British Pathe

Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Civilian POWs return home from Korea.

Titles reads: "First dramatic pictures by Pathe News cameramen in Korea and Britain record the repatriation of prisoners from the Communists."

LV. De Havilland Hastings aircraft landing at Abingdon (first 23' for super) LV....

Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Civilian POWs return home from Korea.

Titles reads: "First dramatic pictures by Pathe News cameramen in Korea and Britain record the repatriation of prisoners from the Communists."

LV. De Havilland Hastings aircraft landing at Abingdon (first 23' for super) LV. Crowd surging forward to greet freed internees. LV. Crowd round 'plane. SV. Pan Salvation Army men and women waving flags and hands. SV. Captain Vyvyan Holt leaving 'plane. SV. Capt. Holt being enthusiastically greeted. Commissioner Herbert Lord (bearded) followed by George Blake also with beard, who walks over and greets wife SV. Bishop Cooper, followed by Monseigneur Thomas Quinland descending steps. CU. Quinland being greeted. SV. Pressmen on plane gangway. SCU. Pan Bishop Cooper walking away. LV. Newsreel cameramen. SV. Pan down poor quality clothes of one of returning internees. GV. Capt Holt and George Blake being interviewed. SV. Well, Capt. Holt. Capt Holt: Thank you, it's very nice to be back and I'm very happy to have been brought home by the R.A.F. which always gets you out of a jam. CU. Holt: Well we had both pleasant and unpleasant memories of our treatment. When the country itself was in difficulties of course it was not possible for them to treat us with the same consideration as later. Father Quinland "We had a wonderful trip through Manchuria - across the trans-Siberian railway. But heaven began when we got to Moscow where his Excellency the British Ambassador met us and the Ambassadorial staff. And they gave us a very wonderful time." CU. Commissioner Lord. (10' lead in for voice) Lord: We lived in a Korean house and our food I think was probably greater in quantity and better in quality than the great majority of the ordinary Korean people were getting. Int: But there wasn't a great deal of it. I imagine by that Lord: There was sufficient - it wasn't our type of Food - but we were taken by the Koreans, but we couldn't expect better than the Koreans were having
(Orig. Neg.)
N.B. Yes this is the George Blake - sentenced in 1961 as a Communist spy and thought to have been brainwashed during his time held in Korea.