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Video Royal Navy at War - A Sailor's View - King George V Class Battleships 1941-42


SallysDad

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I used to have a few of the videos ,from the great  Late Roland Smith ( who served in WW2 )

- Arguably the finest series of documentary films about the RN in WW2 ever made. Footage rescued largely from decaying film that was found deteriorating in damp Admiralty basements in the 1990s.

There wasn't a great deal of official naval footage in the first place, nowhere near as much as there is for the RAF, and a good deal of valuable footage was lost even before Roland Smith was given permission to transfer what was saveable to videotape.

All seven DVDs in this series were remastered from the original tapes after Roland's death in 2003, and the series renamed from Roland's original NVTC titling by the company that re-released them.

All are masterpieces in their own right.

We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Roland, and the folks then at the IWM that helped him, for these few precious hours of film that we do have.

These volumes stand as a testament to the memory of all those who never survived that war to see their old ships as we can , a great series

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23 hours ago, 73north said:

I used to have a few of the videos ,from the great  Late Roland Smith ( who served in WW2 )

- Arguably the finest series of documentary films about the RN in WW2 ever made. Footage rescued largely from decaying film that was found deteriorating in damp Admiralty basements in the 1990s.

There wasn't a great deal of official naval footage in the first place, nowhere near as much as there is for the RAF, and a good deal of valuable footage was lost even before Roland Smith was given permission to transfer what was saveable to videotape.

All seven DVDs in this series were remastered from the original tapes after Roland's death in 2003, and the series renamed from Roland's original NVTC titling by the company that re-released them.

All are masterpieces in their own right.

We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Roland, and the folks then at the IWM that helped him, for these few precious hours of film that we do have.

These volumes stand as a testament to the memory of all those who never survived that war to see their old ships as we can , a great series

 

Thank you for filling in the background to these videos.  I have the one on the East Indies and British Pacific Fleets.  Great to see that film footage of some of the less well-known RN warships still survives.  But the jewel in the crown is US footage from USS Saratoga as she took her leave of the Eastern Fleet: coverage IN COLOUR of Renown, Warspite, Valiant, Richelieu and many more as each in turn passes Sara to cheer ship.

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  • 8 months later...
On ‎14‎/‎12‎/‎2017 at 12:52 PM, Papa4ways said:

Pity the Video is no longer on Youtube, I'd have loved to have seen it, I'm just doing a lot of finishing off on the 1/350 scale model of this great ship

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-Navy-War-Sailors-Battleships/dp/B0012GPKVK

 

Here you go - better on DVD anyway :)

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On 19/12/2017 at 11:49, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Thanks very much for the link Jamie, it really is very much appreciated, and I will be getting a copy of the DVD

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7 hours ago, Papa4ways said:

Thanks very much for the link Jamie, it really is very much appreciated, and I will be getting a copy of the DVD

There's some nice footage of Anson in the Firth of Forth in there too, just after leaving Wallsend. I *think* there's quite a bit of footage of Howe in Clydebank too.

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