British Pathe

Titles read: "OUR GREAT ADVANCE - MIDDLE EAST OFFENSIVE".

Middle East.

Several shots of Allied tanks moving through the desert in their advance in to Libya. L/S of aircraft overhead. ME 109 aircraft at a dispersal point at Fuka Airfield; they are all partly damaged. Also a Gotha glider...

Titles read: "OUR GREAT ADVANCE - MIDDLE EAST OFFENSIVE".

Middle East.

Several shots of Allied tanks moving through the desert in their advance in to Libya. L/S of aircraft overhead. ME 109 aircraft at a dispersal point at Fuka Airfield; they are all partly damaged. Also a Gotha glider that has been pranged. M/S of General Ritter von Thoma, Commander of the Afrika Korps, being escorted to Advance Headquarters where he shakes hands with Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery.

General view of Mersa Matruh as we travel towards it. Tanks move into the town and soldiers start searching bombed buildings for remaining Germans. One building is labelled 'Marks and Spencers Laundry'! They flush out three Germans. Wrecked ship in Mersa harbour with wrecked Dornier in foreground. Lines of German and Italian prisoners coming in. C/U of a pile of German tin helmets. Tank moving on through Mersa.

A convoy of trucks, Bren gun carriers and other equipment moves through floodwater in the desert. Three Italian soldiers shelter from the rain under the wing of a crashed plane. Infantry advance, boots sinking into the mud as they march. We see a collection of disbanded ME 109s and German field guns. Burning German equipment in the desert.

Our Bren gun carriers and trucks move through Sidi Barrani and the Halfaya Pass. Long lines of German prisoners are brought in and put aboard trains to be taken for internment.

Good air to air shots of a squadron of Mitchell bombers dropping their bombs which explode in the sand below. German fighter goes down in flames.

British troops enter Tobruk. They meet surrendering Germans on the roadside. C/U of a small cat on a deserted road. The Nazi swastika flag is lowered and the Union Jack is raised. Soldiers cheer.

Men of the desert minesweepers are seen at work, laying tapes and using detectors to clear a path through a minefield. Good footage of infantry advance through heavy shelling and smoke. Captured German and Italian prisoners are led on foot and transported in trucks back towards British lines.

Several shots of explosions flashing in a desert night barrage. Daytime barrage with large explosions going off across the desert. An enormous mass of Italian prisoners walk in behind a British tank. General Montgomery climbs aboard a tank and looks through binoculars.