Indian News Parade 84 opens with an item, filmed at the end of September 1944, showing General Auchinleck presenting new colours to the 4th Bombay Grenadiers at Ranchi. The Times reported on the ceremony and stated that ‘speaking in Urdu, the Commander-in-Chief said it was unusual to present colours in war-time, but this was a special occasion, marking the return to its rightful place in the army of one of the oldest infantry units’. The paper further noted that the unit ‘has done valuable service in relief work in Bengal’ (The Times, 30 September 1944, 3).

The remaining items are all filmed in Burma, beginning with a report on the Women’s Auxiliary Service (Burma) – widely known as WAS (B) – which was formed in January 1942 and initially made up entirely of European women. Jude Cowan, in her work on Indian News Parade, argued that this item ‘is intrinsically connected with South East Asia Command (SEAC) and its propaganda initiatives for Burma and South East Asia’. She suggested that the welfare amenities available in Europe, or to American soldiers in Burma, were not generally available to the British soldiers in Burma. The WAS(B)s were thus ‘part of a comfort strategy to tackle the problem’, providing not only food and amenities through their mobile canteens, but also entertainment, dancing and companionship (Cowan, 2001, 25). This is evident in the accounts of those women serving – recorded, for example, in the 2002 history of the service, Chinthe Women– and was also noted in contemporary press reports (Jaffe, 2001). For example, Cowan includes a poem about the canteen workers published in The Times of India, which concludes ‘You can keep all your “bully” and bacon, your marmalade, pork and baked beans, I would rather observe a nice feminine curve, than the lines in the army canteens’. Army officials were also aware of the broader value of the WAS(B)s, and the Chief Staff Officer informed a press conference in autumn 1944 that ‘it is not just a cup of tea…that is doing the men so much good … it is the chance to see and talk with English women’ (Cowan, 2001, 25, 26).

These reports may suggest that these British women were solely serving the British soldiers, as they emphasise their physical attractions and their role in offering a connection to home. However, the film does show the women serving both British and Indian soldiers, as Taylor noted in the dope sheet. ‘In an average day’, he stated, ‘they travel upwards of 100 miles and serve as many as 1000 to 1500 soldiers, both British and Indian, with practically anything they need from a cup of tea to bootlaces’. Jude Cowan recognised a contrast in the demeanour of the women towards the British and Indian troops. ‘The relaxed and happy faces of the women talking to the British troops contrasts’, she argued, ‘with their strained faces when talking to the Indian troops’. This may illustrate a division along racial lines, although Cowan also suggested that this could be attributed to communication difficulties between the WAS(B)s and the Indian soldiers (Cowan, 2001, 27).

The footage of the WAS(B) shown here was filmed by Sergeant A. Taylor in Shillong in September 1944. Taylor’s comments on the dope sheet of his original unedited footage (found in JFU 150) inform aspects of the commentary within this item. He noted that ‘these canteens are well forward with the troops and in IMPHAL were actually in front of the guns firing on the Japanese’. The ‘untiring’ work of Nin Taylor was again discussed, while the cameraman suggested that ‘the sight of these most attractive faces serve as a tonic to our tired and homesick troops’. He also suggested that the ‘WAS(B)s are ready for their return to Burma, and they intend to go every foot of the way with our troops; they were among the last women out of Burma, and they intend to be the very first to go back’. This is echoed in the Indian News Parade commentary, which states that ‘the women who had come out of Burma had just one wish … to get back again’.

The third item depicts the journey of a convoy of jeeps to resupply 36^th Indian Division at Mogaung – the unedited rushes of which are found in JFU 144 – while the film concludes with further war footage from the 14th Army in the Arakan.