the immediate wake of the fighting. They either were confined to the their houses and farm buildings and hid in cellars - if the houses had not burned down. Or, as in Bergerfurth (the hamlet where CFPU-members had landed) the civilian population - a few dozen people - was herded together and confined to one house or larger buidling ... it was a bit of a rough time for civilians. In 1945 "the war had come home" for the Germans.
Thank you Alex for your Frank and honest reply. Yes I would think it not nice to have foreign people in your home no matter which side you where on. Some how I have never considered ww2 cameramen of any side as combatants but just people recording the history unfolding before them. I have an excellent book.... Propaganda Kompanien by Nicolas Ferard. I think it is the best book on ww2 cameramen I have ever seen. It's great to see both sides .
Steve - thanks for the reading suggestion. I think it's a subject worthwhile looking into - combat cameramen of WW 2! Coming back to your initial question - come to think of it I have a photo somewhere showing some civilians just after the Canadians had taken the hamlet of Bergerfurth on March 24, 1945. I'll post it as soon as I can find it. The picture was taken by Lt. Richer of the CFPU...
Found it - and two of them even have a smile for the camera! The man sitting on the ground has a leg prothesis - so he had probably been discharged from the Wehrmacht.
Super photo. After all they have been through and yes still a smile. The ex soldat must be thinking perhaps he is glad his part in the war is over. Thanks for sharing this with us.
Just found this in the Regiment De La Chaudiere war diary for September 1944 calais . 1. Anyone speak french and translate please. I get the idea of it but not exact . 2. Any one know of the film { A guy named Joe} by the CFPU ??
Basically, the text says that a cinema show was on offer, organized by the "Chevaliers de Colomb" (a Catholic welfare organization). The film announced was the one above, as you had already gathered. The second sentence says that 78 men and one officer (Lt. Gagnon) arrived at the bataillon as reinforcements.
That's brilliant, thank you. I did wonder if the CFPU had anything to do with it . Hollywood entertainment for the troops. Cheers for clearing that up. Regards.