A 1960 black and white episode (#484) of the TV series “The Big Picture.” This, the first of two installments on the North African campaign of World War II, utilizes newsreel footage to illustrate the Western Desert campaign and the Battle of El Alamein (TRT 28:38).
Title card: “Oran July 1940” over battleships at sea (0:21). French sailors in navy caps run across a dock. Battleships fire. Explosions in the water. A cannonade. Montage of naval combat (0:27). Frenchmen working on the smoky docks. Cannonfire and a tower of smoke over a destroyed Vichy battleship (0:42). Opening credits. A white streak of light orbits a spinning globe. Titles: “The Big Picture” (1:19). A large truck is unloaded from a ship. A tightly packed assembly of tanks (1:49). A canon is unloaded, followed by a tank (2:03). Continuous track tanks roll through the mud. Italian trucks in the deserts of Egypt (2:21). Italian soldiers under Graziani march into Libya, carrying weapons (2:52). Royal Air Force planes flying in formation (3:11). Map overlay of Libya, Egypt, and the Mediterranean Sea over Italian M13/40 tanks and cannonfire (3:20). Black smoke on the horizon. Soldiers crawl and run for cover (3:52). Aerial view of the Libyan Desert (4:10). British soldiers hammer together a barricade. Machine guns. Barbed wire (4:17). Maps and radio receivers. British artillery for Operation Compass (4:37). British tanks (5:06). A town on the Mediterranean Coast. Anti-tank artillery. A canon aims (5:22). A British soldier blows a whistle. Montage of cannonfire (5:41). Benghazi. Trucks near Atiq Mosque (6:03). Waving arms and the British flag. Huddled masses of Italian prisoners of war after the Battle of Beda Fomm (6:16). Montage of tanks and gunnery at rest. Destroyed planes and sunken ships (6:45). Marching soldiers smile. Children play in a piazza. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie in a pith helmet (7:18). Nazi soldiers march past an equestrian statue. Erwin Rommel inspects the troops in Libya circa early 1941 (7:40). Trucks of the 5th Panzer regiment line the streets. The Deutsche Afrika Korps (DAK) marches. A medal is awarded. Shots are administered from a hypodermic needle to a line of DAK soldiers (7:56). The 21st Panzer Division prepares for battle (8:42). Washing from buckets. Speaking to locals (9:05). Rommel looks through binoculars. Panzer tanks (9:22). A tank in flames. A building in ruins. A Nazi flag (9:47). Germans drive into Benghazi in April. Tanks roll past waving crowds (10:22). A tank with a Nazi flag. The city of Tobruk (11:20). Tanks in silhouette against palm trees. Montage of the Siege of Tobruk (12:03). A naval battle viewed from a small boat. British colonial troops (12:42). Rommel plotting. Panzer tanks unloading. The German offensive (13:00). An air raid. Surrendering soldiers (14:10). Graves of both Allied and Axis troops (15:14). Winston Churchill and General Harold Alexander (16:02). Supplies arrive for the Eighth Army. Map: El Alamein. The air force suits up. Thumbs up (16:38). Allied planes in formation. Dropping bombs. Falling warheads and British fighter pilots in aerial combat (17:57). General Bernard Montgomery (18:51). Planting landmines, loading tanks, canned goods (19:30). British soldiers playing with a chameleon, eating, swimming, and swatting swarms of flies (20:26). A bagpiper and Mark III Valentine tanks waiting (21:08). Explosions in the night. Anti-tank guns in the morning (22:03). Soldiers charge (22:26). Luftwaffe G-1 planes dive. RAF fighter squadrons follow (23:16). The Australian Division advances by land, taking prisoners (24:35). Jumping barbed wire. RAF planes attack by air in POV footage (25:58). German prisoners with map overlay (26:59). Driving into the sunset. “The end of the beginning” (27:21). Sergeant Stuart Queen summarizes El Alamein and sets up the next episode (27:33). End credits (28:05).
The Big Picture aired from 1951 to 1971 on U.S. television stations including CBS and ABC. The series was assembled from footage produced by the United States Army Signal Corps Pictorial Service.
