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Saturday, January 18, 2020

More Pathe' WWII Film Clips

We have my friend and fellow Hawaii resident Larry to thank for today's three British Pathe' newsreel clips from World War II.  (And there really are three this time, lol.)  We start with the longest which features what we think is a Scottish unit unloading a landing craft.  Many of the soldiers are nude.
Hint:  Keep your finger on the pause button, and you will miss less nudity.
Edited to add:  Viewer Trevor notes in the comments that this was made
during the Allied invasion of Sicily in July of 1943.  Thanks!

9 comments:

  1. Jerry, pourrais-tu me dire pourquoi certains soldats sont-ils nus pour déchargerles barges? J'imagine que c'est pour ne pas mouiller leurs uniformes, mais la nudité totale était-elle indispensables? Je ne m'en plains pas , au contraire, ils sont très beaux. Hier, je pensais que c'était ma machine qui ne savait pas lire les vidéos, mais aujourd'hui, ça fonctionne! Merci !
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    Jerry, could you tell me why some soldiers are naked to unload the barges? I imagine it was so as not to wet their uniforms, but was total nudity essential? I do not complain, on the contrary, they are very beautiful. Yesterday I thought it was my machine that couldn't read videos, but today it works! Thank you !

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    1. I think you are correct to assume that they didn't want to get their uniforms wet. I had to correct the formatting for the videos to play. I'm glad you came back for another try.

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    2. Jerry, I come to see your blog every day, even if I like some series less than others and I don't always leave comments! :-)

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  2. This clip is on Youtube and before comments were turned off by British Pathe (presumably some were being very childish about the nudity), I remember this being from the July 1943 Allied invasion of Sicily.

    What I like about this kind of footage all the stills of naked WW1 and WW2 soldiers along with miners showering etc is how nonchalant they all seemed to be with being naked with others and by being filmed doing so. With men and particularly women nowadays demanding privacy and their dignity protected, seeing these soldiers having such body acceptance seems to me that something of real value has been lost in the intervening decades.

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    1. Trevor, I don't understand why nudity is so disturbing to some people. After living in total freedom, we return to a Puritanism which I find unhealthy. What could be more natural than nudity? Many confuse nudity and pornography. They would do well to review the definitions of these two words in the dictionary. Long live the naked and free bodies !!!

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    2. Trevor, thank you for the historical note. I also agree that something very valuable has been lost with the modern reversion to prudishness.

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  3. When you are in the Army, you are comfortable with being nude with others. I recall a whole company I was in that had after several days in the field, hot & sweaty and a thunderstorm came up and we all stripped down and showered compliments to the storm.

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    1. Good point! Most of the few current day gang photos of nude men looking comfortable together are of military types. This is certainly true historically as well, but there was a much wider range of types in the past.

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  4. Mostly the ones in the water are the ones without uniforms, although 1 wears just a t-shirt. At the end, 1 near shore has hat and jacket, but no pants.

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