On The Home Front
Last updated: 23/01/2007 - 10:06
The Imperial War Museum Collection presents the Britain's Home Front at War Series on DVD.
The Imperial War Museum, in association with DD Home Entertainment, is releasing a new series of DVDs chronicling the lives of the British people on the Home Front during the Second World War.
Wartime Material
Four different titles in the new series will be released on DVD – with each featuring rare and original wartime films focusing on the British Home Front and life in Britain during the war years. From newsreels to Government information films of the era, they offer an unrivalled insight into the British people at war.
The four volumes in this new Britain's Home Front At War series - released 12 February – are: London Can Take It, The Home Guard And Britain's Citizen Army, Women And Children At War and Words For Battle - Writers At War.
London Can Take It features seven different wartime films looking at life in London from the outbreak of war through the Blitz to the V-Bomb menace. It includes Humphrey Jennings' celebrated film London Can Take It. A bonus film: Manchester Took it Too is also included.
The Home Guard And Britain's Citizen Army is a two disc DVD collection featuring no less than thirty different wartime films showing how Britons contributed to the defence of the nation, from joining the Home Guard through to contributing scrap items and 'Digging for Victory'. As a bonus it also features a truly comprehensive collection of short public information films entitled Wartime Food Flashes.
Women and Children At War features no less than fourteen different wartime films looking both at the vital contribution made to Britain's war efforts by women in industry and on the land in organisations - which included the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF), the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS) and the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS). These films also focus on the experiences of evacuee children. Seven further short Public Information Films from the war period are included as a bonus feature.
The full programme includes: Land Girl (1942), Our School (1941), Bampton Shows The Way (1941), Miss Grant Goes To The Door (1940), Westward Ho (1940), Living With Strangers (1941), The Countrywomen (1942) and Workers Weekend (1943).
Words For Battle - Writers At War features no less than eight stirring and inspirational films urging the nation to fight on and to preserve our British heritage and way of life in the face of Nazi tyranny.
The films on this disc include: Words for Battle (Jennings, 1941) - which includes then Prime Minister Winston Churchill's famous 'on the beaches' speech - Lift Your Head Comrade (Hankinson, 1942), The New Britain (1940), Worker and Warfront No. 8 (1943), Britain at Bay (Watt, 1940), Essential Jobs (Page, 1942), Albert's Savings (Purcell, 1940), A Diary for Timothy (Jennings, 1945), and New Towns for Old (Eldridge, 1942).
The Royal Navy
Also of interest to those interested in World War II archive material - though this time not on the Home Front - is another forthcoming release from DD in the shape of exceptionally rare colour film footage of the Royal Navy in action. The Royal Navy at War in Colour is made up of footage shot during the conflict. At that time official cameramen shot little colour footage - and due to secrecy being vital and film stock in any case being scarce - filming by members of the ship's crew was strictly forbidden. However, this rule was occasionally broken and a number of officers did shoot sometimes their own colour film while serving. These unique 'home movies' now provide some of the most remarkable and important colour film of the Navy during the war years.
Much of the material on the DVD has never been seen before and is all the more remarkable for being filmed pre-war or in the war's early years. It was shot by serving officers from the Nelson, the Kent, the Ivanhoe and the Laforey. This includes: precious pre-war film which records the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla in Malta and on exercise in the autumn of 1939, and the ships of the First Battle Squadron and the First Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean that same year.
From spring 1939 comes rare colour film of the warships of the China Station. There are colour scenes of the Navy during the Norwegian campaign of 1940, Malta convoys (including 'Operation Pedestal' and air attack sequences), and splendid colour film of ocean liners converted into troop ships and under escort. Other highlights include a colour film of the carrier Eagle sinking, the Laforey shelling Madagascar and dramatic film of the Nelson sailing under the Forth Bridge, exercising her big guns and scenes of life on board ship.
Among the warships captured here in colour are the carriers Illustrious, Indomitable, Furious and Glorious, the battleships Rodney, Warspite, Barham, Nelson and Queen Elizabeth, the cruiser Birmingham, the destroyers Eskimo, Ashante, Cossack and Hermione and the mine-laying submarine Grampus.
As a bonus the new DVD also includes two rare, colour naval instructional films from the Imperial War Museum Archive which show different methods of co- ordinating a naval bombardment between a cruiser and two Seafires taking an aerial reconnaissance role.
Useful Resources
For more information about the Home Front during the Second World War, the following links may be useful:
For your chance to win a copy of each of these great new titles from DD/IWM follow this link top our Competition Zone.
With a suggested retail price of £15.99 each (£19.99 for the double-disc The Home Guard And Britain's Citizen Army) this series can be ordered direct from DD Home Entertainment, Unit 1, Pool Bank Business Park, High Street, Tarvin, Chester, CH3 8JH. If ordering by mail please add £1.80 towards postage and packing for one disc, £2.75 for two and £3.75 for three or more. Credit card customers can also order copies by ringing the 24 hour DD hotline on 01829 741490 or by visiting www.ddhe.co.uk.
The four new titles in the Britain's Home Front At War collection will be available in all good DVD retailers from Monday 12 February. The Royal Navy at War in Colour is released 19 March.
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