Easter Monday this year was the 75th anniversary of the first day of the last major battle the Suffolk Regiment fought in Europe.
At Hallen-Seckenhausen on 13th April 1945, ‘A’ Company of 1/Suffolk started a push towards a heavily defended crossroads near Brinkum, just south of Bremen. A mobile striking force went first reaching the village, but stiff opposition stopped ‘A’ Company advancing and they had to divert from their main axis of advance and performing a series of flanking manoeuvres behind the houses that lined their route.
In parallel, a force of ’B’ Company tried to advance from the left flank, but their met stiff opposition and their Commander was killed. ‘A’ Company lost their Commander wounded along with two Platoon Commanders. It was a tough fight that could not be continued that day without armoured support.
To mark the anniversary of the action, I thought I’d take to Twitter to record the action in a series of tweets, but in between posting these, I decided to venture into uncharted territory - film making.
I really wanted to make a short 2-minute film about the book and some of its contents. Using what tools I had, it is pretty basic stuff and certainly it will not win any awards! but as a first attempt, I’m very pleased with the result. I hope to make a few more in the weeks to come.
The 1st Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, left just over five minutes of known film shot during the entire NW Europe campaign. More must exist as this photograph taken of men of ’C’ Company patrolling around the ruins of the flooded castle at Geijsteren in December 1944, shows an Army cameraman on the left of the photograph (his cine camera is just visible). I’ve never come across film of Geijsteren, but I’m sure it’s out there somewhere...
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