BATTLE FILM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1942, Page 2

BATTLE FILM

DEEDS OF NEW ZEALAND DIVISION SCENES IN CRETE AND LIBYA. FIRST SCREENING IN CAIRO. (N.Z.E.F. Official News Service.) CAIRO. April 4. General Auchinleck was among those who attended a. private screening of New Zealand Army film unit production, "Return to the Attack. ’ With him were the Chief of the General Staff, Middle East, several senior British officers, and New Zealand officers, including Brigadiers Stevens and Falconer. Graphically portraying the historic events in which the Second N.Z.E.F. has taken part in the past twelve months, the film opens with scenes of the battle of Crete, with billowing parachutes swarming from the sky over Malcmi, the crash of shells and mortar tire, and a visit to the battlefield of General Student, Commander of the Seventh Fleircr Division. These are some of the highlights taken from a Nazi film later captured in Libya. In the next sequence British warships. stream into an Egyptian port, bringing back survivors, thousands of New Zealanders. The re-equipment and hard training of the New Zealanders which followed under the expected desert conditions is vividly shown, before the film sweeps .into a graphic pictorial account of the second Libyan campaign. It follows the varying fortunes of the New Zealanders as they pressed from the wire on the frontier to Azzeiz, to Capuzzo, to Sidi Rezegh, to the Tobruk corridor, where it shows the joining of hands with the Tobruk garrison, then forward with the Fifth Brigade to Gazala. Then the film returns to survey the destruction left in the wake of the advance, and sums up an undeniable credit in the balance-sheet of destruction. To the New Zealanders it was a balance-sheet of revenge. The battle scenes, realistically portrayed, were taken by cameramen on I the spot. Graphic sound effects add to the realism. Much of the material for this remarkable film was supplied through the co-operation of British, South African and Australian war 1 photographers. . < Throughout is a descriptive sound ' commentary spoken by A. L. Curry, formerly chief announcer at 3YA and now correspondent with the New Zealand Army broadcasting unit. It is intended to show the film to all ranks of the Second N.Z.E.F. by medium of the mobile cinema unit of the Patriotic Funds Board. It is also to be sent to New Zealand and elsewhere.