Part 1, shot by Sergeant Abbott: Pan around Kranji POW camp showing huts amongst trees, men walking about and others doing laundry. Various shots of men queueing for food at the cookhouse. Shot of the emaciated Private L Duffy of Manchester. A man cooks something in a frying pan on an improvised stove. Men showering. Captain M J Kennaway of the Malay Volunteer Force showering while Lieutenant J Westren (?) of Felixstowe does laundry. Captain Kennaway showering. More men queueing for food. A man in chequered shorts speaks with another (British?) man. The same man speaks to another officer who is taking notes. Shot of an altar, apparently set up for an open air church service, with close-ups of a number of individuals. A large group of freed POWs at the camp gates; camera pans to show a group of Japanese soldiers, heavily laden and apparently unescorted, walking away down the road. Group shots of freed POWs. Officers using a wireless set. Close-up of the set. Close-up of a British captain. Close-up of another (British?) man in a vest and another of a British sergeant. Close-up of British man in white shirt and smoking a cigarette. Reverse angle shows him to be writing something. A medical officer examines a man who has a large but apparently healed wound on his upper left arm and another in the middle of his back.

Part 2, shot by Sergeant Hammond: A large group of civilians. Shot of a shop hoarding which reads 'The Old School Tie Shop', with a British and Chinese flag hanging nearby. Two men carry a small pig in a wicker cage. A crowd of young (Malay?) children, waving wildly. More waving kids with a British Union flag hanging in shot. Lorries passing camera carrying Indian troops of 1st Battalion, Burma Regiment, many of them turbaned Sikhs. Lorries carrying troops pass Japanese sentries, who are still armed. Two Indian soldiers wearing steel helmets and the 'ball of fire' insignia of 5th Indian Division. An Indian officer consults a map. Two Indian soldiers with a third man, described on the dopesheet as a 'Jap sentry' but who appears to be Indian (wearing a soft peaked cap with six-pointed star and two light bands; Indian National Army?). Indian officer consults a map with a 'Japanese' sentry. Lorries pass camera; a photographer can be seen taking photos. Lorries carrying Japanese troops and baggage. A Japanese sentry standing amongst a crowd of young children and other civilians. Three Japanese soldiers wearing white armbands and carrying rifles at the slope, march up, halt, and fix bayonets. They disperse the crowd; a sign behind appears to read 'No thoroughfare'. The Japanese soldiers march off.

Part 3, shot by Sergeant Watson: Troops of 1st Battalion the Burma Regiment disembark down a gangway staircase from the HMT Derbyshire. View from the quayside panning along HMT Derbyshire with men disembarking. 1st Burma Regiment marching off. Men of the RAF Regiment (probably 2896 Field Squadron) debussing from Japanese lorries. RAF Regiment men outside the terminal building at Kallang airport, Singapore.

Following the Allied reoccupation of Singapore, prisoners of war are seen at Kranji camp, Japanese soldiers remain on sentry duty, and troops of the Burma Regiment and RAF Regiment arrive by troopship.

Notes

Part 1: Kranji had been a pre-war military camp and the site of an ammunition magazine. During the Japanese invasion there was heavy fighting in the area and after the Allied surrender it became a prisoner of war camp. After the war it became the site of a consolidated cemetery including the dead of Kranji, Changi and Buona Vista POW camps, a number of dead from the First World War and the remains of various other individuals whose graves could not be maintained. It is also the site of the Singapore Memorial which bears the names of 24,000 individuals who have no known grave.

Part 2: This film was shot a week before the formal surrender of Japanese forces in South East Asia in Singapore on 12 September 1945 (the proceedings of which were exhaustively filmed by Allied cameramen). While Japanese forces (77,000 strong) on Singapore had surrendered on the evening of 4 September (i.e. the day before this film was shot) there were not yet the resources available to intern them, and in any case they were needed to maintain order until the Allied administration could take over. It is therefore not necessarily surprising to see Japanese troops still armed and standing sentry, but the significance of the sequence showing the Japanese soldiers dispersing the crowd is not clear.

General: A varied film recording a number of aspects of the early resumption of British rule in Singapore.