When You're Smiler

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Eddy 'Smiler' Smales was an accidental pioneer in British feature films in the 1930s, combat filming in the 1940s and television news from the 1950s.

The story is illustrated with 83 photographs and sprinkled with anecdotes of well-known characters Smiler worked with, including Alexander Korda, Laurence Harvey, Peter Ustinov, David Niven, Dickie Attenborough, Bernard Montgomery, Reginald Bosanquet, Frederick Forsyth, John Mills, Michael Aspel and many others.

Everyone knows these names but what of the forgotten heroes of the AFPU - people like Smiler who made Desert Victory, perhaps the most famous campaign film of all time? They never get the credit they deserve. When You’re Smiler does its bit to put that right by including a selection of their stories together with an original and most definitive record of the 400-plus men (and two women) who served in or alongside the AFPU in some role at some stage.

Nigel Smales

When You’re Smiler

When You’re Smiler gives a personal perspective on the dramatic evolution of factual film and television in the mid-20th Century set against the social, political and military history of the times.

It tells tales of halcyon days in the British film industry and of early life and times at BBC TV News, but its primary focus is on Smiler’s adventures with the ground-breaking British Army Film & Photographic Unit during WW2.

Nigel Smales

An extraordinary story of an ordinary bloke who didn’t make history but was there to film bits of it happening

When You’re

Smiler

When You’re Smiler

Nigel Smales

He didn't make history, but he was there to film bits of it happening

The Big Picture Eddy Smiler Smales was an accidental pioneer in British feature films, combat filming, newsreels and television news. He would never have made any claim to fame, yet his is an extraordinary tale of an ordinary bloke whose lot in life was not to make history, but to be there to film bits of it happening. th

He was born Edgar Hiram Smales on 7 August 1920 in the British Naval Hospital in Port Said, Egypt, but nobody in the family called him by his Christian name. His first name was also his father’s, so his parents called him Son. Later on, so did his sister, which must have raised a few eyebrows. Still later, so did his wife, which confused many. In the Army, his nature and the convenience of the alliteration earned him the nickname Smiler. Later still, his nieces called him Uncle Son. He was Eddy to his friends. I called him Dad.

Contents Author Biography Dedication and Acknowledgements Abbreviations & Acronyms Picture This

Flashback – So Near, So Far

Scene One – Setting the Stage Smales Pace The Son Has Got His Hat On The Creeping Shadows Page by Page Love is in the Air

Scene Two – Learning the Lines Phoney No Longer Blue Skies A Different Viewfinder

Scene Three – On Location: Desert Victory Before the Balloon Went Up Hell Alamein The Shots that Changed the War Off with a Bang Letters in the Sand Homeward Bound

Scene Four – Intermission Change of Scene In it for Laughs Together Forever

Scene Five – On Location: The French Connection Overlord Emerges Top Secret Turning Point Normandy Beaches Normandy Countryside Here, There and Everywhere

ix xi xii xiv 1 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 21 21 24 33 35 43 50 64 67 71 77 79 82 83 87 89 99 101 103 115

Scene Six – On Location: Dutch Courage Across the Schelde A Long Hard Winter

Scene Seven – On Location: The Road To Ruin Across the Rhine In the Can

Scene Eight – The Sequel Back on Civvie Street The Family Enigma Rest In Peace The Fruits of Perseverance Colour the World Black and White

Scene Nine – Made For TV The Goggle Box to the Rescue Far Away is Near at Hand in Images of Elsewhere The Final Curtain

Talepiece – So Far, So Near

Closing Credits AFPU Cast List Behind-­‐the-­‐Camera Portfolios Bibliography Index

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123 125 136 141 143 149 165 167 171 174 177 178 183 185 191 203 205 207 207 240 253 258

Scene Two

2.1 – Sapper EH ‘Smiler’ Smales, Royal Engineers Searchlight Battery (1939)

Learning the Lines

Scene 2

touch it. He didn’t move a muscle when Bill arrived back from work. It was as if he didn’t recognise his dad. He just stared into the middle distance as if transfixed by something very scary. Bill was in a quandary. Should he care for his son or join the others digging through the rubble in search of survivors?

Then he saw that Derek was looking at something over his shoulder. He turned to see Edie and their eldest boy, who she had met from school to buy him some shoes in Lewisham. Before anyone could move, Derek flashed passed Bill to dive into his mum’s midriff sobbing his heart out. A few days later the boys were sent to live with cousins in a village near Kimbolton, a kind of unofficial en familie evacuation.

Take Three A Different Viewfinder The world turned dramatically for Smiler in the autumn of 1941. During a spot of home leave, he bumped into his old pal Peter Hopkinson who told him that the Army was talking about putting together its own film unit and might soon be looking for soldiers who could tell a camera’s viewfinder from its lens. He thought it would make a nice change to point a camera instead of a searchlight but, at first, nothing happened – it seems Hopkinson had got wind of a scheme before it had official blessing – but then everything happened very fast indeed. The War Office approved the establishment of th the Army Film & Photographic Unit on 24 October, just in time to save Smiler from being confined to a desk with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. As soon as the AFPU announcement appeared on the noticeboard at the Sharp’s Barns camp, he did what you are always told not to do in the Army – he volunteered. By the end of January 1942 he was in Egypt, land of his birth, as one of the original contingent of ciné-­‐cameramen and stills photographers in o N . 1 Army Film & Photographic Section, the first section of the AFPU to be formed.

It had been a whirlwind ten weeks. He was interviewed in early November at the Great Central Hotel, Marylebone, and must have demonstrated the required combination of military service (essential) and camera-­‐familiarity (useful) because he was immediately removed from RAOC induction and, according to his service record, posted to London District Transit Camp on th D10 13 November. As with many official records, there is more here than meets the eye. In actual fact, as far as the Army was concerned, he remained in the ROAC for the duration and his ‘transit camp’ was the Great Central Hotel. He was pleased to see Hopkinson’s familiar face in the hotel’s opulent lobby and amused to hear how his old mate had got in by the back door.

Hoppy had been pestering the War Office for weeks but missed his selection board because nobody thought to tell him when it was scheduled. It had 24

When You’re Smiler

been more by luck than judgement that he made one last desperate call before departing for active service overseas and was told to report the following day for AFPU training. Not an auspicious start. And it went downhill from there.

The training is best described as rudimentary. The lads were told their task (to cover the fighting in North Africa) and shown a few short documentaries and some German propaganda films (to give them a clue of how their pictures would be used), but there were only a few stills cameras to play with and no ciné-­‐cameras at all. They saw a ciné-­‐camera twice. The first time was when a very nervous lieutenant attempted to demonstrate how to load film into one by reading from a handful of scribbled notes. He failed dismally and ended up taking an entirely new set of notes as Smiler, Hoppy, Billy Jordan and the boys who knew cameras showed him how. The second was when they posed for photographs festooned so heavily with myriad bits of kit that it was hard to keep a straight face. It didn’t help that George Groom would insist on pulling a grotesque face at the weight of it all. Smiler and George hit it off well – they were to become lifelong friends – so they were disappointed to learn they would be sailing separately to Egypt. It made sense. No point in risking the new venture by having everyone go to the bottom of the ocean th together. And so on 4 December 1941, a couple of days after George and D10 just one after being officially posted to the Middle East, Smiler set sail on the long voyage from the Clyde via Cape Town to Tewfick at the southern end of the Suez Canal. None of the boys was equipped with more than a fine pioneering spirit.

During their training, these pioneers had been given the bare bones of how the AFPU had come about, but the story of crisp executive decision-­‐making contrasted sharply with the unexplained dearth of equipment and technical expertise. It crossed Smiler’s mind to wonder that, if military combat film and photography was such a good idea, why had it been a mere two years in the making? He kept his thoughts to himself and prudently adopted the frame of mind that that was then, this is now, keep calm and carry on. It was only over a very long time that he learned the full story.

At the outbreak of the war, unlike the Germans (or even the French), the A1 British had no cameramen or photographers in uniform. It just wasn’t done, perhaps for four reasons. The first and least was the military view that non-­‐ combatant personnel with heavy equipment would just get in the way. The second and most divisive was rooted in deep and long-­‐standing suspicion between the various civil and military authorities, especially the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the War Office and the Ministry of Information. It didn’t help that the newly-­‐founded MoI had no clear and accepted guidelines as to the extent of its responsibilities or powers and plenty of resentment from all quarters – especially the press, which saw it to be shambolic, disorganised and obstructive. The third and most telling reason was just plain, universal 25

Scene Three

3.1 – Duggy Wolfe & Smiler Smales, Going Up The Blue (October 1942)

On Location: Desert Victory

When You’re Smiler

coming to terms with the prospect of fighting in Europe. Suddenly Monty’s bombastic confidence was infecting everyone. The Allies started to think that maybe Germany might not be invincible. Even the narrow-­‐minded War Office could no longer deny the power of film as a weapon of war.

Despite the fame of Desert Victory, little is known about the men who made it. One of them was Smiler Smales. He and his mates did the dirty work but two men must take most credit for the film: Major David Macdonald in Egypt and Captain Roy Boulting back at AFPU Headquarters at Pinewood.

Macdonald first saw the possibilities and, with Keating and Derrick Knight, he planned his film coverage at Alamein as effectively as Monty planned his attack. They deployed 26 cameramen with different units to ensure that every event would be captured on film if at all possible. They went along as far as they could with another of Edgeworth-­‐Johnstone’s ideas that ciné-­‐ cameramen and photographers should work in pairs with their own jeep and a driver giving them the independence and mobility vital for their job. Each team was one of three in a corps section which reported to a lieutenant or captain who, through Macdonald, found out what action was expected and attached the sergeants to designated brigades, sometimes at just a few minutes’ notice. The officers were also responsible for keeping the teams supplied with film and for collecting their exposed reels and the vital dope sheets that precisely identify and authenticate every foot of film now preserved by the IWM in London. Smiler was paired with a new chap who th D3 had only been posted to 1 AFPS on 17 October. As they waited to go ‘Up The Blue’ (to the front) with Ray Bate driving their Fordson armoured car, Smiler introduced Duggy Wolfe to the DeVry and Super Ikonta cameras they would be sharing. He was relieved to find that Duggy was a good sort who knew his way around cameras. The three of them prepared for ‘The Do’ (the battle) by having a laugh posing for photographs with Reg Morris and Fearless Fox but when a bevy of 1 AFPS chaps assembled for a final Major Mac D3 nd briefing and a team photograph on 22 October, they knew it might be their last. With his pals Duggy, Fearless and Reg all present and as correct as they could ever be, Smiler perched on a jeep alongside Major Mac and seventeen other comrades-­‐in-­‐film. The rest of 1 AFPS must have too busy for the photo-­‐call. They couldn’t escape the appended Closing Credits which list as many of those it has been possible to confirm served with or alongside the AFPU at some stage in some role. th

th

Smiler, Duggy and Ray were assigned to the 5 /7 Gordon Highlanders, a rd st battalion within the 153 Infantry Brigade of the 51 (Highland) Infantry Division which would be central to the XXX Corps advance with the Aussies to their right and the Kiwis and Boks to their left. Once again, Smiler and Duggy scratched the right backs by getting the C/Os in shot – especially Major-­‐ st General Douglas Wimberley of the 51 and Brigadier Douglas Graham of the rd 153 – but the fun stuff was to film the various Jocks training, on parade and 51

Scene 3

that the locals were just being prudent. If such cynicism occurred to Duggy, it probably would not have gone down well with Major Mac. What did please Mac were all the plaudits for the still photo Smiler took a couple of days later C7 back in Tripoli of the Queen’s Regiment marching past all smiles. The shot was syndicated worldwide.

3.20 – Taking Tobruk: The Queens' Regiment on parade (by Smiler Smales -­‐ Libya / 13th November 1942) [Reproduced from personal copy of IWM: E 19651] Duggy typed dope sheets for most of the material he and Smiler shot during this period. Maybe he fancied himself as a correspondent, or perhaps he was just wisely making redundant the spider who scrawled Smiler’s notoriously illegible handwriting. Sadly this mutually convenient arrangement was soon brought to a dramatic end by a Nazi booby trap. It took a few days for the sappers to clear the road to Derna of landmines and make it safe for vehicles to get down to the town. Or so they thought. Unfortunately, they missed one and Duggy found it. He was driving their three-­‐quarter ton Chevrolet truck as Smiler snoozed in the seat next to him, dreaming of the brilliantly blue Mediterranean and thinking it might to be nice to have a dip once he found his billet. Next second, there was an enormous bang. The Chevy and all inside went flying into the air. The truck was mangled beyond repair. Duggy’s left arm was in a very bad way but Smiler and Ray in the back just had cuts and bruises. A ruse learnt in Egypt had worked a treat. They had carpeted the truck with sandbags and an upturned table which had absorbed much of the th blast and prevented the floor from shafting up into its passengers. On 20 November, Smiler tested his camera to make sure it was still in good working C8 order after the blast. He even typed his own dopesheet while Duggy used D4 his good hand to telephone Cairo and book himself a spell in hospital. He 66

Scene Five

5.1 – Ready for Anything (Lingfield, England / March 1944)

On Location: The French Connection

When You’re Smiler

Regiment (Liverpool) who had been assigned to support the AFPU landings on Sword Beach. Privates Bernard Emmett, Leo Rafferty and George Renton are F7 remembered on the Bayeux Memorial, which suggests their bodies were never identified or lost at sea. By nightfall the Canadians had penetrated ten th miles from Juno to the Caen-­‐Bayeux highway, the 50 had established a beachhead six miles deep from Gold and the Sword bridgehead was secure, st but the 21 Panzer Division was coming. Greenhalgh and O’Neill had been evacuated home wounded. It had been a long day, but there were plenty more to come.

Next morning as Sergeant Allen Taylor filmed casualties arriving at C10 Gosport, Major Roy Oliver landed in Normandy to locate Knight’s temporary headquarters at Hermanville and establish 5 AFPS PRO operations.

With him were Jack Flack, now an Acting-­‐Captain, and Sergeants Les th Carpenter, Bill Gross, Jock Lang and Vic Watkins arrived with the 7 D8 Armoured Division. Meanwhile, Laws got back to Blighty in search of a new camera. His arrival was a sight to behold as he made a big show of handing over prisoners to the reception party. Even the captured Germans had to smile. In the next few days, Sergeants Johnny Connolly and Charlie st Waterhouse came over with the 51 (Highland) Division and Sergeants Len th Harris, Bill Leeson and Fred Palmer turned up too. By 12 June Oliver and Knight had relocated 5 AFPS headquarters right at the heartbeat in Monty’s chateau at Cruelly. They was a bit of a worry about Christie, who had got a knock on the head from being too close to an exploding shell, but it got worse just before midnight when Norman Clague became the first AFPU fatality in st Normandy. Clague and Leatherbarrow were attached to the 1 Special Services Brigade covering its efforts to secure the Orne bridgehead north-­‐ west of Caen. He was filming 6 Commando’s night attack from Amfreville to Breville when he took cover in a farmhouse at La Plein. Everyone inside was B3 killed instantly when it was hit by a mortar. Clague’s death hit Ian Grant particularly hard. The two had become best buddies during their training and Grant felt Evans put Clague at risk by directing him to continue to shadow 6 Commando, as he had done during and since D-­‐Day. Despite finding himself in similarly risky situations time and again, just as all the boys did, Grant B10 never really forgave Evans.

Take Four Normandy Countryside Smiler arrived in Normandy with Sergeant Max Collins and others on D-­‐plus-­‐6 th (12 June, to non-­‐military types) to be whisked off by Captain Derrick Knight on a top-­‐secret Montgomery-­‐inspired wild-­‐goose-­‐chase. Monty had a thing about multi-­‐force cooperation. It didn’t work much better in Normandy than 103

Scene 5

it had at Alamein but Smiler and Max saw a successful experiment with the nd infantry and specially-­‐adapted Sherman Firefly tanks of the 2 Battalion of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment as they wandered the countryside around Caen. The idea was that when this combined force found a pocket of resistance – and they did in many villages and remote farmhouses, sometimes from French collaborators – if they could not rapidly neutralise it, they called in a squadron of RAF Typhoons, the first fighters to be equipped with fearsomely accurate air-­‐to-­‐ground rockets. Occasionally they could hitch a ride on a Sherman but mostly they had to lug their heavy kit on foot, so it was a tiring business and decidedly risky. Normandy’s bocage landscape is a terrain of mixed woodland and pasture with higgledy-­‐piggledy fields and winding country lanes sunken between narrow low ridges and banks surmounted by tall thick thorn hedgerows that break the wind but also limit visibility – just perfect countryside for being ambushed. And they were – twice by Germans and once by Frenchmen. The attack by a Tiger tank was most dramatic but least effective. It remained concealed until it opened fire but its elevated position meant it couldn’t get its gun down low enough. Its shells whistled past a couple of feet too high and it was soon brewing up. A half-­‐dozen panicking German infantry suffered a similar fate without causing much damage but two French machine-­‐gunners managed to kill two Warwickshires before being blasted to kingdom-­‐come. Typically Smiler’s camera missed all these surprises and he graced the first with a touch of comedy by falling off a Sherman when the Tiger revealed itself. He was rather pleased with the fine execution of the flying forward roll while clutching camera that he had practiced at Lingfield. The grazed elbow was a small price to pay for performing such gymnastic excellence. He never worked out how his glasses stayed on his nose.

Unfortunately there seems to be no official record of this expedition and some confusion as to when Smiler actually invaded Europe. The 5 AFPS War Diary starts by diligently recording D-­‐Day arrivals but its first mention of th D8 Smiler on 18 July is all of ten days later than his earliest material now F5 accessible on the IWM Collections Database and 18 days after his service D10 record puts him in Normandy. The anecdotal evidence doesn’t concur. D-­‐ plus-­‐6 came from the horse’s mouth and Grant’s account concurs by having this particular horse riding out with the Warwickshires before Operation th B3 Epsom, which started on 26 June.

Major Who and AFPU staff officers had more important things to worry about than Smiler’s precise whereabouts, such as a bit of a TABU on D-­‐Day when their men set off for Normandy with all their exposed film. Despatch riders were supposed to collect it immediately before the lads disembarked but they failed to turn up. Stewart spent a couple of days sweating on whether he would have invasion preparation and departure coverage to match that of the Americans and Canadians. He couldn’t have been happier on D-­‐plus-­‐2 104

Scene Six

6.1 – Action Man? (Vught, Netherlands / January 1945)

On Location: Dutch Courage

When You’re Smiler th

with the 155 Infantry Brigade at 0830 that the advantage finally began to swing the way of the invaders. th

With the element of surprised played at Vlissingen, the 4 SS Brigade’s assault on Westkapelle had no option but to follow a different strategy involving a heavy combined services bombardment to soften things up, then four waves of rapid commando attacks. Smiler and his mates would be going in first with 41 RM Commando under the leadership of Lieutenant-­‐Colonel Eric Palmer (no relation). Their objective was to secure the town itself. They would be followed by the Dutch, Belgians and Norwegians in Lieutenant-­‐ Colonel Peter Laycock’s 10 (Inter-­‐Allied) Commando, who would assist in clearing Westkapelle and then move along the north coast towards Domburg.

Meanwhile, 48 RM Commando under Lieutenant-­‐Colonel James Moulton would land just to the south of the village and head towards Zouteland. And finally, Lieutenant-­‐Colonel Farndale Phillips would lead 47 RM Commando th ashore to strike south to join the 155 Infantry near Vlissingen.

The amphibious attackers gathered off Westkapelle at dawn. If whoever was in charge thought they were out of range, they were very much mistaken.

Heavy-­‐duty mortars sprinkled explosions everywhere sending great splashes high into the sky. It was uncomfortable enough for Smiler to be squashed into a Buffalo LVT with a bunch of sweaty Marines. He could have done without getting wet through too. And without the bad news that whispered its way through the LVT. The Allied bombardment wasn’t going to be quite what they had hoped. Although the sky was clear over Walcheren, it was too misty over Dutch and Belgian airfields to the west for RAF bombers to get airborne. The invaders were going to have to make do with the support of the squadron of rocket-­‐firing Typhoons that was on its way, long range artillery from across the estuary and the floating armour aboard the monitors HMS Erebus and HMS Roberts, the battleship HMS Warspite and the various landing craft th equipped with the guns and rockets of the 79 Armoured Division.

The bombardment began at 0930. Smiler’s LCT began to surge forward. It wasn’t long before they could see the beach was prickly with sharpened stakes. Mortar-­‐shells were stilling hailing down. A nearby LCT took a direct hit and exploded. Smiler’s LCT rocked wildly as a stinging spray of freezing cold seawater, deadly lumps of hot metal and unimaginably bloody bits cascaded all over him. It was a hell of a shock in more ways than one. That was the end of Millon. The time of his life? Yeah, right! Don’t think about it. Another shell incoming. Just missed. Another powerful spray of water rained down a hail of punches but the nightmare was only just getting into its stride. The German machine-­‐guns held their fire until the LCTs started to disgorge their Buffalos, then they let rip. High-­‐pitched pings echoed around as they swept through the break in the dyke. When the chap next to him got a ricochet in the thigh, Smiler decided discretion was the better part of valour and put his head 129

Scene Seven

7.1 – Still Smiling (by Bob Baker -­‐ Berlin, Germany / July 1945)

On Location: The Road to Ruin

Scene 7 th

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Smiler and Bert Wilkes were assigned to cover the 154 Brigade of the 51 (Highland) Division in the second wave of Turnscrew. Sergeants Harry Ames, Charlie Crocker, Harrison and Gordon Walker were with other Highlander brigades. As they waited with the Jocks, one offered him a smile and a cigarette and observed wryly ‘Och, the Mickey Mouse brigade is here. Soon be time to go’. Incredibly it was the corporal he had last seen at Alamein.

They exchanged a few words, wondered how they could have missed each other a dozen times in the Lower Seine, made encouraging noises and questioned each others’ parentage in the way that friends do, then turned th their minds to the task ahead. Just before dawn on 24 March Smiler looked towards the brightening eastern horizon and grunted to Wilko that the light was going to be great for pictures. ‘Yeah,’ said his pal, ‘and great for being spotted by Jerry’. The low sharp light of sunrise was perfect for them to cover silhouetted Highlanders climbing into their Buffalo stormboats and setting out across the river, over a quarter-­‐mile wide and fast-­‐flowing with winter rains and snow-­‐melt. They filmed floating Sherman DD tanks taking to the C57 water then jumped into an inflatable dinghy to get shots of the flotilla under way and going ashore to reinforce their mates, who had begun landing at 0200. They saw one of the 30 Corps Buffalos going over and hoped it wasn’t the one their mates were in. Luckily it wasn’t, but not all Smiler’s friends were lucky that day. Later Smiler was horrified to come across his Highlander pal’s broken body on the east bank, his left arm gone, his left leg severed badly, his blood pooling in bootmarks in the mud, his eyes still open in a stare of sheer rage. For a second or two in the middle of the deafening and dashing turmoil, Smiler saw only his mate and heard only his promise to get even. Everything else was in slow-­‐motion as his mind raced from the realisation that it was two-­‐and-­‐a-­‐half years almost to the minute since they had first met to the desperate hope that he had fulfilled his promise. If it hadn’t been for Wilkes roughly shaking him back to reality, maybe something deadly would have laid Smiler down in the mud next to his Scottish pal.

Adrenalin kicked in once more. He recovered to get some good footage that afternoon of Horrocks discussing 30 Corps strategy with the commander of th C56 the 9 Canadian Infantry, Brigadier John Rockingham. Hours after being deep up to his neck in it, he was seeing it all on a tabletop. Such contrasts were usual rules for the AFPU. Smiler’s AFPU buddies were here, there and everywhere once more, reinforced by a horde of recent arrivals including 1 AFPS old lags Johnny Silverside and Chris Travis. Sergeants Ian Grant, George Laws, Reg Morris and Peter Norris went across the Rhine in the early waves of Widgeon, and Sergeants A Blakeley, John Chitham, Dickie Gee, Jock Gordon, Bert Hardy, Slim Hewitt, Norman Johnson, Bob Jones, Bill Leeson, Jimmy Mapham, Fred Palmer, Tubby Palmer, Geoff Seaholme, Dennis Smith and Pat Whitaker all crossed in other operations that morning. Sergeants Bob Stiggins and Johnny Connolly covered the artillery barrage at Venlo while Lieutenant Joe West did 146

When You’re Smiler

the same near Xanten. All three were across the Rhine within twenty-­‐four hours. The ground-­‐to-­‐air shots of Varsity are the most visually dramatic – Whitaker recorded excellent footage of American Liberators dropping paratroops and supplies, and West’s film shows RA gunners watching nd Dakotas flying low overhead towing 52 Ox & Bucks Horsa gliders containing th the 6 Airborne and AFPU Sergeants Harry Oakes, Jimmy Christie and Bill th Lawrie, whose courage was to impress the American 17 Airborne so much they awarded him the US Bronze Star. Johnson and Gordon got some similar shots together with dramatic coverage of a pranged Dakota crashing behind a farmhouse. On the east bank, Gee and Tubby Palmer took some harrowing shots of the Red Cross tending to dying German soldiers, probably only about 17 years old. Fred Palmer, a tax accountant by profession, succeeded in taking a German officer prisoner only to find he was a tax inspector in uniform. Fred joked later that he would have liked to compare capital allowances but there just wasn’t the time. Bert Hardy got the scoop – his picture of General Miles Dempsey becoming the first Allied general to step A3 ashore on the east bank made the cover of Picture Post – but Harry Haywood and Silverside got the short straw. They found themselves herding F5 cattle at the Goch headquarters of 222 Military Government.

What must it have been like for these AFPU chaps to set out across that wide river, some in total darkness, others squinting into the glare of the sun, the current pulling them off course and the enemy ready to welcome them with intense cannon and machine-­‐gun fire? Did they wonder if they really wanted to reach the other side? They kept going, trying not to get distracted from loading and winding cameras, setting apertures, focusing and shooting film by hoping that there wasn’t a bullet or something equally deadly over there with their name on it. And when they arrived, they could not release adrenalin and aggression by rushing forward to kill people. They had to turn their back to the enemy, take a deep breath, hold their cameras steady and cover their comrades landing and maybe dying right in front of them. And then their film ran out. They were armed with revolvers which might just save their lives and with cameras which wouldn’t, but they couldn’t use both at the same time.

Most of them only ever put aside their cameras as a very last resort. After the War, Smiler would admit to acquiring ammunition for his Luger from German prisoners and even corpses and to firing it ‘once or twice’, but always ignored questions about whether he killed anyone. The inference was that he had but, as was the way with many veterans, it wasn’t something to be proud of, nothing to boast about. If anyone deserved gallantry awards, it was these men. They are my heroes.

Churchill arrived to visit Montgomery and show off by crossing the Rhine four times – there and back again twice. The first return trip was to Wesel by th landing craft on 25 March, dutifully recorded by Allen Taylor and Reg Morris. The second a day later was a British all-­‐star affair as Churchill and 147

Scene Eight

8.1 – On the Job (1952)

The Sequel

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number of civvie-­‐street training films made by Roy Ward Baker of the AKS in 1944-­‐45.

Even before he officially took off his uniform, Smiler was transforming into the split personality he wore for the rest of his life – Son at home and Eddy on the job – but now he had to network, and how. Generally, cinematographers and camera operators were hired on contract for each production. Then there was a second tier of camera operators who would fill in for a few days when extra cameras were needed, to get some cutaway shots while the main crew were busy with live action or to keep notes of scenes and takes, set rigs, pull focus, hang a light, load film, string a cable, push dolleys or whatever. Eddy was in this second tier, a hand-­‐to-­‐mouth land where Who-­‐You-­‐Know was king. In between jobs, he was always out networking in Denham, Pinewood or Ealing Studios, or in Soho, where many film companies had their headquarters. Only they didn’t call it networking back then. It was more a question of ‘Whose round is it?’ and The Ship in Wardour Street and The Crooked Billet near Pinewood had bit parts as an informal employment exchanges.

His own roots were in feature films so that is where he started to try to find his feet. Other camera operators seem to fall on theirs, but Eddy stumbled.

He knew or was known to a few of the ‘Old School’, people who had made their names before the War. He was on nodding terms with the elite – cinematographer Freddie Young and editor, writer and director David Lean – and pleased to renew acquaintances with his mentors, Bob Krasker and Wilkie Cooper, who had matured from camera operators to become fully-­‐ fledged cinematographers. But it wasn’t this film industry network that got him back into the fray; it was war veterans of two different flavours – RAFFPU and AFPU. Before he was officially demobbed, Skeets Kelly sparked Eddy’s network nicely by introducing him to the ex-­‐RAFFPU Harry Waxman who was about start on the special effects for School For Secrets (1946) at Denham Studios.

Eddy jumped at the chance to work for the renown cinematographer Jack Hildyard, the ubiquitous Peter Ustinov – multi-­‐tasking magnificently once again by writing, directing and acting alongside Ralph Richardson and Richard Attenborough – and alongside one camera operator he knew well and another he knew by reputation. The latter was Gil Taylor, another ex-­‐RAFFPU man who was developing something of a post-­‐War partnership with Waxman. The former was none other than his old AFPU captain Gerry Massy-­‐ Collier. Eddy had Harry and Gil in stitches by saluting Gerry and calling him ‘Sir’ all the time. The four of them stayed on at Denham together to make Fame Is The Spur (1947). Once more there were old friends and new. Roy Boulting was directing, Dickie Best editing, the cinematographer, Gunther Krampf, remembered him as a wet-­‐behind-­‐the-­‐ears tea boy and camera operator Arthur Ibbetson was to become a pal.

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Scene Nine

9.1 – On the Job (1960)

Made for TV

Scene 9

boy-­‐soldiers with itchy trigger fingers. Later he was flattered by the talk that his coverage of the Port Harcourt oil fires should get a BAFTA award nomination so it was a bit of a blow when the idea disappeared quietly into a black hole. Apparently somebody with influence had taken exception to the supposed bias of his friend Freddie Forsyth’s reporting in favour of Biafran independence. The scrape with the boy-­‐soldiers was decidedly hairy but, in the final reckoning, it was nothing compared to the fate of his colleague Ted Studd in 1974. Just days after enjoying a few Keo beers with Ted in Nicosia, Dad arrived home from Cyprus to find that his friend had become the first BBC TV Newsman to be killed in action. It is possible that the thought ‘There but for the grace of God’ might have crossed his mind when he quietly raised his pint to Ted’s memory that evening in his Sudbury local, The Black Horse.

Thoughts of God may have crossed his mind during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis when the sabre-­‐rattling confrontation between the USA and the USSR escalated dramatically to balance the world on the brink of oblivion. The Office put Dad on notice to dash up to the nearby NATO headquarters at Northwood as soon as anyone pressed the nuclear button. It seemed to him the height of madness to film a story nobody would be alive to watch. He let it be known that if he only had four minutes to live, he might just have time to down a swift pint in the nearest pub. And yet at home, life went on as usual. We had no idea the world was going mad. Dad was always the same old dad. Many years later he revealed how worried he was and how hard it had been not to worry us. As usual his story-­‐telling timing was impeccable.

After a slight pause, he mused ‘Wembley is a good place to live, what with it being smack between Northwood and Westminster’. He paused again to let me work out that these would be two primary targets for any incoming inter-­‐ continental ballistic missiles, then added ‘So we’d be gone before we knew what hit us’. How lucky was I to have such a caring father?

Wars of a different kind came to meet Dad on UK streets. During the 1960s and 1970s, hatred and indiscriminate violence spilled onto them courtesy of a series of dock strikes and student rallies. He covered the Grosvenor Square demonstration against the Vietnam War in 1968. I was there too but hightailed it down South Audley Street when the riots kicked off. He stayed to film the fracas from the roof of his car while the students rocked it violently to help him get a really moving picture. That didn’t shake him up as much as two incidents in Belfast later that year. He was leaving the Europa Hotel when some heavies grunted that he should accompany them. He was conducted into what appeared to be a small terraced house on the Falls Road. Upstairs in a bar that spread across a number of houses he was given a pint of Guinness courtesy of the Irish Republican Army. After a few minutes, a man in a long, black leather coat came in, walked slowly up flanked by four burly minders, and smiled casually. He was charm itself but there was menace in his soft words as he said ‘You’ll be stopping your filming when we say, won’t 198

When You’re Smiler

Ken because he had grown up to become the only Smales to fulfil his dream of playing cricket for Yorkshire. They spent more time talking cricket than football, and they shared a laugh about Dad’s brief appearance on children’s television the previous year when Blue Peter had done a story on him doing a story for Newsround in Hounslow. Ken wanted to know if Dad’s 58 year-­‐old knees had creaked loudly as he knelt down on the freezing cold ground to get Lucy Mathen giving her piece to camera with a mosque school sign in the background. Dad chuckled that the idea of standing on a box had been a tad too intrepid for the 25 year-­‐old reporter, but the chap he really felt sorry for was the poor Blue Peter cameraman who had to crouch even lower to get a shot of him getting his shot. The 1978 Blue Peter annual carried a couple of photos of the back of Dad’s head. Such is fame. Lucy became an ophthalmologist.

Take Three The Final Curtain Dad’s career finished on a very special high. His final story was the Queen th Mum’s 80 birthday in 1980.

Son / Smiler / Eddy / Dad enjoyed resting on his laurels, but not for long enough.

He achieved a lifelong ambition when, having been on the waiting list for eighteen years, he was at last invited to apply for membership of the exclusive Marylebone Cricket Club. The iconic cricket commentators John Arlott and Brian Johnston were good enough to be his nominees, and Johnston ensured the charismatic Denis Compton was on hand to welcome him into the Pavilion’s Long Room bar for the first time as a fully-­‐fledged MCC member. It was a splendid day but, sadly, his egg-­‐and-­‐bacon tie never made a th second appearance at Lord’s. Just over two weeks later, on 19 September 1984, a lifetime of smoking caught up with his dickie heart.

We scattered his ashes under an oak tree by the Wesson Bruck at Dog ‘Ole. Phyl’s joined them fifteen years later.

The world according to Smiler is history now. It’s all very different today.

Denham Studios are long gone but Ealing is enjoying a revival and Pinewood has taken its place alongside Hollywood on the international movie-­‐making stage. British cinematographers and camera crews are second to none.

Newsreels are no more, and BBC TV News is no longer filmed but digitally recorded and bounced off satellites to keep us up to the minute. The familiar faces of reporters in foreign parts usually come not from the cameras of on-­‐ the-­‐staff colleagues but those of trusted local ‘stringers’. Like their AFPU ancestors, British Army Royal Logistics Corps Media Operations personnel are 203

Scene 9

bright sparks able to work effectively with all ranks and civilians either independently or as a team, but their brief and their talents are much broader. These carefully-­‐selected, highly-­‐qualified all-­‐rounders have a full complement of visual, aural and literary journalistic and telecommunication skills. They would leave Dad standing but, if he is watching in that great viewing theatre in the sky, he can be proud of being an accidental pioneer three times over. He cut his teeth in features, found his feet in combat filming, ran the race for news and even dabbled in documentaries. Modern history would not be the same without the visual images captured by him and his ilk, but his true glory isn’t so much what he did but the way he did it. At every step, he kept his chin up, his nose clean, his mind open but focused on doing the best job possible, and his smile at the ready.

9.9 – A Retiring Sort (August 1980)

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When You’re Smiler

CLOSING CREDITS AFPU Cast List This schedule lists in bold text those who it has been possible to confirm served with the AFPU at some stage in some role, provides some indication of ranks, specialities and responsibilities, and acknowledges those who gave their lives or were wounded in the cause. It also lists others who were relevant to the AFPU prior to and during its inception and operation.

The information herein has been gleaned from various sources including the books noted at the end of Scene Two: Take Three – A Different Viewfinder and the Bibliography. None of these sources are definitive so neither is the st schedule, but it contains the best information available at 31 August 2011.

Sincere apologies are extended for any mistakes or omissions.

Abbreviations as noted at the outset. In the AFPS column, P denotes being based at Pinewood. As throughout, place name spellings are as noted in AFPU records.

Military ranks: Gen – General, Mjr Gen – Major-­‐General, Brg – Brigadier, Col – Colonel, Lt Col – Lieutenant-­‐Colonel, Wg Cdr – Wing Commander, Sq Ldr – Squadron Leader, Mjr – Major, Cpt – Captain, Lt – Lieutenant, Flt Lt – Flight Lieutenant, Plt Off – Pilot Officer, Fg Off – Flight Officer, S/Mjr – Sergeant Major, W/o – Warrant Officer, S/Sgt – Staff Sergeant, Sgt – Sergeant, L/Sgt – Lance Sergeant, Cpl – Corporal, L/Cpl – Lance Corporal, L/Bdr – Lance Bombardier, Mid – Midshipman, Sig – Signalman, Spr – Sapper, Pte – Private, Dvr – Driver

207

Rooke, J Ross, CE

Rose, SF

Rotner, G Rowe, TF

Royle, J

Riley, R

Robinson, DHL

Robinson, R Robson, D Rodger, G Rodwell, K

Name Rignold, H

‘Nickname’ Rank Unit AFPS Roles / Notes Harry Cpt AFPU 2 Cameraman The original OWOC; evolved through WOFU and AFU to AFPU Fatally wounded in action by gunfire on Salerno beachhead (Italy) on 3/9/1943 Post-­‐humously awarded MC on 23/9/1943 in recognition for his courage during the invasion of Tunisia in F6 12/1942 (NA: WO 373/2 ) Ronald

P Director Co-­‐Directed ABCA (1943)

Donald ‘Robbo’ Sgt AFPU 5 Cameraman Killed in action by anti-­‐personnel mine at Eterville, west of Caen, Normandy (France) on 10/7/1944 Robbie

AFPU

Don Sgt AFPU 5 George

Life Magazine Press Photographer Ken Sgt, Cpt AFPU 1,2 Cameraman Wounded by landmine which killed Frank Martin at Al Maaj (Libya) on 24/11/1942, evacuated to UK; back in action by 8/1946 John Sgt, Lt AFPU 1,2 Photographer Charles ‘Chuck’ Sgt CFPU

Cameraman First Allied cameraman to land in Normandy (France) on D-­‐Day 6/6/1944 Stanley Spr AFPU 1 Darkroom Technician D3 Died in service on 22/3/1943 following appendix operation in Cairo (Egypt) George L/Cpl, Sgt AFPU 1 Cameraman & Photographer Terry Lt CFPU

Photographer F11 Killed at Anzio (Italy) 6/2/1944 Joe Sgt AFPU 9

Rudkin, J Ruski Rutter Saidman, LB Sampey Sanders, P Savage, R Scott

Seaholme, G Shepherd Sheridan, G

Shrimpton, S Silverside, JT Slade, JF Slade, MJ Sleep Sleigh, R Smales, EH

Smith, B Smith, DM

Johnny Sgt AFPU 5 Cameraman

Sgt AFPU P

Dvr RASC 1 Driver

Lt, Flt Lt RAF

Photographer (originally an OWOP)

Dvr AFPU 1 Driver

Sgt AFPU 9 Cameraman & Photographer Ron

AFPU P Cameraman

Dvr RASC 1 Driver Taken prisoner at Bir-­‐el-­‐Gobi (Libya) on 27/5/1942 but escaped

Geoff Sgt AFPU 5 Cameraman ‘Tiny’

AFPU 5 George Sgt AFPU 1 Cameraman D3 Taken prisoner in Egyptian desert 11/1942 , remained PoW until 4/1945

Sgt AFPU 9 Photographer Johnny Sgt AFPU 1,2,5 Photographer Freddie Sgt AFPU 1 Cameraman

Sgt AFPU 2 Photographer

Spr AFPU 1 Darkroom Technician Bob Sgt CFPU

Cameraman Eddy ‘Smiler’ Sgt, S/Mjr AFPU 1,5 Cameraman D3 In hospital with jaundice from 5/1/1943 to 24/2/1943

Lt AFPU 1 Cameraman (Malta) Dennis Sgt AFPU 5 Photographer Awarded MM on 24/1/1946 in recognition for courage, particularly during Operation Market Garden at Arnhem F6 (Netherlands) in 9/1944 (NA: WO 373/53 )

Closing Credits

Behind-the-Camera Portfolios AFPU & RAFFPU Veterans The career summary information herein has been gleaned from the Internet F10 Movie Database and other sources. It relates specifically to selected friends and colleagues with whom Eddy Smales served in AFPU or RAFFPU. It is intended to be neither a comprehensive review of their careers nor a definitive portfolio of all AFPU and RAFFPU veterans.

Aldred, John

AFPU

Sound Technician Film – The Four Feathers (1939), In Which We Serve (1942), Darling (1965), The Family Way (1966), Half-­‐a-­‐Sixpence (1967), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), Far From The Madding Crowd (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968),

The Italian Job (1969), Anne of a Thousand Days (1969, Oscar nomination) & Mary Queen of Scots (1972, Oscar nomination) Baker, Robert S ‘Bob’ Producer or Director

AFPU Film – two Terry-­‐Thomas comedies: A Date with a Dream (1948) and Melody Club (1949), Black Orchid (1953), Sea of Sand (1958), Jack the Ripper (1959), The Siege of Sydney Street (1960), The Hellfire Club (1961) & The Saint (1997)

TV – The Saint (1962-­‐69), Gideon’s’ Way (1964-­‐66),

The Persuaders (1971-­‐72) & Return of the Saint (1978-­‐79) Berman, Monty Producer, Cinematographer or Camera Operator

AFPU Film – Hue and Cry (1947), two Terry-­‐Thomas comedies:

A Date with a Dream (1948) & Melody Club (1949),

The Third Man (1949), The Happiest Days of Your Life (1951), Black Orchid (1953), Jack the Ripper (1959),

The Hellfire Club (1961) & What a Carve-­‐Up (1961)

TV – The Saint (1962-­‐64), Gideon’s’ Way (1964-­‐66),

The Baron (1966-­‐67), The Champions (1968-­‐69), Department S (1969-­‐70), Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-­‐70), Jason King (1971) & The Adventurer (1972-­‐73) Best, Richard ‘Dickie’ Editor

AFPU Film – The Dam Busters (1955), Ice Cold in Alex (1958),

Look Back in Anger (1959), School for Scoundrels (1960) &

Please Sir! (1971)

TV – The Avengers (1966)

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