North West Film Archive and Channel 4 are working together to track down soldiers who appear in fascinating archive footage shot in India and Burma during WW2. If you are a veteran, a member of their family or a friend – we want to hear from you!
Calling Blighty is a series of short films made between 1944 and 1946. Servicemen and women who were battling in horrendous conditions against the Japanese were filmed sending personal messages home to their family and friends. Once finished, the films were shipped to Britain where the soldiers’ friends and relatives were invited to their local cinema to watch them on the big screen. The films were designed to provide a much needed boost to morale for soldiers and their families back home, many of whom hadn’t seen each other for years.
Of the nearly 400 reels originally shot, only a small number survive – of these, 25 feature service men and women from the North West – nearly 600 people in total.
Now North West Film Archive has launched a project which aims to find the featured veterans, their comrades, families and friends. It will bring them together to share their stories and, 70 years on, watch the films again.
We know that the six soldiers below all recorded messages for home and served in 2nd Battalion, The Manchester Regiment, perhaps you may have known them?
Frank Dimond
3533865
A (Frank) Flaherty
3535430
Arthur Pyatt
3533086
H Greenhalgh
4130602
C Potter
3535379
J C Spencer
3532264
Please go to
www.nwfa.mmu.ac.uk/blighty/index.php and search for any WW2 Burma Campaign veterans you know. If you find someone you recognise, please contact NWFA and help to reconnect the people to the films. Email
[email protected] or phone Marion Hewitt on 0161 247 3097.
A documentary about Calling Blighty and the Burma Campaign is being made for broadcast on Channel 4 early in 2016.
