Crown Film Unit

Documentary style presentation of the work of RAF Coastal Command. Shows their work in protecting convoys and attacking enemy aircraft, ships and U-boats, all done by the actual men & women of the RAF.

Focuses on the work of the Air Transport Auxiliary or ATA. By 1941, literally hundreds of RAF fighters and bombers needed to be flown each day between aircraft factories, maintenance depots and RAF aerodromes. This vital task was carried out by the men and women of the ATA, a civilian air force operating from their own pools and stations all over Britain. Essentially a dramatised account of typical ATA deliveries, the film features coverage of the ATA's own fleet of Ansons, as well as being notable for some excellent Spitfire film and very rare footage of the Whitley bomber, including take off and in-cockpit sequences.

A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.

A short film about how builders help contribute to the war effort.

Short documentary on the use of the V-1 Flying Bomb during the German bombings of London.

Poetry by Rudyard Kipling, John Milton, and William Blake, and excerpts from speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, all read by Laurence Olivier, illuminate documentary footage of England during its defense against the Nazi blitz in World War II. This short film serves as both propaganda and as a rallying cry to the British people.

A World War II drama-documentary showing the struggles of Merchant Navy seamen following an attack by a U-Boat. Western Approaches is a vast area of ocean control covering thousands of square miles of the Atlantic. In these waters is set this single incident in the fiercest and longest sea battle in history. The players are not professional actors but serving officers and men of Allied Navies and Merchant Fleets. This film is dedicated to them and their comrades who made the Allied victory possible.

A story acted and narrated by men of the Merchant Navy illustrates the way their war is fought: a merchant ship in convoy is sunk by a torpedo; the crew are rescued and later join another ship; and a young seaman among them is motivated to take a gunnery course.

The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

An African tribe in the Eastern Nigerian village of Umana work to build a maternity hospital, with the aid of government officials, and against the opposition of some tribal members.

In a follow up to 'A Welcome to Britain', Burgess Meredith returns to look at a post-war Britain.

British educational documentary film about the principal instruments in the modern symphony orchestra, illustrated through Benjamin Britten's composition, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", for which it was commissioned.

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

The Railwaymen shows the public information film moving onto a peacetime footing, and is one of the first films to bear the name of the Central Office of Information. The COI would go on to sponsor thousands of films, long and short, over the next 65 years. Made by the government’s Crown Film Unit, which had turned out brilliant propaganda during the war, The Railwaymen isn’t one of the unit’s best films. But it is enjoyable and interesting, and one of a significant series encouraging recruitment to various industries in the postwar reconstruction effort.

Humphrey Jennings’s Crown Film Unit short on the summer 1944 V-1 “doodlebug” campaign, tracking a salvo from the coast toward London as it runs Britain’s layered defenses—coastal AA guns, RAF fighters, and barrage balloons—capturing both interception and impact in a stark report of terror and resilience.

Documentary about an average day during the Blitz.

A woman blames herself for her husband's death. To overcome her grief and her guilt she becomes a nurse but then a patient dies while under her care.

Part of BFI collection "Police and Thieves."

A depiction of life in wartime Britain during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.

A short documentary style film it depicts the story of The British obtaining a special tool from America to help with the building of a tank.