HARRY PORTER talking about his film "The Twelve Mile Snipers" Harry Porter

Transcription

1 HARRY PORTER talking about his film "The Twelve Mile Snipers" (I don't know which newspaper this article came from and I cannot verify the veracity of some of the statements made. But I have included it solely as a document of interest -JVW)) Harry Porter spent three years in Burma, fighting the Japanese and battling his way through disease-infested jungle - while managing to capture his experiences on cine film. Here he tells his dramatic story to Andrew Wilson (possibly News-Letter) As Japanese planes screeched through the Burmese sky, British troops aimed their guns at the enemy and fired. A few moments later, one of the men, Harry Porter, took hold of his cine camera and filmed the fire enveloped aircraft falling through the sky and crashing into the jungle. This dramatic sequence is just one of thousands of extraordinary scenes captured by Harry, one of the 8th Belfast Regiment, Royal Artillery, during World War II. But what makes these shimmering images even more unusual is the fact that they were recorded using colour film. Although the most sensitive footage - including the frames of the enemy plane

2 being hit - was censored but the Army authorities,** Harry was still left with reels of stunningly vibrant material, some of which is featured in the television documentary series Britain At War In Colour, narrated by John Thaw. Harry's three years in Burma fighting the Japanese is a story of astounding bravery and endurance, while his film is a unique historical record of life during one of the most ferocious conflicts of modern times. 'At the time, I didn't think what I was doing was in any way significant,' says Colonel Harry Porter, O.B.E., now 80 and living with his wife Marjorie near Belfast. 'It was only years later when my wife and I started to show the film in British Legion halls to raise money for Army charities that people told me just how extraordinary the footage was. Most of the film shot during the war was in black and white, but colour really brings the scenes to life. It makes the images seem more alive.' Harry was 19 and working in his father's coal import business in Belfast when war broke out. Harry and his friends enrolled in the 8th Belfast Regiment, Royal Artillery, and he saw action at Dunkirk, and then, in 1942, sailed with his regiment to India. Their mission was to travel to Burma to try to stop the Japanese invading India. In was while he was in Bombay that Harry wandered into a camera shop and picked up a 16mm Eastman Kodak cine camera, newly arrived from America. 'I can't remember how much it cost, but because the exchange rate was so good, it didn't seem like too much money,' says Harry, now president of the Burma Star Association of Northern Ireland. 'The man in the shop told me that the film would deteriorate in the humid conditions of Burma, so we came to an arrangement where I would send the film to Calcutta for processing. I had never heard of colour film before - it was a real novelty and I was keen to experiment. 'After I bought the camera, I put it in the bottom of my kit bag and then entered the war zone. While I was in Burma we

3 were told that no cameras were allowed - the Army did not want the enemy to use the information to their advantage. I assumed that the war would be over in the next couple of weeks and thought that nobody would find out about the camera. Little did I know what trouble it was going to get me into.' Harry's footage shows his regiment both at work and at play, images which offer an unprecedented view into the world at war. Captured on film are the huge anti-aircraft guns which Harry and his colleagues would use to fire on both planes and ground targets, The accuracy of the guns - which the men would call after their sweethearts back at home - and the skill with which they were used were borne out by the nickname given to the regiment, The 12-Mile Snipers. The guns could fire a shell, very accurately, up to a distance of 12 miles,' says Harry, 'while we could also hit a plane thousands of feet high.' Another nickname associated with the regiment which it bore with less pride was 'The Forgotten Army', an expression articulated by Lord Louis Mountbatten, whom Harry met in 1944 at a meeting with their new C-in-C. '"You call yourselves the Forgotten Army, don't you?" said Mountbatten, "and you're right, because nobody has ever heard of you." All of us were angry with him - indeed, Harry called this the Day of the Deadly Hush because we were stunned into silence - but then he got a map and explained the new strategy. Instead of withdrawing every time we were surrounded, we were to stay put and would be supplied with food, water and shells by air. It was the plan that helped us defeat the Japanese.' Throughout his three years in Burma, Harry survived on boiled rice and bully beef, losing two stone in weight. He and his regiment endured the constant threat of malaria, the heat of the jungle and the non-stop rains of the monsoon. Footage

4 captured by Harry shows the men knee-deep in sticky, black mud pulling makeshift rafts through the flooded paddy fields of Arakan. 'I'll never forget the leeches, which you could see swimming towards you in waves through the mud,' says Harry. 'It was a living nightmare, but none of us doubted our mission. We knew we had to stop the Japanese, otherwise it would have been the end of the world as we knew it.' Harry's camera recorded every aspect of Army life, from football games and water skiing on a lake in Kashmir to violent sequences such as the blasting of enemy dug-outs and close-up images of dead Japanese soldiers. Although the filming was against the Army's rules, his superiors turned a blind eye, but when his reels of film were discovered by the authorities in early 1945, after a search of the shop in Calcutta where he sent his film for processing, Harry knew his was in trouble. The Army wanted him to be court-martialled, but his case was supported by his immediate superiors and the court martial was dropped on condition that the most sensitive parts of his footage be destroyed. 'Altogether I took about three hours' worth of film and it was heart-breaking to know that around 40 per cent of that - really amazing, powerful images - was going to be burnt,' says Harry, 'But I had no choice. It was that or be court-martialled. Later that year, Harry and the regiment travelled from Burma to Madras, India, from where they sailed to Liverpool. Harry filmed the Liver Building rising up through the September mist, and also his return home to Belfast. 'The streets of Belfast were crowded and we paraded past a line of dignitaries, including the Lord Mayor,' he says. 'It was a real holiday atmosphere and we were so proud to have done what we could for our country.' In 1948, when Harry was back at work in his family's business, he married Marjorie - now an M.B.E., but back in the war a special operator monitoring enemy broadcasts - and the couple raised three children. The camera, which Harry had

5 once used to record the most brutal of conflicts, now had a gentler task - filming his young family at home and on holiday. 'It was lovely to film my children growing up,' says Harry, who also has five grandchildren. 'I'll treasure those images for ever.' It is nearly 60 years since Harry first picked up his camera, but his images of war, shockingly alive in colour, serve to remind us of the horrors of a conflict nobody should ever forget. 'Watching the film today brings the memory back in every detail.' he says, 'I just hope the footage helps people understand what war was about and it should never be allowed to happen again. It's a record of history in the making.'