Operation Crusader Newsreels

For those who like to get a feel for what the desert looked like, and the period propaganda, the AP archive has a lot of Movietone reels online:

First up, Rommel at Bay (with a nice view of the shortened Beaufighter wing referenced in this older post), of 18 December. Quite a bit of staged shots, my favorite being the Italian soldiers forced to climb out of a German Panzer IV…

Jingoistic tone, Germans are ‘gangsters’, and of course gets Ed Duda wrong, as El Duda, who presumably abides. Lots of hardware shots though.

FFBE9B6824504EE4821C6D111F52C826 THUMBNAIL 1

Next up, Rommel on the Run, of 15 January, which of course he wasn’t anymore then.

I used ‘Libya “World War 2″‘ as search terms.

Happy viewing.

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