Army Film and Photographic Unit

[1] At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, the Ministry of Information controlled and censored publicity related to all military and civil actions.

It was quickly realised that the front line was no place for untrained photographers and cameramen and a call was made to recruit soldiers who had pre-war professional experience with cameras and cine film.

It was at the start of the Alamein offensive that Sergeant Billy Jordan MM, skilfully filmed the opening artillery barrage.

Unit Number 2 covered the campaigns through Tunisia (from which the 1944 documentary Tunisian Victory was made) and then through the landings on Sicily and Italy.

AFPU recorded battles during the Italian campaign and across Western Europe including Monte Cassino, Liberation of Paris, Arnhem, the Rhine Crossing and the discovery of Belsen Concentration Camp.

A member of Number 9 Unit films Indian troops crossing a river during the Burma Campaign 1944–45 . Meiktila , Burma, 1945
Sergeant W A Greenhalgh, Army Film and Photographic Unit, with his jeep during Exercise 'Fabius', Hayling Island 6 May 1944