Lord Louis Mountbatten, Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia, accompanied by his wife Edwina, visit areas of Singapore related to the recovery of Allied prisoners of war.

During a visit to airmen of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Lord Mountbatten addresses a crowd; Lady Mountbatten stands to his right. Closer view of Mountbatten speaking. View from behind Mountbatten looking to the crowd. Medium close-up of Mountbatten. Mountbatten with a large group. Medium close-up Mountbatten with two RAAF (?) nursing officers. Lady Mountbatten and the two nursing officers. At No. 5 POW Camp at Changi, Mountbatten meets Brigadier Lloyd, in command of the camps at Changi, with an unnamed Air Marshal also present. Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Lloyd in the back of an open car, with the air officer in the front. Lady Mountbatten, in sunglasses, meets Australian former prisoners of war (POWs). Lord Mountbatten meets Australian officers, one of whom is wearing a unit patch which is probably that of the 2/29th Battalion 2nd Australian Imperial Force, part of 8th Australian Division captured at Singapore. Medium close-up of Lady Mountbatten meeting POWs; behind her is a bespectacled officer identified on the dopesheet as Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Groves Wright Anderson VC, commander of the 2/19th Battalion. Lord Mountbatten shakes hands with a man out of frame. Close-up of Mountbatten addressing the crowd. Views of the crowd. Mountbatten leaving a tent. Lord and Lady Mountbatten talking with POWs. A Military Police jeep passes camera followed by the Mountbattens' staff car, which is marked with the four stars of a full general. Lady Mountbatten talking with officer POWs. Rear quarter view of Lord Mountbatten addressing POWs from a low balcony. View of the crowd. Lady Mountbatten with hospital patients; two men in dressing gowns, a third with a large dressing on his head and also a young child. Lady Mountbatten speaks with a patient wearing striped pyjamas and a bush hat. Group of patients in striped pyjamas. Lord Mountbatten addressing an audience of patients and nurses. Alternative angles. A (carefully composed?) shot of Lady Mountbatten with a nurse and patients listening to the address.

Notes

Both 2/19th and 2/29th Battalions were heavily engaged at the Battle of Muar during the Japanese invasion of Malaya. Lieutenant-Colonel Anderson won his Victoria Cross for gallantry and leadership after his battalion was cut off by Japanese infiltration.

The dopesheet identifies the hospital visited at the end of this reel as 'No. 2/14 Australian [General] Hospital'.